Dark Seduction (Vampire Royals of New York #2) - Sarah Piper Page 0,23

them in later.”

“But I—”

“Ms. D’Amico, I realize you’re used to a certain degree of latitude with my brother, but I have many things to do today, and answering questions in Dorian’s absence is not one of them. My orders were to bring you to Ravenswood and deliver you to the dining room. If there is anything you’d like to discuss beyond that, discuss it with him.”

Charley gaped at him, shocked by his blatant rudeness. She would’ve loved to tell him right where to stick it, but she didn’t want to delay her reunion with Dorian another minute. So, zipping her lip, she nodded and followed him up the stairs and into the manor, where he led her through a set of carved pocket doors and into the massive dining room.

She’d gotten a brief glimpse of it the night of the fundraiser, but absent of guests and caterers, it looked even larger than she remembered, with stately, opulent furnishings, exquisite landscape paintings, and a large stone fireplace. Glass doors lined the far wall, opening onto a private, secluded rose garden whose blooms were still full and bright, despite the lateness of the season and the chilly upstate nights. She wondered how they’d stayed alive so long.

Magic, perhaps. Another trick of the witches.

Rubbing a new chill from her arms, Charley paced the room, stopping before a rich mahogany sideboard along the opposite wall of the rose garden. A large antique mirror hung overhead, reflecting the dark reds and pale pinks of the blooms outside.

Charley gave her own reflection a once-over, tugging down the collar on her cable-knit sweater to check her bruises. They were even more glaringly obnoxious now—a wide necklace of angry, purple blotches, courtesy of her uncle.

Somewhere in the distance, Sasha’s laughter floated like a bright yellow bird on the air, but here in the dining room, Charley felt trapped and suffocated.

Tears stung her eyes. The dread of the morning weighed heavily, further solidifying her resolve to confess to Dorian. He wouldn’t take it lightly, but he wouldn’t turn his back on her either—not without hearing her out.

Of that, she was certain.

But the longer he kept her waiting, the less certain she became. She continued to pace, running her fingers along the gleaming oak table and chairs, admiring the artwork on the walls, counting the roses still clinging to the thorny bushes.

Ten minutes turned to thirty. When another fifteen minutes passed without word from anyone, she headed for the pocket doors, ready to go out in search of her man.

But instead, he’d finally come in search of her.

He opened the doors and stood before her, his gaze sweeping her head to toe, eyes filling with relief.

At the sight of him—tired but nevertheless polished, dressed in a tailored charcoal gray suit and cream-colored dress shirt, hair sticking up as if he’d been running his hands through it—Charley nearly wept. She went to him, unable to hold back her smile or her tears.

But as soon as she reached for him, he turned his back and closed the doors, locking them inside.

When he turned to face her again, the relief in his eyes had turned to ice, his mouth set in a grim line.

He folded his arms across his chest and glared at her, and Charley knew—before he uttered a single word—that something was very, very wrong.

Chapter Nine

“Dorian?” she whispered, her heart skipping, arms hovering in the space between them, still waiting for his touch.

But Dorian was unmoved.

It didn’t make sense. Even when they were total strangers, he could barely keep his hands to himself. Now, after everything they’d shared—after last night’s brushes with death—he was cold-shouldering her?

“Take a seat, Charlotte.” He stalked past her and headed for the glass doors on the other side of the room. “We need to talk, and I prefer not to complicate matters with emotional outbursts.”

Emotional outbursts?

She folded her arms across her chest, doing her best to hide the sting of his comments. “But I thought—”

“Sit down,” he said again.

The seriousness in his tone left no room for argument, so Charley did as he asked, taking a seat at the head of the table in a stiff, high-backed chair, waiting for him to continue.

It felt like hours before he finally spoke again, and when he did, he kept his back to her, gaze fixed on the rose garden outside.

“That day in the mountains,” he said, “you asked how I came to be a vampire.”

Charley’s breath caught, her heart thudding ominously. As badly as she’d wanted to know