Alex barely waited for Sam's depressed "I love youtoo" back before hanging up and hurrying out to her station.
Cale had just rung the doorbell of Marguerite's large house when the door was opened. The woman had obviously been watching for him.
"Cale," she said happily, and stepped forward to hug him. "Right on time. Now we're all here."
"Who is we?" Cale asked with a frown, as he hugged her back. He'd taken to keeping mortal hours now that he was helping out at the restaurant. It meant consuming a little more blood than usual to make up for the damage the sun could cause; but he'd minimized that as much as possible, bundling up against the sun as well as the cold and working mostly from Alex's office at the new restaurant, where there were no windows.
Unfortunately, it meant his hours were at odds with that of his relatives, and he'd played telephone tag with most of them this last week. Marguerite had called several times Friday, the last message sounding so urgent that Cale had arranged for an early wake-up call this morning so that he could get ahold of her before she and Julius retired at dawn. Cale had been more than a little surprised when all she'd wanted was to invite him to dinner that night. Since it was Saturday, and Alex would be working anyway, he'd accepted.
"I invited a few others," Marguerite said evasively as she urged him inside.
"Who?" Cale asked as she set to work helping him remove his winter clothing as if he were a child.
"Oh, Julius is here of course," she murmured, hanging up his coat.
"Of course," Cale said with a faint smile. The only time he'd seen Marguerite without Julius was when she'd helped him at the restaurant. In New York and then here, the man seemed attached to her side like a Siamese twin. "Who else?"
"Come and see," she said gaily, and took his arm to urge him into the living room.
Cale came to a halt the moment he reached the door and saw the people seated inside. Julius was there, crossing the room to join Marguerite as if the few minutes apart had been unbearable. The man slid his arm around Marguerite and pressed a kiss to her forehead as he hugged her to his side, but Cale's attention had turned to the others in the room. Lucian, Leigh, Mortimer, Sam, and Bricker all stared back, and he got a distinct sense of deja vu. This reminded him of the day he'd arrived and stopped here at Marguerite's behest to find Lucian and Leigh waiting with Marguerite and Julius. He'd felt ambushed then, and did again now.
"Oh no, dear. This isn't an ambush," Marguerite said at once, and he glanced at her sharply, realizing that she'd read his thoughts. He didn't feel any better when she said, "Actually I'm not so much reading them as you are shouting them. It's this new life-mate business. It makes it hard for you to guard your thoughts and even seems to amplify them. We've all been through it," she added sympathetically, and urged him to take a seat across from the sofa where Lucian, Leigh, and Bricker were seated. Mortimer and Sam were seated ona love seat on his right, and Marguerite and Julius now settled onto the love seat on his left, leaving him feeling like he was surrounded and under interrogation.
Cale shifted uncomfortably in his seat, glancing over the people staring back at him, and then ran one hand wearily through his hair. "So if this isn't an ambush, what is it?"
There was a moment of silence as glances were exchanged, and then Marguerite said, "We just want to help with Alex."
"I don't need help," Cale said stiffly.
"Oh? It's going well then?" she asked gently.
Cale felt his mouth tighten, he wouldn't say well exactly. He hardly saw the woman. He worked at the new restaurant, she at the old. She had Mondays and Tuesdays off and he Saturday and Sundays and while he'd dropped by the old restaurant several times and she'd dropped around at the new restaurant as well to check on things, she'd kept the talk strictly to business. Cale had tried to steer it into more personal conversation several times, but Alex always steered it firmly back to business. It was incredibly frustrating, and he hadn't a clue what to do about it; but he wasn't willing to admit that.
Forgetting that they could read his mind and would know all this, he said stiffly, "It's going very well."
"Have you slept with her yet?" Lucian asked abruptly.
"Luc," Leigh reprimanded, slapping his shoulder. "You'll embarrass Cale."
"Honey," Lucian said gently, "Cale is over two thousand years old. Nothing should embarrass him anymore."
"Are you that old?" Sam asked with amazement.
"He was born in 280 B.C.," Lucian informed her, and Sam blanched. Cale got the distinct impression she was reassessing him as a mate for her sister and finding him wanting now that she knew how old he was.
"You haven't answered my question," Lucian pointed out, reclaiming Cale's attention.
"No," he said at last. "I haven't slept with her yet."
"And you won't," he announced firmly.
Cale frowned at his certainty. "What makes you think-?"
"She doesn't sleep with employees."
Cale scowled at the title employee. He was a business owner in his own right in France. Actually, he had his own miniempire. The idea of her thinking of him as a mere employee rather than an equal who was helping her out was a bit distressing to him. "I am a coworker. Not an employee. And that's only temporary anyway. I'm just-"
"Fine. She doesn't sleep with coworkers either," Lucian interrupted dryly, and added, "She told Sam that on Friday night. Sam immediately called Marguerite for advice, and Marguerite got us all here tonight to help you."