“That’s progress. I knew he’d come around.”

“He still runs off on his bike during the day, though. He had to talk himself out of a truancy ticket last week.”

Carwyn chuckled on the other end of the line. “I doubt that was a problem for him. He’s got quite the smart mouth.”

“He’s conniving in the best way.”

They both chuckled a little but quickly fell silent.

Giovanni took a deep breath. “I saw her today.”

Carwyn made no response for a few moments. “How did it go?”

“About as well as I deserve, I suppose.”

Carwyn was quiet as Giovanni sipped his wine.

“How did she look?”

“Beautiful,” he murmured. “Stunning. Angry.”

“I told you—”

“I know what you told me.” He rubbed a hand across his face. “And you know I had my reasons for staying away.”

Carwyn snorted. “You wanted her to have her own life? She does. She’s got a damn good one, as a matter of fact.”

“Tell me about the boyfriend.”

“I realize you’d like Mano to be some kind of miscreant, but he’s not. He’s a very good man, and he absolutely adores her.”

Giovanni sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Tell me about the boyfriend.”

Carwyn took a deep breath. “Ex-navy diver. Has his own business with one of his military mates. Does fairly well for himself. He’s a hard worker and very well-respected. Not much family of his own, but talks about wanting one with our girl.”

Giovanni had the sudden vision of Beatrice swollen with child, her face full and glowing as she smiled. His breath caught, knowing that if she chose him, it would never be his child she would carry, and for the first time in five hundred years, he regretted that. Then, thinking of the boy upstairs and a small boy hiding in an attic many years before, he reminded himself that family came in many forms.

“She’s too smart to be with anyone for that long if he wasn’t a good man,” he muttered. “How does she feel about him? Really? Does she love him?”

“I can’t answer that,” the priest said. “I’m sure she does, but she’s been half in love with your memory for more than five years now. I doubt she knows how to feel about either of you at this point.”

He pulled the picture of her riding the horse in Cochamó out of his pocket and looked at it. The sun glinted off her hair and a huge smile spread across her face. “I’ll just have to convince her then.”

He heard Carwyn clear his throat and Giovanni could almost sense the lecture from his old friend approaching. “Gio, you have been my friend for over three hundred years, and I love you dearly, but that girl is precious to me.”

“I know.”

“Her father isn’t here to ask you, so I will. What are your intentions toward her?  She has a good life now. She has friends, and a career, and a good man that loves her, so—”

“He can’t—” Giovanni cleared his throat and closed his eyes. “He can’t love her like I do, Carwyn. He can’t. Because I promise you, he doesn’t know her like I do.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “That doesn’t mean she’ll agree with you, my friend. What you’re asking of her…it’s not a small thing. She may not want to give up her life, even if it means forever with you.”

He shrugged, though no one could see in the dark yard. “She may not. It’s her decision, but I wouldn’t bet against me.” His thumb brushed over her cheek as he stared at the photograph. “I’ve given her time. Time to grow however she needed, free from the complications of our world. You may not have agreed with me, but I did what I felt like I needed to. For her.”

“And now?”

He lifted the picture to stare into her dark, smiling eyes, wishing she was next to him, as he had for the past five years. He took a deep breath.

“Now I plan to convince her she wants eternity with me.”

Chapter Three

Los Angeles, California

October 2009

“I know, but Dr. Stevens didn’t really give me a choice, Mano.”

She heard her boyfriend sigh over the phone. “Well, I suppose I’ll just tell Dan that I can’t handle the morning dives for a while. On my schedule right now, we’re never going to see each other.”

“I know.”

“How long is this guy going to be doing research? And why does he have to do it in the evenings? Are you going to miss judo and kickboxing, too?”

She curled her lip; she’d forgotten about her martial arts classes that met twice a week. Damn vampire.

“I think he has to do nights because of his other job or something. It’s probably only going to be a couple of weeks.”

It better only be that long. Giovanni had two weeks to convince her of…she wasn’t sure what, but two weeks was her limit. She clenched her eyes in frustration. She felt as if the careful wall she’d constructed between her past and her present, between the supernatural world and the normal one, was starting to crumble, and she didn’t know where to draw the lines.

Mano was still talking. “I know it’s not your choice. And it’s great that this guy requested you specifically. I’m really proud of you, B.”

Her heart twisted, and she couldn’t help feeling like she was deceiving him by not telling her boyfriend that Giovanni was the scholar she was helping with translation. Mano knew an even more abbreviated version of the Giovanni and Beatrice story than she had told Dez, and she had never told him she’d been romantically involved with her former employer.