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“Baby girl, I—”

Dominique seized Gil’s chin, forcing him to meet his eyes. “Why are you truly here?”

Her father’s face relaxed as he fell under the vampire’s compulsion, and Dominique released him. “Because my daughter is here. She’s my family. This is where I belong.”

“Don’t do this, Dominique,” Cassidy whispered.

His reply was a caress in her mind. Don’t you want to know the truth?

She blinked hard, willing the tears away. The truth. As a journalist, she was its champion. The absolute honesty between her and Dominique was the bedrock of their relationship the way lies and deceit had been the basis of her father’s relationship with her mother. Whatever guilt over this nibbled at Gil Chandler, it was bound to be perfunctory and fleeting.

And yet…

Dominique tilted his head. “Did you mean everything you have told your daughter tonight?”

Gil stood docile and thoughtful, hands in his windbreaker pockets. He nodded. “Every word. I should have said it long ago, but I’ve been too proud. I kept thinking I could move on and make a new life when I was only digging my hole deeper. Until it all collapsed on me.”

“So, Kelly wised up to you,” she said bitterly. “You just don’t want to be alone.”

“Not if I know you’re out there somewhere, no.”

“I can’t help you. Consider this bridge burned beyond repair.”

Dominique slanted her a poignant look. There is no such thing, mon amour. Not while either of you lives.

She hurled silent denials like lightning from her emotional storm.

He turned back to her father. “What did you hope would happen here tonight?”

“Well, I didn’t think she’d welcome me with a party, but it would have been nice to at least spend some time talking.” Gil cast a hopeful look in her direction. “What do you say, baby girl? I have a bag in my car. I can stay awhile.”

Cassidy sucked in a mighty breath. “Absolutely not.”

Dominique smiled, and she felt the warm wave of his love embrace her soul.

Then he went and ruined it.

“There is a spare bedroom upstairs,” he told her father. “Make yourself comfortable.”

18

The Key

Cassidy was mute with anger, even in her mind, but Dominique saw it ride her shoulders and blaze in her eyes. He had pushed her too far. Any other night, he would have chastised himself and begged her for understanding. Not tonight.

While Gil Chandler bumped his suitcase upstairs, Dominique toweled off the ocean and donned dry clothes. Then he ushered Cassidy and Samantha outside and down the street. The women walked to either side of him, one boiling, the other casting wary glances.

They were halfway to Samantha’s cottage when Cassidy exploded. “How could you?”

Relief surged through him. Her temper he could handle, but against her silence he was powerless.

“How could you invite him to move in with us? You know what he did to my mom and me. You know how I feel. What is wrong with you?”

He ventured an apologetic smile. “You still need to ask?”

She threw up both hands. “No. I know why you did this. You think because you had a chummy relationship with your dad, everybody else should have one, too. What I don’t understand is why you’re cramming this down my throat now.”

He didn’t want to understand it either. His senses strained for any hint of blood-drinkers in the vicinity. No cool auras glowed in the shadows. No trace of cedar smoke drifted in the sea air. Kambyses would leave him be for the moment, but he might well be near. That creature’s powers of concealment had no limits.