be ridiculous.”
“Why would I make it up?”
It was a good question, but she was in no mood to play. “Because you’re insane? How should I know?”
He leaned forward, all but peering at her. “You’ve never seen that before, have you? You didn’t even know her name.”
“Why should I? I’ve never needed it.”
“Weren’t you the least bit curious?”
“Why? The only thing they ever told me about her was that she was dead.”
“But you can talk to the dead.”
She didn’t mean to laugh, but it escaped anyway, short and strident and derisive. “Only those I don’t—” She broke off and straightened, brushing past him, but he wouldn’t make it easy for her.
“Only those you don’t love?”
Not Mattie. Not George. And certainly not her mother.
“I have no interest in my ancestry,” she said coldly. “I’ve made my own life.”
“Then choose to throw in your lot with me. Please, Sera. We have a lot to catch up on.”
Somewhere, she registered the genuine pleading in his voice, but it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough.
“Oh, you’re right there. Two children’s homes and five sets of crappy awful foster parents. So great catching up with you, Dad. Run along and play with your vampires.”
There was silence. Then he said uncertainly, “They can’t all have been crappy awful.”
“No,” she admitted. “I just didn’t like most of them, and the feeling was pretty much mutual. And of course, there was Mattie and George. They were great. But Mattie went and died, and they wouldn’t let me stay with George anymore because he was a lone male.” She wouldn’t, couldn’t, go into what this separation had done to the already devastated George, but she couldn’t prevent the images flashing into her mind of his slow deterioration, so obvious to her every time she ran away to him. And yet they wouldn’t let her look after him, comfort him.
She kept the cynical twist to her lips and moved on. “So they gave me into the care of some other bastard who hit me and then charged me with assault. Happy days. So yes, thanks for bringing up the family connections, Nick, but frankly, I’d be more inclined to ally with Jack the fucking Ripper than my old dad.”
It was more than she’d meant to say and far more than she usually let slip, but somehow, she felt bloody good spitting out the venom.
“You hate me for not being there,” he said. “It wasn’t my fault, Sera. Rebecca dumped me, said she didn’t want me to have anything to do with the baby.”
“Not surprised,” said Sera nastily.
He sighed. “Look. I know I should have taken my responsibilities a bit more seriously. I was young. But we can start afresh now. I knew as soon as I saw you at my door that night. You must have felt it too. I recognized you, wanted to look after you. It’s not too late for me to be a father to you.”
She almost laughed again. Instead, she turned and looked him in the eye. “My father’s dead,” she said deliberately. George, her only true father, had died years ago. She’d never had the courage to find out if his spirit would talk to her.
“Then come for the money,” Nicholas Smith said softly. “Come for the fun of it. I suppose I can’t expect you to feel the family connection overnight.”
“Oh, I feel it,” she murmured.
Slowly, he stretched out his hand to her. “Do we have a deal, Sera?”
She looked at his well-manicured fingers, his shapely, cared-for hand. She wanted to kick it upward, make him hit his own face. “I’m not always honest,” she confessed. “I’ve scammed people, taken money under false pretenses. But even I have standards. And trust me, Nick, you fall considerably below them.”
His hand fell slowly to his side. “I’m sorry you feel like that.”
“Funnily enough, so am I.”
“You’re angry. You’ll change your mind later, I know, but for now… I need you to be safe, Sera.”
She curled her lip, ready to retort, but her skin prickled, and she realized too late that it had been doing so for some time. There were vampires close by, and they weren’t Blair or Phil. A glance at the window showed her the light was fading. Thick cloud, an impending downpour had further darkened the sky. Even as she looked, a shadow, two well-wrapped-up shadows, jostled the glass door of Serafina’s, and two vampires came in. Ella and Jason.
Sera bolted back to the desk that held her jacket and the sharpened wooden stake,