Ginny by the wrist and guided her in the direction of her office. “You’ve changed the subject from Gordon. How do you know him?”
“His mother is the founder of my dress making club. She favors a polyester blend.”
“Itchy.”
“Yes,” she agreed fervently. “And not breathable at all.”
A corner of his mouth jumped. “So you’re in a dress making club. I don’t suppose you’ve made many enemies there.”
“No…” she hedged, following him into the office and turning on the desk lamp, casting the small room in a dusky glow. “No enemies, per se…”
“Be less convincing.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say I’ve made any friends, either.” She dragged her index finger across her father’s old mahogany desk and the initials she’d scrawled there with a protractor when she was eleven. Her father had scolded her for it, then taken her for a Carvel ice-cream cone out of guilt. “They call me Death Girl, so we haven’t done a lot of gossiping over coffee.”
Jonas’s expression had turned stony.
“You’re mad on my behalf,” she breathed. “Are you sure we can’t kiss?”
“If there was a way, I would have done it already. Several hundred times.” He closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them, they were scanning the room and Ginny’s stomach was still mid-somersault. “What about unhappy customers? Anyone who stands out?”
She sat down behind the desk, flattening her palms on the spread of paperwork. “Everyone who comes here is unhappy. It’s hard to pick just one.”
A flash of white teeth. “I see your point. This isn’t going to be easy.” He took a seat in the chair in front of her desk. With an arm draped along the back of the chair and his hair falling over his forehead, he was straight out of one of her movies. All he needed was a cigarette and high-waisted man pants.
On second thought, scratch the latter.
Some things were better in the modern age.
“It would help if you told me how you’ve been threatened, Ginny. It would help if you told me anything at all.”
“I don’t know anything at all. I only know…what happened.”
There was a tick in his temple. “Start there.”
She shook her head. “Tell me about your roommates.”
This time, Jonas shook his head. “It’s one thing to risk exposure on my own, but I can’t jeopardize them, too.”
“You don’t trust me.”
“I don’t trust my desire to trust you. It doesn’t make sense when we only met last night.”
“Same,” she whispered, a little shaken at how perfectly their feelings aligned. “I understand your wanting to protect them. You don’t have to tell me anything.” She took a key out of the top desk drawer and used it to unlock the bottom one, pulling out her laptop and firing it up. “I’m just going to return a few client emails—”
“I met them through my work,” he growled. “My roommates.”
“Oh.” She closed the laptop. “Why did you decide to talk about them?”
“Maybe if I confide in you, you’ll do the same to me.”
“Not unless I suddenly gain the ability to abscond with your memories.” She swallowed. “Still planning on doing that?”
He said nothing, but a muscle jumped in his cheek.
In other words, yes. As soon as the mystery was solved.
She’d wake up one morning and not even be aware of his existence.
Trying to rid herself of the discomfort in her throat, she cleared it quietly. “Tell me about your roommates anyway?”
He stared at her hard, looking like he wanted to address her comment about memories, but ultimately he let it sit there between them like a nine-hundred-pound gorilla. “One is very serious. The other takes nothing seriously.” He changed positions in his chair, leaning forward and clasping his hands together loosely between his knees. “Like I said, I met them at work. A lot goes into maintaining our cover. Most of us have no issue following the rules set out by the High Order, but new vampires…well, they have a hard time adjusting.” He paused. “A really hard time. And I help them.”
“You helped your roommates when they were…”
“Silenced. That’s how we refer to the newly turned…because their hearts have been silenced. And yes, I trained them, helped them adapt when they were unsure how to fend for themselves.” Ginny had at least forty-five follow-up questions. Such as, how were humans turned? What did new vampires do that constituted a “hard time adjusting”? How did Jonas find new vampires to help? But her pressing questions were put on hold when Jonas shook his head. “You already know more than you should.”
Reluctantly,