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  Matthew didn't quite know what to make of the house, and what it said about Claire. In all the years she had lived there alone or with her ex-boyfriend, it seemed that she had not left her mark, living instead in the past. Even now, the unused paint gave him the same impression.

  He would never have known about this aspect from her personality if he had not had the opportunity to enter her home, and it made him wonder how much he really knew about her, how much he had really known about any of his charges. Looking in from the outside, he had always had the impression that he could know them all well enough, but suddenly he wasn't so sure anymore. The taste of this lie he had told himself was bittersweet.

  Coming back to the living room where he had started, he turned on the lights and pulled the curtains closed. The sun wouldn't be long to rise now.

  Heavy albums on a bookshelf caught his attention and he pulled one out. Standing there, he flipped quickly through pages on which Claire's childhood was laid out in pictures and captions. He picked up the other two albums from the shelf and carried them to the sofa. When he opened the first book again, he started on the first page and took his time to look at the pictures, remembering glimpses he had seen from the outside and reports from the private investigators he had hired over the years to be his eyes during the day. The baby girl aged slowly from page to page, always smiling, always looking straight at the camera with a true happiness that Matthew hadn't seen in Claire for years.

  The second album told a different story, that of Claire's parents. It didn't hold as much interest for Matthew, but he went through it just the same. Louise had led a quiet life, and Matthew had never had to do anything to help her out of a tight situation. The one time she would have needed him, when disease had taken hold of her, he had been unable to do anything.

  The last picture album completed the journey into the past. Louise's mother and grandmother were there, as well as glimpses of her mother's brother, who had been a bachelor all his life and never had any children, and her grandmother's sister, who had become a nurse and a nun, and helped the sick people of her town before dying of sheer exhaustion at a much too young age. In two dozen pages and maybe fifty faded pictures, Matthew could retrace almost all his life, all the people he had kept an eye on over the course of a century. The only missing one was Helena.

  He had picked up the most recent album again when he finally heard noise upstairs then running water. He would give her time to awaken completely, he decided. There was no point in telling her what a fool she had been if she wasn't in any condition to comprehend. But once the hangover she probably nursed had faded, then they would have a serious talk.

  A yawn and quiet steps down the staircase caught his attention and he turned his head to see Claire freeze, stilling mid step when she saw him stand.

  "You're up. How do you feel?"

  She didn't answer, but from the paleness of her skin and the tightness at the corner of her eyes, Matthew could guess how she felt exactly. He took a few steps around the sofa and toward the kitchen, pausing only to say:

  "You must have one hell of a hangover. I made coffee, do you want some?"

  He was surprised to see her shake her head; he would have expected that coffee would sound heavenly to her at that moment. He understood when she stumbled back up to her room and slammed the door shut that she had been objecting more to his presence than to his offer. With a sigh, he walked up to the door she had just locked, if he was to believe the soft click he had heard.

  "Claire,” he called out, “don't be silly. I'm not going to hurt you."

  "Go away!” she shouted back.

  From the sound of wood against wood, she had just pushed a piece of furniture in front of the door.

  "I can't leave now,” he replied, trying to keep both his amusement and annoyance out of his voice. “It's daylight outside; I'd burn. You don't want me to burn after I saved your life, do you?"

  All noises ceased, and he could practically hear her think.

  "You didn't save me,” she said after a few seconds, not sounding all that convinced of what she was saying. “I was in no need of being saved. Everything was just fine—"

  "And everything was so fine that you invited a vampire into your home,” he cut in. Annoyance was slowly winning over amusement now. “You're lucky it was me, and not the vamp you were talking to at the bar!"

  "I wasn't talking to him! He was buying me..."

  She seemed to realize that as far as arguments went, this one was far from proving her point and trailed off.

  "He was buying his way into your panties,” Matthew finished for her. “And that's not all he'd have taken. You'd have been lucky to wake up at all from a night with him."

  "You don't know that,” she protested, but the doubt was creeping up in her voice.

  "I do. And that's why I took you home, you silly girl. So you'd be safe. Why didn't you listen to my warning? I told you coming to that bar would end up badly for you."

  If anything, his admonishment seemed to revive her outrage.

  "I'm not a child for you to give warnings to!"

  He snorted. “No, you're a grown woman who hides behind a door rather than confront the man who saved her neck."

  "If you don't leave now, I'll call the police. And Special Enforcers, too!"

  The threat made Matthew roll his eyes at the door.

  "And what will they do?” he challenged. “There isn't a scratch on you, so they can't lay a finger on me. What will you tell them? That you were so drunk you invited a vampire inside your house and now you feel sorry you did?"

  "I know someone who will stake you anyway,” she said after long seconds of silence. She didn't sound so assured anymore, and Matthew knew that she was bluffing.

  "You're telling me you want your ex in here?” he said, barely disguising his mocking laugh. “Don't be silly, Claire. I'll leave as soon as the sun is low enough. I wanted to talk to you, but clearly that's not going to work."

  She didn't answer. Matthew shook his head in disgust and started walking back downstairs. He almost missed her next words.

  "How do you know about Jonas?” Her voice was trembling again, this time in fear. “And how did you know where I live, anyway?"

  Walking on, he winced. He had not intended to reveal he knew that much, and he had no way to answer her questions, not without revealing far more than he had ever wanted her to know.

  Already, however, he was wondering how bad it would be if he simply told her everything.

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  Chapter Ten

  By the time Claire emerged from her shower, she had calmed down enough to regain control of herself and realize that, if Matthew had wanted to kill her—or do anything else to her for that matter—he would have had more than enough time to do it while she had been too intoxicated to protest, much less defend herself. She supposed she could be reasonably certain she would be safe with him in the house until night fell. Now that she wasn't so afraid anymore, she couldn't help but wonder why he had stayed with her instead of leaving before sunrise. Most importantly though, she wondered how he knew so much about her, and she wanted answers.

  She pulled on some comfortable clothes, old jeans and a too large sweater that could not be regarded in any way as attractive. The last thing she wanted now was to give Matthew ideas. He had helped her, yes, but the way he had rejected her before still stung her tattered pride, and the information he had about her felt too much like stalking for comfort.

  She unlocked the door and stepped out warily, arms wrapped around her as she looked for him from room to room. She looked, also, for signs that he had been snooping, but other than the photo albums still on the coffee table she found nothing. She discovered him, of all places, in the attic. She amused herself at the thought for a second. Somehow, she would have expected a vampire to hide in the windowless basement, rather than climb up under the roof, where two large windows let in the light of day.

  Her amusement however qui
ckly vanished when she noticed what he was doing. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, far enough from the skylight windows that he didn't risk catching fire, he was going through the contents of the old suitcase opened in front of him. There were papers on his lap, letters, and he was tucking one back into its envelope and picking another one up as she approached, outraged.

  "What do you think you're doing?” she demanded, crouching next to him and pulling the suitcase away. “These are personal! You have no right to read them!"

  He gave her an amused little smile before handing her the letter he had been reading. She snatched it away and started folding it again when he shook his head.

  "Look at the signature,” he said, gesturing to the century old piece of paper in her hand. Frowning a little, she did, and her eyes widened as she took in the name at the bottom of the page.

  With love, always, Matthew.

  She looked back up at him, her eyes wide at what he wasn't quite saying.

  "No."

  The single word that passed her lips made his eyebrows twitch, in more amusement she was sure.

  "Yes,” he replied just as succinctly.

  "I don't believe it,” she insisted. “It's a coincidence. It's not like Matthew is an uncommon name. I know half a dozen people named Matthew, and..."

  Her tirade stopped as he handed her a picture that had been stashed with the letters; a picture of her great, great grandmother, and her husband. Claire had seen that picture before, but she looked at it as though for the first time, discovering on the faded sepia paper the same man who was sitting in front of her.

  "It's impossible,” she breathed, her eyes going from the picture to Matthew and back again. “You can't be ... can you?"

  His smile softened a little, and even seemed, for just a second, a little sad. “If you're asking if I can be the same man who wrote these letters, let me assure you I most certainly can. I am."

  "So ... you're my great, great grandfather?"

  Matthew blinked, once, then twice, and finally laughed. Claire had the neat impression though that his laugh held little mirth, and rather aimed to hide other feelings.

  "No, sweetheart,” he said when his laugh had quieted down. “I'm not. I was turned only weeks after marrying Helena. We never had children together."

  That simple declaration shouldn't have been as reassuring, Claire thought with a frown, and wondered where her relief came from. Then she remembered the way she had danced with Matthew at the club, and flirted with him, and her relief only accentuated. Matthew turning out to be related to her by blood would have been much too disturbing for words.

  She sat down in front of him, legs crossed and hands clutching her ankles, and she watched him intently. He returned her look with a small but wary smile, seemingly waiting for her to say something. She didn't know what she could possibly have said. She had known, of course, that Matthew was probably much older than he appeared to be; he was a vampire, after all, and she was nowhere near ready to forget that. Yet she had a hard time accepting the fact that he had known one of her ancestors, and that, in a strange, twisted way, he had been part of her family, although not directly connected to her.

  * * * *

  Matthew wasn't sure at what point he had decided he would tell Claire who he was. Before this day, it had certainly never crossed his mind to tell any of his girls. Then again, before Claire, he had never approached one of them enough to talk to her. He had always helped from a distance, either removing threats to them in a couple of cases, or solving money issues with anonymous gifts. Claire seemed to be destined to break his resolve without even trying.

  He would have liked to tell himself that it was because she resembled Helena so much that he was unable to stay away from her. It had been the reason, at least, why he had come to her that first night at the club, the night when she had run away without saying a word, and why he had tried again when he had seen her at the bar the next night.

  Yet, if he was honest with himself, he could admit that it wasn't completely true any longer. The more he spoke with her, the more he watched her, the more he realized that she wasn't Helena, and that a physical resemblance meant very little.

  "Suppose I believe you,” she said after a few minutes. “I'm not saying I do, I ... it's just too weird. What are the odds that you and I would meet—what is it? A hundred years after Helena died?"

  A pang of pain ran through Matthew at the memory of laying flowers on a grave that had been closed for weeks by the time he had come back to it. He had followed Helena's daughters overseas, at Helena's request, and learned much too late of her passing.

  "A hundred and twenty two, actually,” he said softly. “And the odds are very good, seeing how it's not a coincidence that I currently live in the same city as you do."

  He continued to observe her reactions very closely and saw a muscle twitch in her jaw. He knew her reply would not be a happy one before she even opened her mouth.

  "You've been stalking me."

  She seemed taken aback when Matthew laughed.

  "You're the one who came to the club where I hunt, sweetheart. If it had been up to me, you and I would never have met."

  Her brow furrowed and she shook her head. “That's not true. You came and talked to me, that first night, and then at the bar—"

  "I came to you because you stared at me for days, and I wanted to know what was going on in your head."

  Her light blush was delightful, especially when she dropped her eyes to the suitcase between them and started straightening the letters inside it.

  "I just thought you were good looking,” she mumbled. “I never imagined ... this.” She had picked up the picture again, and looked from it to Matthew and back again. “I used to think he was good looking too,” she shrugged, pointing to the picture. “And he wrote such beautiful letters..."

  Matthew smiled. “Thank you."

  "It's still weird, though,” she said, shaking her head again as she stood. “I'm not sure..."

  "You're still not sure you believe me?” Matthew completed for her when she trailed off.

  The look she gave him was answer enough.

  "Come downstairs,” he offered. “We can have a cup of coffee and I'll tell you about it all, if you want."

  He was almost relieved when she accepted. Part of him had been sure that she wouldn't want to hear about it, wouldn't want to let him explain himself. After all these years of staying in the shadows, telling someone—not just anyone, but her—felt more exciting than he would ever have expected. Exciting, but also, in a way, relieving.

  He followed her back to the first floor, and accepted one of the coffee mugs she filled before leading the way to the living room. He sat once more on the sofa, while she curled on the facing armchair, her legs tucked beneath her. He waited until she had taken her first sip and given him a quiet “Go ahead,” then began to tell the story that was his life.

  "I was Sired when I was twenty-seven. Helena and I had been married for just two months when it happened. I watched her mourn, and slowly retreat away from everything she had loved to do. She was barely twenty-two, but she practically stopped living. When I couldn't take it anymore, I revealed myself to her, showed her what I had become. It shocked her to see me standing in front of her weeks after she had buried me, but it also shook her out of her depression. We couldn't be together anymore, of course not, but we kept in touch. We exchanged letters, and I encouraged her to start living again. When she did, when she remarried, I tried to pull back, but she kept writing, and eventually so did I."

  He stopped before his voice could break and took a deep drink of coffee. Across from him, Claire was sipping on hers. Other than the small movement of her arm, she was completely still, and Matthew couldn't begin to guess what she was thinking.

  When he resumed his tale, his voice was back to normal.

  "I always kept an eye on her, made sure she was safe and that she had all she needed. She had children, two daughters. When they became young w
omen, they traveled to the United States and I followed them to keep them safe. Those were dangerous times to travel so far. And when the eldest had children, I just kept on looking after them, then your mother, and finally, you. I made Helena a promise to keep her family safe, like vampires used to keep humans safe thousands of years ago. And here I am today, doing the same thing still, and trying to make you understand that you're risking your life every time you go to that club."

  Leaning forward to place his empty mug on the coffee table between them, Matthew considered Claire thoughtfully. She uncurled her legs from under her slowly. Her toes flexed when she put her feet on the carpeted floor.

  She would ask questions, now, Matthew was sure of it, just as he was confident that he would be able to answer anything she asked. He had given her a much-abbreviated version of the events that had led to him sitting here, with her, but the core of it was nothing but truth; a truth he had longed to share for many years, he now realized. The only other person who knew about it all was Diane, and she had long ago showed that she didn't care much. He couldn't wait for Claire to finally say something and react, rather than keep watching him through pensive eyes.

  Finally, her mouth opened. The icy words that came out were nothing Matthew had anticipated and cut him better than shards of glass would have.

  "That's the most ridiculous story I have ever heard."

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  Chapter Eleven

  Matthew had finished his story, and now he seemed to be waiting. Claire supposed that he expected a response from her, an acknowledgment that she believed him, and that she understood just how deeply he meant what he had said.