Bane's Choice (Vampire Motorcycle Club #1) - Alyssa Day Page 0,69
filling station. What you call the gas station these days. When she drove in with an almost-flat tire, I took one look at her and fell so hard I never came back up for air to this very day.”
“That’s all it took?”
“That’s all it took. I believe in love at first sight, you can be sure of that.” He threw a sly glance her way. “I bet Bane does, too, now.”
She couldn’t bring herself to smile. “I’m sorry to say it, and no disrespect to you and Mrs. C, but I don’t believe in love. My parents…my father pretended to love my mother but treated her so badly that she… Well. It didn’t end well. I find it’s safer not to venture anywhere near anything that looks like romantic love.”
Ryan had learned a valuable lesson in all those years of pain, though: it was better to protect your heart than risk it being shattered on the rocks of someone else’s contempt.
Meara sleepily chimed in from the backseat. “That’s a lonely way to live your life, Ryan.”
Ryan stiffened but glanced back at her. She didn’t need pity from anyone, especially not a vampire who’d apparently spent hundreds of years alone. “I don’t see you doing any better.”
“I’m only alone now because I chose to be,” Meara said, her eyes darkening.
“What does that mean?”
The vampire shook her head and sank back against the seat. “A story for another time, Doctor.”
They drove the rest of the way to Ryan’s in silence.
…
It took her almost five full minutes to convince Mr. C and Meara to return to the mansion without her. She was perfectly able to drive her own car back there and intended to do so. She finally asked them if they planned to drag her into the car, and Meara rolled her eyes.
“So dramatic, human.” She waved a hand at Mr. C, who looked concerned but ultimately acquiesced, and then turned a serious gaze on Ryan. “See you later. But remember what I said. If you betray my brother, I don’t know what will happen to him…or to you. I like you, but I love my brother. I won’t take well to anyone hurting him.”
“I’ll be there in a few hours,” Ryan said, exasperated, and then she slipped out the door before she had to sign a blood oath or promise her firstborn child.
Vampires.
She ran up the stairs, unlocked her door, and all but collapsed into the familiarity of home. It should have been so welcoming. So reassuring. And yet…
It was not.
Her townhouse smelled abandoned, like stale wine and mustiness, as if she’d been gone for a month instead of not even a full twenty-four hours.
There, her phone lay discarded on the coffee table, probably flashing with texts and notifications and all the things she wondered if she’d ever care about again.
All those years of plodding along. Of sporadic bouts of bleak depression and loneliness. Relationships that never got off the ground. And now—now, she was on the wildest ride of her life.
And suddenly, out of nowhere, life had handed her a gift. The promise—the reality—of what shining adventure—what gift—her life might bring, if she could survive just one more hurdle.
And if her shining gift just happened to be a deliciously hot vampire with glowing blue eyes?
“More power to me!” She laughed a little, in spite of the tears she almost hadn’t realized were running down her face. If she ever decided to quit practicing medicine, she could have a career writing greeting cards.
Suddenly, she didn’t want to spend one minute more than necessary in this lonely place. She changed into her favorite red sun dress and rushed through her bathroom and bedroom, stuffing clothes and toiletries in a bag, grabbing the cherished medical bag that Gran had given her, and—at the last minute—taking the four unopened bottles of wine she still had and putting them carefully in a tote.
Vampires might not drink wine, as far as she knew, but she had a feeling she was going to need quite a lot of it in the coming days. Suspension of disbelief came so much easier with wine, and she and Meara had a date for movie watching, after all.
Maybe Interview with the Vampire.
She snorted out a laugh at the thought of Bane’s opinion of Tom Cruise as Lestat, and then she locked up, packed everything in her ten-year-old Prius, and headed out for her date with a vampire.
There’s the title of my memoir:
Date with a Vampire: Dr. Ryan St. Cloud’s Introduction to