Page 21 of Vacation with the Vampire
I turned in a slow circle, like maybe he’d reappear if I looked hard enough. The hotel room, my hotel room, technically, felt different now. I wandered around, turning on lights, but that didn’t help. The soft glow of the bedside lamps cast warm gold over the pale walls, and the faint hum of Paris outside seeped through the glass doors to the balcony. It should have been romantic. Itwasromantic, and I was alone.
I blew out a breath and started pacing. Back and forth, from the bed to the window, then from the window to the door, turning around and back to the bed. A loop that was far too small to help me shake off all the anxious energy buzzing in my veins. Desire that had mounted and now had no place to go, expectations shattered.
“Okay, Susie,” I said, pointing at my reflection in the mirror as I passed. “You found a vampire in the Paris Catacombs. You handled that. You can handle… a guy being confusing.” Except he wasn’t just a guy, and that was the problem. Raoul was a freaking vampire.
I drifted toward the window again, pushing the sheer curtain aside. The city stretched out below, glowing and alive. In the distance, the Eiffel Tower glittered like it knew it was the main character, and somewhere off to the side, I could just make out the Louvre’s silhouette, all sharp edges and history.
Two weeks ago, this view would have been everything. Two weeks ago, I thought I knew what monsters looked like: they wore business suits and prowled Wall Street. Now I watched the people moving along the street below—laughing, arguing, kissing, living—and I couldn’t stop wondering. Who are you? Who are any of you? Are you human? Are you like Raoul? Something else entirely? The thought should have terrified me more than it did. Instead, it made my skin buzz.
A car horn blared somewhere below. Someone shouted in French. A couple laughed too loudly as they stumbled past a café. All of it was normal, but nothing about my life was normal anymore.
Turning away from the window, I sank onto the bed and tried to distract myself for a while with the TV, surfing French channels I couldn’t follow before settling on some silly Hallmark movie I could, even when everything was lip-synced in French.
When my phone rang, I jumped so hard I nearly smacked my elbow on the bed frame. “Jesus!” I scrambled for it, heart thumping, half-expecting… I don’t know. Raoul? Some mysterious supernatural hotline? Instead, Logan’s name flashed across the screen. Of course it was him; he’d been calling all day, and I’d ignored him.
I stared at it for a second, my jaw tightening. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I groaned, thoroughly fed up with all the guys in my life right now. At least I had guys—as in plural—which was an improvement over last week, when I’d abruptly become single. It kept ringing, and against my better judgment, I answered. “What?” I snapped.
“Finally,” Logan’s voice came through, already irritated. “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been calling all fucking day!” Of course, he’d be super offended I hadn’t answered so he could use me as his verbal punching bag. I was starting to wonder if I’d had a screw loose, dating this bastard.
“Oh, I don’t know, Logan,” I shot back. “Maybe in Paris? Remember? The trip you were supposed to be on before you decided to—oh, what was it?—sleep with your secretary?” I was never going to get that image out of my head, and I dreaded having to return to that damn apartment after this trip was over. It was a disgusting, constant reminder of my bad choices and his infidelity.
There was a silence on the line, interrupted by the hum of background noise. Then came an annoyed exhale. “Can we not do this right now?”
“No, we actually can’tnotdo this, because you’re the one calling me.” There was never going to be a moment when I wouldn’t remind him of how he’d mistreated me. I was so over treading lightly around his stupid ego just because he had a little leverage over the future of my job. Maybe it wasn’t just time for a new apartment, but a new job too.
“I’m calling because you couldn’t do what you were supposed to. Why did you make a fuss about the stupid carry-on, Susie?”
The stupid carry-on again. Of course that was all he cared about, and my suspicions that he was involved with the mess that thug had created in my hotel room only grew. Something was definitely up, and I was really tired of paying for his problems.
I eyed the chocolate on my nightstand I’d refused to give up. Then I let my eyes dance around the room as I tried to recall what else had been in it, what could be so important that Logan kept calling?
“My bag, Susie. The black one. Why couldn’t you just let her have it?” His bag? No, that carry-on was mine, and so was the chocolate inside it. I knew that woman had been fishy back on the plane! She’d been sent by him!
I actually laughed; I couldn’t help it. “Oh my God, you are unbelievable.” He really thought it was my fault I’d refused to let my property get stolen? Was he so self-absorbed, so crazy?
“Don’t play dumb. If you’d just done as you were told, we wouldn’t be in this mess! You stubborn bitch. You should have stayed out of the apartment like you were supposed to, then none of this would have happened!” He spat it out like a true cheater, playing the victim just because I’d found out. I was so over him.
“Yeah, after I walked in on you mid-thrust, Logan. Real fond memory, thanks for bringing it up.” I was so going to sell the apartment after this, sight unseen if possible. Just recalling that horrible moment made me nauseous, and I got up, stumblinginto the bathroom to run cold water over my wrists. I should’ve just ended the call, but I thumbed my phone to speaker and dropped it on the counter instead.
“I’m serious!” he snapped. “That bag has important stuff in it.” Something in his tone made me pause. Important. He actually sounded a little scared.
I leaned against the bathroom counter, my irritation sharpening into something more focused, the nausea fading beneath a surge of adrenaline. “What kind of ‘important stuff’?”
“That’s none of your business. Just tell me where it is.” It—not the bag—he thought; perhaps I’d found whatever it was he’d had me smuggle into Paris. I really hoped it wasn’t drugs, because a prison stint was not how I’d hoped to end my vacation.
In the background, there was noise. A low murmur of voices, a rolling announcement I couldn’t quite make out… Wait. I straightened. “Where are you?” I had a feeling I knew exactly where, and I didn’t like that one bit. The only one who’d known which hotel I was staying at was him.
“What?” he said casually, without the anger from before. He was getting ready to lie; I knew it. What I couldn’t wrap my head around was why he was going to such lengths over some mysterious item that may or may not have been in my carry-on.
“Logan,” I said slowly, “are you at an airport?” I picked the phone back up from the counter and brought it to my ear so I could hear better.
“No,” he denied immediately. Following on the heels of that bold lie, a voice crackled over the line, clearer this time, and it was definitely some kind of announcement. A flight number or a boarding call.
I smiled, cold and sharp, and it was too bad he couldn’t see that; he would have been impressed. “You are such a bad liar.” If he thought he was coming here to further ruin what was supposed to be a romantic getaway… The last thing I needed was for Logan to run into Raoul. I was pretty sure that wouldn’t end well for my ex, that is.
“It’s not what you think,” he said, but he had the good grace to sound apologetic. Perhaps he finally realized he was getting nowhere by calling me names. Then again, maybe he was just distracted by his boarding call or something like that. Logan was a dick, and he wasn’t going to start acting nice just to get what he wanted, and what he was after, I still had no clue.
“Oh, I think it’s exactly what I think.” My grip tightened on the phone. “It’s your fault someone trashed my hotel room, and they didn’t find it, so now they sicced you on me. Great! Just great.” I needed to change hotels right away, and that was going to be expensive. This one had been non-refundable, and that was the only reason I’d kept the booking. If Logan was coming, the last thing I needed was for him to casually get a key. It was possible, his name was on the reservation too.
