The Reluctant Vampire Page 0,40

knowledge of castle kitchens came in handy during sieges. I knew what they were likely to have on hand and how long it would last and so on." He shrugged. "I did well for myself. Well enough that I made the money I needed to start my own pub. And that did well enough that I was able to start a second and so on, and then I moved on to restaurants, and then hotels."

"How did you end up moving from restaurants to hotels?" she asked with surprise.

"Well, I had opened one of my restaurants on the main floor of a hotel in Paris. The restaurant earned a reputa on and did a booming business, but at the same me the hotel was beginning to flounder. I was considering moving the restaurant elsewhere before the hotel folded altogether, but I was becoming a bit bored. I had lost my interest in food a er a couple of centuries, and it took a lot of the joy from cooking. The moment I had no ced that happening, I'd hired the best chefs I could find to take over the actual cooking in my establishments, but it le me basically a pencil pusher. I needed a challenge, so rather than move the restaurant, I decided to buy the hotel and see if I couldn't make it a successful concern again.

"I renovated it floor by floor, and the restaurant handled the room service. We built a reputa on, and the hotel started to flourish as well. So I opened another, and then another.

"Everything rolled along nicely, but I soon grew bored again, and then in . . . I think it was the 1920s," he murmured, then shrugged it away as unimportant and con nued, "I read an ar cle about a brand-new technique for preserving food."

"Frozen food," Drina said with amusement.

Harper nodded. "I got in on the ground floor. We started with vegetables, and then branched out to entrees, and, as I said, we recently added wine to what we do." He smiled wryly. "See, I told you that my history wasn't nearly as exciting as yours."

Drina shook her head. "I don't know. It sounds exci ng enough. Truth be told, my life wasn't nearly as exci ng as it sounds in the recoun ng. I mean tles like gladiator, pirate, and madam sound exci ng I suppose, but in reality they were just another day in the life. Being a gladiator was hot, sweaty, bloody labor, hacking away at other gladiators. Being a pirate wasn't much different than being a sailor. It was night a er night of hauling rope, raising sails, and steering into a storm with the occasional ba le to get the blood going. And as a madam, I mostly greeted the men at the door like a Wal-Mart greeter, reading their minds as they entered the establishment to be sure they had no nefarious plans. Then I sat about, reading or playing cards un l the evening ended, and the men le . The only excitement that occurred there was when the occasional fellow got too rough, or tried to make one of the girls do something she didn't want to. And then that was a momentary adrenaline rush as I saw them off the premises."

She shrugged wryly. "If I've learned anything in all my years, it's that nothing is as exci ng or glamorous as it sounds. I suspect if you read the minds of movie stars and rock stars, you'd probably find their lives were a daily grind with the occasional fan frenzy to scare the crap out of them and get the blood going."

Harper smiled. "You're surprisingly sensible for one who has been so rebellious most of her life."

Drina shrugged. "We all live and learn."

Harper nodded, and glanced around as the car slowed. "We're here."

Drina leaned forward, stretching her upper body in front of his to peer curiously out the window at the very uninteresting building they were stopping in front of.

"Nondescript like our clubs in Europe," she commented, placing her hand on his shoulder as if to keep her balance.

"Yes," Harper agreed, sounding a tad husky.

She turned her head and smiled at him, close enough to kiss, as she said, "I suppose it's to avoid attracting mortals."

"Yes," he repeated, this me in barely more than a whisper. His head began to move forward, and Drina moved her own head closer, and then they both froze as the front door slammed shut. Harper glanced