Chapter 8 — The End of the First Week

Jesse called back in four minutes, which Evelyn chose to interpret as panic.

"He'll see you tonight," Jesse said, and his voice had lost all its bounce. "Nine p.m. Not the office. His place. I'll send the address. Ms. Shaw—" A pause. "Whatever you think you know, you don't know the half of it. And half of it is the dangerous half."

His place turned out to be a penthouse at the top of the city—all glass and shadow, furniture that cost more than her studio, and a view that made the skyline look like a model city. Kaelen was standing at the window when she walked in. Of course he was. He was always at the window, watching, waiting, a man who looked like he'd been standing there for a century.

"Ms. Shaw." He didn't turn around. "You found the signature."

"I found the signature." Evelyn set the file on the table. "I found the shells. I found the investments. I found the media pass that put a photographer on that mezzanine. I found the whole beautiful, illegal machine you built to walk into my life." A beat. "What I haven't found is why."

Kaelen turned. The lamplight carved his face into planes of shadow. "You'll want to sit down for this."

"I'll stand."

"Then stand." He said. "Five years ago, I walked through an emerging-designers' exhibition and found a piece of yours glowing in a dark corner. A lighthouse." He watched her face. "I bought it. Then I bought the studio's prototypes. Then I bought the story—your story, the one you were writing one brutal day at a time. And I wanted to walk up to you so badly I could taste it."

Evelyn's throat closed. "Then why didn't you?"

"Because I'm not what I look like, Evelyn." Kaelen said. The words came out very carefully, like a man setting down explosives. "The cold hands. The slow heart. The century of patience. I've been alive longer than this city has had electricity."

The room was very quiet.

"I'm one of the Nightborn," Kaelen said. "An old race. Immortals who've been here since before your history books. We made a pact with the world centuries ago: we don't reveal ourselves, we don't use what we are on mortals, and we never, ever fall in love with one—because a hundred years later, we're still here, and they're not."

Evelyn stared at him. The words didn't fit. They couldn't fit. And yet—the cold hands. The pulse. The way he stood like a man who'd learned patience the way other people learned algebra.

"You're telling me you're a vampire," she said flatly.

"I'm telling you I'm immortal." Kaelen said. "The word 'vampire' comes with a lot of baggage. I prefer 'nightborn.' We don't drink blood. We just don't die, and we don't age, and we don't forget—which is worse."

"And the scandal." Evelyn said, and her voice was shaking now. "The 'accident.' The contract. All of it."

"All of it was mine." Kaelen said simply. "I saw my chance, and I took it. I let the photo out because I'd spent five years unable to walk up to you honestly, and this was the only door that opened." He looked at her. "You can hate me for it. You probably should."

Evelyn stood in the middle of his impossible penthouse, in the middle of his impossible confession, and felt the ground under her rearrange itself. The man who'd saved her career had built the scandal that almost ended it. The man who held her like she mattered had been holding her in his head for five years. The man who kissed her in the rain—

Was a creature who would watch her grow old and die, and then go on.

"Kaelen." Her voice was low. "You kissed me knowing what you are. Knowing what I am. Knowing how this ends."

"I've known how it ends since the first time I saw the lighthouse." Kaelen said. "It doesn't change what I feel."

"Falling in love casually is the most stupid professional scandal," Evelyn said, and her voice cracked on the word scandal, "and you've had five years to think of a better one."

"Evelyn—"

She held up a hand. "I need to think. I need to not be in the same room as you and think." She picked up the file. Walked to the door. Stopped. "One thing. The kiss. The rain."

"Yes."

"Was that real, or was that clause forty-three?"

Kaelen looked at her for a long moment. "I told you there was no clause forty-three."

Evelyn walked out into the elevator and didn't cry until the doors closed.

Volume One ended the way all the best conspiracies end: with the truth out, the liar redeemed, and the person who'd been lied to standing at the edge of a choice she couldn't un-make.

She'd spent her entire life building walls. She'd just found out that the most dangerous man in America had been quietly vaulting over them for five years.

And the worst part, Evelyn Shaw thought, as the elevator carried her down through forty floors of his empire—the absolute worst part—was that she wasn't sure she wanted to stop him.

(End of Volume One)

VOLUME TWO: THE ACT