Page 20 of The Awakening

“That was before.”

“You deleted it?”

“Why would I have kept it?” I ask.

He’s silent, but after a pause, he asks, “Is this your personal mobile?”

“It is.” I hear him fumble with the phone. Seems he’s keeping my number.

“Where are you?” he says once he’s done. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

“I’m in Paris. In a hotel room.”

“Paris, wow… Why?”

“Because I have a couple clients in the city that I design for. In three days I’ll go to Amsterdam for the same reason.”

“What… do you design exactly?”

“Clothing,” I say. This conversation is bizarre to me. Up until now Jae has not asked me a single question pertaining to myself. Not that everything needs to be about me, but I figured he genuinely didn’t give a shit. Now, all he’s doing is asking questions.

“Amazing—you design clothes and run a hospital?” he asks.

“I don’trunthe hospital. I just approve big decisions and review financial reports. Clothing is my passion.”

“Ah, got it. That makes sense… You always look so perfectly put together. The plum suit. Did you design that for yourself?”

“I did. But I don’t typically make things for myself. Just the odd piece here or there. I’d rather spend my time designing for others and making them look good.”

“That’s thoughtful.”

“I’m a thoughtful vampire,” I say. “Such a thing exists.”

“A thoughtful vampire… Sounds like a melancholy romance novel in an airport gift shop.”

I shift in my chair and cross my ankle over my knee. “Is that what you’re into?”

“What? Airport gift shops? Romance novels?”

“Well, we know you’re not into romance.”

“That’s not true,” he says. “I’m just… not accustomed to it. Especially not with vampires… or with blokes.”

I raise my eyebrow. “Looks like I’m a double negative. The chips were stacked against me all along.”

There’s a pause on the line. I’m about to ask him another question, just to keep the conversation going, but he beats me to the punch.

“Can we start over?”

I blink. The sincerity of the question catches me off guard. “From where?”

“From the beginning. From you asking me to dinner.”

“So we’re going to pretend that none of those other things happened?”

“No…” he stammers. “I don’t mean forget. But… you said you wanted us to get to know each other—”

“I do. And I said you’re beautiful, because you are.” Hearing him take a breath, I quickly add, “But that doesn’t mean that all I want is to sleep with you. Is that unfathomable?”