“Oh, Aefre, I’m sorry. I am such a fucking idiot. Of course not.” He sighs and turns his back to me. I wait, because I know he is going to give me what I want. He has no choice. “I will go,” he says. “You won’t see me or hear from me for three months.”
“No, Constantine,” I interrupt him, “just one. I will have made my mind up about what I want to do then.”
“Three months,” he says again, turning to face me. “Three months from this date, you will have your feelings clear about what happened to you over there and how you wish to proceed. I will wait for you at Ponte. If you come, I will know you have forgiven me. If you do not, I will leave you to your life.” He waits expectantly for my answer, his eyes begging me to protest and I want to. Three months will feel like a lifetime away from him now. Even after what he has done, I still have the bone-deep need and desire for him. But he has offered up his own punishment and I accept it.
“Three months from today,” I say, and he Teleports out without another word, and if I didn’t know better, I could have sworn I saw tears in his eyes.
I leave the bedroom after a few minutes; my own tears having fallen and been brushed aside. I find Cole lurking and tell him of our conversation. I can tell he is overjoyed, although he is desperately trying not to show it. I know he is madly curious as to why he ended up with three months of me to himself instead of just the one, but he has learned now not to look the ancient Vampire gift horse in the mouth.
“One down, two to go,” I say lightly.
“No, don’t cut them off, Liv. Just no nights away, be here when I need you,” Cole says, and it surprises me that he is in earnest. I would have thought he’d have jumped at the chance. “I know how you and Devon feel about each other. I would never ask you to abandon him,” he says. “And I don’t want to get on Lincoln’s bad side. If he doesn’t see you when he needs you, things could get ugly.”
I take it and scuttle off to find Lincoln to tell him anyway.
I find him in the library, working. “Demon-Wolf thing?” I ask, as I bend down to kiss him lightly.
He grimaces at me. “Can’t find out a damn thing about it. Cliff has eyes and ears out over all the Packs in England, but until the next full moon we probably won’t catch sight of it again.”
I sit down next to him and he regards me intently. “Liv.”
“Don’t want to discuss it,” I say shortly.
“How did you know what I wanted to say?”
“The choice of topic doesn’t matter. It will be one of many things since I last spoke to you and I don’t want to discuss any of them. Not right now.”
“Fair enough,” he says, and I love him for not pushing.
“I do have something I need to tell you though,” I say. He is less than impressed when I tell him about my plans.
“Okay, I get that you aren’t ready to be with anyone after what happened, but I don’t get to see you at all?” he asks.
“Of course, you will see me. I just can’t spend nights with you, where I should be spe
nding it with Cole.”
“So, I can still spend time with you?” he asks in confusion.
“Yes, of course. This was mostly for Constantine. It doesn’t really have anything to do with you. Cole understands about us and the full moon issue,” I reassure him.
“Okay,” he says.
I kiss him sweetly.
“I love you,” he murmurs.
“I love you too, so, so much,” I tell him back and he brightens a little bit.
We are interrupted then by Cole. It’s weird. I didn’t sense him. My Vampire is resting all right. Seems she only comes alive when I touch the people I love. Lincoln lets go of me and I scoot my chair back a bit, and stand. With a last look back at Lincoln, I take Cole’s hand.
“Can I ask you something?” he asks as I draw him towards the stairs.
“Sure,” I say cautiously.
“When you were gone, Constantine said that he had signed over half of his estate to you. Is that true?”
He told Cole that? I could kill him. “He tried,” I say calmly. “He offered it to me, but I refused.” That is the truth. I hadn’t signed the papers he gave to me, however, in the spirit of coming clean (as clean as I can, anyway) I add, “But I did take ownership of Ponte.”