“Hi. Did you want a table or are you meeting someone?”
Jake glanced to the young woman who had spoken. Dressed all in black, she was blond, beaming, and perky as hell. She waited wide-eyed and head tilted for his answer.
“Meeting someone,” he assured her, and then turned his attention back to the room, his eye immediately caught by the auburn-haired beauty waving at him from a table in the back corner. She hadn’t left. Damn, he thought wearily and headed for the table. She was on her feet by the time he reached her, and immediately stepped forward to hug him.
“Sorry I’m late,” Jake apologized as he self-consciously returned the embrace. “I just got out of work.”
“No need to apologize, Stephano. I’m just glad you agreed to meet me,” Marguerite Argeneau said, leaning back in his arms to smile at him warmly. “It’s good to see you.”
“You too,” Jake said stiffly as he released her. Voice gentle, he added, “I don’t go by Stephano anymore.”
“Oh, yes, of course, I’m sorry,” she said apologetically. “You go by your second name now. Jacob.”
“Call me Jake,” he suggested, urging her back to her seat, before settling in the one across from her as another woman all in black approached with menus in hand. This one was a brunette, but she wore a beaming smile as perky as the blonde’s at the door as she stopped at the table.
“Good evening!” she said gaily as she set a menu in front of each of them. “Would you like something to drink while you look at the menu?”
“Water,” Jake said quietly.
Nodding, the girl then turned to Marguerite. “How is your tea? Would you like fresh tea, or something else to drink?”
“Another tea, please, and a glass of water,” Marguerite said, her smile just as wide as the girl’s.
Nodding, their waitress beamed again and rushed off.
Marguerite immediately turned to him with a more natural smile. “Jake. The name suits you. And I understand now you use Colson, your father’s last name, rather than Notte?”
He shifted uncomfortably as he nodded, and then waited for her to give him hell for being an ungrateful wretch and dropping the name of the man who had been a father to him since he was five.
Instead, Marguerite smiled with understanding and said, “A new name for a new life.”
Jake’s surprise at her comment must have shown on his face, because she smiled and shrugged.
“I know you didn’t want to be immortal, Steph— Jake,” She grimaced apologetically for the slip and Jake shrugged it away. No he hadn’t wanted to be immortal. His mother had explained everything to him and offered to turn him on his eighteenth birthday, but he’d refused. He was born mortal and had wanted to stay that way. But then some skinny little bitch immortal had stabbed him in the chest while pursuing a vendetta against his boss, Vincent Argeneau, Marguerite’s nephew. Vincent had found him dying on the office floor and had used his one turn to make Jake an immortal. It had been the only way Vincent could save him and Jake understood why he’d done it. He even knew intellectually that he should be grateful for it. But he wasn’t. Or maybe he was. He just didn’t know it. Mostly he’d spent his time since then trying to ignore it and pretend it hadn’t happened, that he was normal and not a freak who had to feed on blood to survive.
“I know you’ve been struggling with the change,” Marguerite continued. “And I respect that. I haven’t come here to judge you, or try to get you to see your mother, or guilt you with comments about her loving and worrying about you.”
Jake’s mouth twitched with amusement at the words. Just saying them was enough to inspire some guilt . . . and Marguerite knew that, but he suspected she just couldn’t resist. She was a mother too, after all. But he let her get away with it and simply asked, “So how long has everyone known where I was and what I was doing?”
Jake had responded to waking up to find himself a vampire much like a wounded animal, crawling away to a corner to lick his wounds. Only his corner was Ottawa, which was hell and gone from California, where he’d lived at the time. And rather than lick his wounds, he did his best to pretend there wasn’t anything different. Other than sending his mother and brother short notes in birthday and Christmas e-cards, he’d broken all contact with the family while he dealt with it. But since he wasn’t really dealing with it, this had gone on for seven years. But then, what the hell? Time was irrelevant now. He could take as long as he wanted to deal with it.
“No one else knows,” Marguerite assured him, and when he arched one dubious eyebrow, she added, “Well, aside from myself and Bastien, of course.”
Jake’s mouth tightened. He’d had to let Bastien, the president of Argeneau Enterprises, know. He needed blood to survive and while he might now be a fricking vampire, he’d be damned if he was going to go around attacking and biting mortals to survive. Which meant he needed blood delivered, and Argeneau Enterprises had a blood bank that supplied blood to immortals. Jake was sure there were other suppliers with similar setups, but Argeneau was the only one he knew about, and it wasn’t like vampire blood banks advertised in the damned yellow pages. So, he’d had to arrange for delivery of a steady supply. But he’d called Bastien personally, asking him to keep his whereabouts and new name a secret. It seemed he’d trusted the wrong person.
“Bastien didn’t tell me,” Marguerite assured him solemnly. “He has kept your secret as he promised.”
“Then how—?”
“I’m his mother,” she said simply. “I can read all my children as easily as reading a book. He can’t keep secrets from me. Although he tries,” she added with a grin.
Jake smiled wryly and sank back in his seat. He should have suspected as much. His own mother was the same way and had been since she’d met Roberto Conti Notte and been turned when Jake was a boy. He had never been able to keep a secret from her after that, which was damned dismaying to a teenage boy full of hormones. Knowing your mother would know what you were doing was pretty inhibiting sexually.
“I’ve known from the beginning where you were and respected your need for privacy while you adjusted.”
“Until now,” he said quietly.
“Until now,” Marguerite agreed solemnly. “Because I need you.”