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“The youngest daughter, yes.”

“Okay. And you’re marrying this one because…?”

Jackson sat back. “Turns out we have a lot in common. She’s got an MBA and a future at her father’s firm, and neither one of us wanted to be forced into a marriage.” He laughed a little. “After we got done bitching about the manipulation, we actually had a lot of fun on our first date. She’s got spirit.” He sobered and dropped his gaze into his glass. “And she’s pregnant.”

Cassidy watched him toss back the juice as though wishing it was something stronger and wondered if she had heard correctly. More than that, she wondered what that peculiar niggle was doing at the bottom of her heart. Children had never been a priority for her, nor were they even possible for her and Dominique. Full stop. The end.

“I see.” She leaned on her forearms, studying him. “You must really have it bad for her if you forgot how to use condoms.”

He still didn’t look at her, but he nodded, and his face pulled into a don’t-I-know-it grimace. “She’s okay, considering—” He caught himself before adding the “she isn’t you” Cassidy heard anyway.

“We may have vodka around here somewhere,” she murmured and turned away to cover her own discomfort.

“No. Thank you, but no. I need a clear head when I talk to Dominique. Juice is fine.”

“Okay.” She refilled his glass. Her own head was a muddle. He was moving on with his life despite still loving her. While she felt a grudging respect and a hard-earned but cool friendship for her former fiancé now, she had loved him once—back before she knew he would walk over bodies in the name of revenge.

An awkward silence settled beside the quiet hum of the refrigerator. Outside, the daylight had dimmed. Night would fall like a dropped shroud within minutes. She wanted to count the seconds. Instead, she said, “Don’t you usually talk to Dominique on video?”

Again, he placed his hand on the case. “This is something he and I need to discuss in person.”

“What is it?”

The discomfort evaporated in a broad smile. “A gift.”

She arched a brow, relaxing as well. “Now what sort of gift would a vampire hunter give the lord of the vampires?”

“Enforcer,” he corrected. Daytime enforcer, to be exact. He and his uncle Garrett both were enforcers. Not everyone agreed with the Lord of Night’s new directives, especially the younger ones and those in far-flung places who imagined themselves immune from his influence. With Dominique’s blessing, the Striker Foundation, once dedicated to exterminating all vampires, now used its considerable resources to locate and bring under control—or destroy—these rebels. The arrangement freed him to concentrate on bigger goals and gave the hunters an outlet for their well-honed skills.

“Which brings me to what I wanted to talk to you about,” he continued.

“Oh?”

“I need to figure out how to tell Ollie what I’m really doing when I go on all those ‘business trips.’”

Like you were never going to tell me? She bit back the words and instead said, “I wouldn’t think that’d be so hard. Just introduce her to an actual vampire. We’ve got two living right here.” She waved at the cast iron gate at the back of the kitchen that fronted the vestibule to the storm shelter, which doubled as a wine cellar.

Which doubled as a vampire lair.

“People rarely react well to that sort of news.”

“They could compel her to accept the truth without fuss.”

“No. Absolutely not. No compulsion.” He made a slashing motion with the edge of his hand before running it through his short-cropped, dark blond hair. “I want to be honest with her, but I don’t want her exposed if she doesn’t want to be.”

“Ah.” Cassidy chewed on her bottom lip. “So what exactly is it you’re asking?”

“Well. I was hoping you might talk to her with me?”

Her jaw dropped.

“You know, a neutral third party.”

“Oh, I’m hardly neutral.”

“You know what I mean.”

“You want someone to help you sound less like you’ve lost your mind. Right.”