"Loyalty to my countrymen," he interrupted.
"Well, you're an American now, and you're better off with my services than those sneaky guys," she stated unequivocally.
"You sound like you hate them."
"Could we just drop the subject of the Strakhovs? It's too nice an evening to ruin."
Staring into her eyes, he seemed to see instantly that she wouldn't budge another inch. "All right for now," he conceded tersely. "Perhaps you'll enlighten me to the bad news you mentioned earlier."
Sam frowned and buttered some bread. "Jules went on the lam after his temper tantrum."
Petroff raised a questioning brow. "Was it lamb stew?"
She kept forgetting his Russian roots. He wouldn't know being on the lam from stuffed up the turkey. She herself wouldn't if it wasn't for Humphrey Bogart and her uncle. "Jules was a no-show," she translated. She put down her bread and held up one finger. "However, the good news is that Andy and I had quite an animated discussion. He's leaving tomorrow to go to London. Satisfied?"
Hmm, the Prince thought dryly. Satisfied? Not with her sitting all the way over there while he was sitting here solo. "How did you manage that?" he finally asked, impressed in spite of himself. She appeared to be living up to her reputation.
Sam smiled, trying hard not to appear to be patting herself on the back. "I've gotta admit that Andy was a tough nut to crack. We talked all afternoon, and he gave me painting lessons." Sam now had a stack of Vegetable Beef and Chicken with Stars soup can paintings to carry back home—to her dumpster. "But I sold him by offering to get him an agent."
Slightly confused, the Prince asked, "An agent?"
"For his art."
"An agent for a ghost painter who paints soup cans?"
"You've heard of ghost writers? Well, there are ghost agents," Sam explained.
"Is the agent a ghost?"
Sam shook her head. "Nope. He's alive. Though he's a warlock. I've used him before when I ran across these creative types. The agent offers a wide spectrum of services for spectrals, so Andy will be treated fairly, and hopefully his career in soup can painting will take off. Who knows, one day he might be labeled the ultimate in commercial artistry!"
The Prince raised a disbelieving eye.
"Well, vive le difference. One man's soup may be another man's nuts. Andy's both. Either way, dealing with him was much easier than I anticipated. So… one down and one to go."
Finishing his steak, the Prince asked what she intended to do about the run-amok chef. As she explained, he snorted. But Sam did have talent, galled as he was to admit it.
"So, you're going to set up Jules with a cooking show on the Ghost Channel?" he asked. "You think that will be enough to tempt him to leave here?"
"Piece of cake. As soon as I can catch him when he's not throwing the stuff."
Petroff chuckled at her unpredictability. Such quirkiness! Not only did she know her business, she was inventive. That'd be hell on the competition. Which caused his smile to fade.
"You seem to know a lot about ghosts."
"Yeah, much ado about nothing, my uncle always says, but then I grew up with the Bus tin' business. I can recall going to haunted houses with my parents when I was just seven or eight, wearing my ghost-busting sweatshirt. It was treated with Scotchgard to protect the fabric against Glaswegian ghosts. Clutching my protective magic amulet, I'd wander through the hallways—"
"I see you're wearing that same amulet now, no? You wore it last night. What kind of amulet is it? It looks German."
Sam nodded. "Good guess. Ban Protective, Inc."
He nodded. Everhard and Company had made his protective amulet. They also made jock straps. He figured that any company that could protect the family jewels against soccer balls or errant limbs could just as well protect the rest of him from ghostly enchantment or spells.
"You have one too?" she guessed, maybe from the look on his face. "Although I would imagine vampires are protected from most malicious mischief."
Her words caught him off guard. "Most, but not all," he said. "A very powerful ghost can overcome a vampire, if he doesn't wear some protection," he admitted with a small smile. Then he poured more red wine in their glasses.
"I'll admit to being surprised that you didn't know that fact, since you're supposed to be the expert on the supernatural. At least, that's what you keep telling me," he sallied.
The Prince's comment stung Sam's pride, but she didn't let on. "Expert enough to be alive and kicking at almost thirty," she growled.
"What is 'almost thirty'?"
She shrugged. "Not there yet."
He hated to admit it, but he had the sense she was going to last a lot longer than that.
Rasputin's Monk-ey business
Romance was in the air. Damn that Rasputin, Sam thought as she gazed over at Prince Petroff. They had just finished their steak dinners and skipped dessert—or, rather, he had skipped dessert. She figured he was still hoping that she would be his cherry jubilee.
He was staring at her with a half smile on his face,. his eyes smoky, smoldering, making her feel hot and bothered. If she were a man, she'd take what the Prince was offering. Of course, if she were a man he wouldn't be offering, and she wouldn't have these conflicts of interest with herself or even have this stupid conversation with herself, either. Sam shook her head in disgust.
"Cat got your tongue? Or are you nervous being up here all alone with me?" the Prince asked.
Shifting her position on the low-backed sofa, she determinedly touched her amulet. She would not be seduced, even if Rasputin was practicing his ghostly enchantments. Nor would she be just another notch on the Prince's coffin lid. No deranged, horny ghost would get her involved with an oversexed vampire; she'd overcome worse before.
"I'm not a coward, but I'm also not stupid. Being alone with an experienced vampire at night is not something a good girl finds easy."
He shifted closer. She inched away.
Petroff shook his head, amused. "So, my vampire powers worry you? In your line of business, I would have thought you well-used to dealing with the undead."
"Most of my business deals with the peskier, more petite creatures of the night, wiseguy. But I'm not in virgin territory here. I dated a vampire or two when I was young and foolish." To be honest, she had never been all that attracted to the walking dead; she'd been more in tune with hotter-blooded creatures like shapeshifters.
No, Sam had dated exactly two vampires in her life, and she had never gotten seriously involved with either. She didn't want to end up being one of them, more or less immortal. What could be worse than sleeping in tight spaces under a pile of mud? Or drinking blood, when she really didn't even care for tomato juice! And no way in hell was Sam going to live for hundreds of years without Hershey bars or chocolate-covered strawberries. That was just plain inhumane.
The Prince arched a brow in surprise. "You dated vampires? What happened?"
She laughed. "Now, I ask you: Do I look like the kiss-and-tell type?"
He looked both miffed and intrigued. "I wouldn't have thought you to be a girl interested in being anyone's food," he said.
"I wasn't. I said that I had a date or two in college, not affairs with your nocturnal comrades. They took me to dinner, not as dinner."
"So it wasn't love at first bite?"
"No, definitely not."
"Unusual. They could have used their vampiric charms," Petroff said, intrigued. "Why didn't they?"
Lifting up the amulet from around her neck, Sam explained: "It's also bespelled to ward off Nosferatus' nefarious designs."
"So, you resisted their allure," he remarked slyly. "But then, you hadn't met me."