“You and me, working together. We don’t seem to get along.”
He swiveled his head to give her a long look, and his gold earring flashed in the lights from the dash. “We’ll get along fine, querida. You’ll see.”
Lana rolled her eyes at the endearment, but didn’t say anything. She was determined to get this job done, which meant she was stuck with him for the next several days. But she was a professional. She could swallow a little bit of irritation if it meant finding this ghost vampire of Raphael’s, doing the job, and getting back home.
It didn’t hit her until about a hundred miles later that she’d be doing a lot more than sitting next to Vincent in his big SUV. She’d be sharing a hotel with him, too.
Fuck.
Chapter Four
LANA REACHED FOR her bottle of water, snatching her hand back when she brushed against Vincent’s arm that was resting on the center console. You’d think a huge SUV like the Suburban would have plenty of room for everyone, but Vincent was so damn big, and his shoulders so wide. It was no wonder that he was constantly draping himself over the console and shoving into her space. She slanted a look his way and saw one side of his mouth curled up in a smug grin. He’d noticed her reaction to their touch, of course. He noticed everything. She was beginning to question her original strategy for dealing with him. She’d thought cool and professional was the way to go, but her indifference only seemed to goad him into doing things to irk her.
Things like . . . that! He’d just picked up her water bottle and brought it to his mouth, taking a mouthful as she stared in disbelief. Did he expect her to drink out of that now? She didn’t even share water bottles with people she knew.
“So, Lana,” he said, putting the bottle back in the cupholder without looking at her. “How’d you become a bounty hunter? It’s not exactly a career choice most little girls dream of, is it?”
Lana stared at him until he glanced over at her, his eyebrows raised in question.
“We’re going to converse now?” she asked coolly.
Vincent smiled slightly, his gaze once again focused on the strip of highway ahead of them. “Sure,” he said. “Why not? We’ve got hundreds of miles to kill.”
Lana studied him a moment longer, then said, “Okay. A question for a question. I answer one, then you answer one.”
He shrugged. “Fine by me.”
“My father’s a bounty hunter,” she said, answering his question. “How did you become a vampire?”
“Oh, no,” Vincent said, letting out a dismissive laugh. “That’s not how the game’s played. I already know your father’s a bounty hunter. I want to know why you became a hunter like your dad. What does your mother think?”
“That’s two questions, but okay. I pretty much grew up in my dad’s office. My mom had a job, so the office manager was my babysitter, and the guys who worked for him considered themselves my uncles. Some of them still do.”
“Your mother didn’t work for your father, like you do?”
“No, she was in sales. She still is, but now she’s mostly busy being a wife to someone else. My parents divorced when I was eleven years old. They shared custody until I was twelve, when my mom married her lover and moved to California. They couldn’t agree on custody at that point, so they made me choose.”
“That’s fucked.”
“Yes, it was. I was twelve. At the time, I told myself it was because they both wanted me so badly. But now, I think it was because neither one of them cared either way.” Lana realized she was sounding more than a little bitter and moved on. “Anyway, the choice came down to what mattered the most to me. And twelve-year-old girls are pretty shallow. All I knew was that if I went with my mom, I’d have to change schools and make all new friends. And I wasn’t that good at making friends in the first place. So I picked my dad.”
“Do you love your father?”
“Of course,” Lana said, but it sounded weak even to her own ears. Vincent was silent for a moment, and she hoped he hadn’t noticed.
“Do you get along?”
“I became a bounty hunter, didn’t I? I work for the man.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“What are you asking? You’re not my therapist, Vincent.”
“Fair enough. What about your mother?”
“We get along okay. We’ve never had much in common.”
“Why’d you have trouble making friends?”