"I wasn't laugh-"
"You even go off and decide to open a second restaurant to show me up," he added, talking over her. "And what happens when I make trouble for you there? "
"We suspected it was you behind my problems here," she said with a little sigh.
"You're damned right it was. I spent a hell of a lot of money to make sure the electrician wired things so that this place would burn down. But you live under a star or something. It didn't burn to the ground as it should have. It just suffered some smoke damage. It didn't even slow you down much. You just set to work gutting it and redoing it." He shook his head.
"I don't suppose you had anything to do with the problems I had with that too, did you?" she asked grimly. "The wrong carpet, the tile, the-"
"That cost me a small fortune for all the good it did," he said bitterly. "I was paying your project manager to bungle things and bribed everyone from the tile salesman to the carpet installers to mess things up. But again, you just kept plugging along. Even hiring Peter out from under you didn't slow you down. You just brought in another guy."
Alex stared at him with amazement, finding it incomprehensible that he'd spent so much time and money just to try to hurt her. How had he twisted his own deception in his mind to make it somehow her fault? What was wrong with him?
"The attack at the old La Bonne Vie?" she asked.
He nodded grimly, eyes burning with hatred. "Nothing else had seemed to even touch you. I realized that the only way to teach you a lesson was to just straight-out hurt you. I was even looking forward to beating you senseless, but Bev came along and spoiled everything."
Alex narrowed her eyes. She no longer cared why he had done all this, she was getting angry now. "And forcing my car off the highway? "
That question made him pause as confusion slid across his face. "How the hell did you survive that? I only meant to hurt you there, but I was sure I must have killed you. Yet you don't even have a mark on you, but I saw the car hit the rail."
"It wasn't me in the car," she admitted grimly, and recalling Cale's injuries felt her anger crank up another notch. The man could have killed her. Would have killed her had she been driving as intended, but he had hurt Cale horribly, and all because he'd stolen her recipe when they were basically just kids?
"It wasn't you?" Jack echoed with amazement, and then shook his head. "You're the luckiest bitch I ever met."
"Yes, I am," she assured him grimly. "So maybe you should reconsider whatever stupid plan you have swimming around inside that thing you call a brain and just get the hell out of here."
He snorted at the suggestion. "You are joking, aren't you? You've completely ruined me. The cops are after me now. They know I hit your car. They were at the restaurant questioning my people."
Alex didn't doubt for a minute that the men he thought were cops were actually Cale, Mortimer, and Bricker; but she supposed they were cops, vampire cops, but cops just the same, so didn't bother correcting him. She doubted he would have listened anyway. Besides, her attention had slid to the door behind Jack. It was slowly opening inward.
"You've ruined me," Jack repeated, dragging her attention back to him before she could see who it was. "I'm out of money, can't go near my house or the restaurant to get more, the cops are after me, and I have nowhere to go. I'm done now."
She frowned at his tone. His anger appeared to be spent, and he merely sounded sad. Even so, she wasn't prepared for his next words.
"I loved you," he said pitifully. "I imagined us starting a restaurant together and having babies and ... But I had to graduate to do that with you, and I was desperate and copied the recipe. I didn't know they brought in all the teachers to judge them and that they would all see them both. I thought your professor would see yours and mine would grade mine and no one would ever know."
Alex stared at him with amazement. All this time she'd thought he'd never cared, and he'd simply been a pitiful weak idiot. "But you said all those horrible things."
"I was embarrassed and angry," he admitted wearily. "And you didn't love me like you should have. Love means never having to say you're sorry."
Alex shifted impatiently. "What drivel! If you love someone, you do say you're sorry because you care enough to. And you don't steal their damned recipes," she snapped.
"See!" he snarled. "Once again you aren't doing what you're supposed to do."
"And what exactly is that? " she asked dryly.
"I believe he was hoping you would say you love him back and forgive him all, so he'd be off the hook," Cale said dryly, slipping through the partially open door to join them.
Jack jerked around, gun rising, but Cale merely snatched it from his hand, the action so quick Alex almost didn't see it.
"Unfortunately for you," Cale continued, glaring at the man. "I believe you'll find that Alex loves me now. So you're out of luck."
"Who the-?" Jack swallowed the question as Cale pushed the door open, revealing Nicholas, Mortimer, and Bricker all standing in the office, almost empty bags of blood to their teeth.
When Alex peered at them with disbelief, Bricker tore his now-empty bag from his mouth, and explained, "He talks a lot, and we got thirsty. Besides, you always enjoy a show more with refreshments."
Alex shook her head with disgust. "I'm glad you find the nightmare of my life so entertaining."