Totally Spellbound (21 page)

“I don’t know,” he said. “Should
it?”

“You were in the
Crusades,” she said. “Not on a crusade, but
the
Crusades. You know, the
historical event. And I’m sure the more I talk to you, the more
historical events I’ll learn about. You’ve lived like 25 times
longer than I have. And that doesn’t bother you? There’s no way I
can be as ‘mature’ as you are.”

“That’s a kind way of saying that I’m
an old fart.” He grinned. “If the hotel’s anywhere near the Strip,
you just missed your turn.”

She cursed, fought with the wheel, and
glanced in the rearview mirror. How could he tell? In this stretch
of Vegas, all the neighborhoods looked alike.

But the Eiffel Tower and
the Empire State Building were suddenly on her right, instead of
slightly to her left.

“Turn here,” he said, “and you’ll be
fine.”

She nodded, feeling dumb. Here she was
talking about maturity, and she suddenly felt like she was on a
practice drive with her driver’s ed instructor.

She followed his advice and found
herself on a six-lane road filled with cars, and the Strip glowing
like a neon mirage ahead of her.

“I wasn’t saying you’re an
old fart,” she said, wondering if she had implied it. She had
trouble picking the right words while she was also driving and
pretending not to be lost. “I’m just saying that a person like me
has got to be dull to a person like you, no matter how mature I am
for my age.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” he said.
“After a certain point, all adults have a lot in
common.”

“Whatever that means.” She turned
again. The streets were starting to look familiar.

“After a while, who you are is more
important than how long you’ve lived.” He shrugged. “Think about
it. With the exception of your parents, don’t you feel like you’re
the same age as most people who are over thirty and not obviously
frail and elderly?”

She did. She gave advice to people
twenty years older than she was without thinking about it, and
talked to people who were in their sixties as if they were the same
age.

She let out a small breath. “I
understand the ‘you’re only as old as you feel’ concept, but it has
nothing to do with eight hundred years of living versus
twenty-five.”

His eyebrows went up.
“You’re only twenty-five? Well, then, forget it. You’re much too
young for me.”

She opened her mouth, shook her head,
and then realized she had no response to his comment at all.
None.

“We’re just going to have to wait
until you’re thirty,” he said.

She reached the hotel and turned left
into the parking garage. The attendant waved at her. She waved
back.

“Wait for what?” she asked as she
pulled into the same parking space she’d had that
morning.

“A relationship.”

She shut off the car and shook her
head again. “A relationship?”

She couldn’t quite believe that. Why
would he be interested in a relationship? A friendship, a one-night
stand, but a relationship?

He chuckled. “You actually believe
me.”

Her face grew so warm that
it almost hurt. He had tricked her into admitting her feelings. How
could an eight-hundred-year-old man make her feel like she was in
high school all over again?

He frowned. “I meant about being
twenty-five instead of thirty. Not about the
relationship.”

She nodded, made herself breathe, then
popped the car door open. “It’s hot in here, don’t you
think?”

He took her hand. “I’m actually
interested in you, Megan. The relationship comment wasn’t a joke.
Seriously.”

“Sure,” she said and got out of the
car, slamming the door so hard that the sound echoed in the
concrete bunker so like the one she had just left.

He got out, too. “I mean
it. I haven’t met a woman who has attracted me like you have in
centuries.”

“See?” she said. “There it is again.
Centuries.”

“You want me to say years?” he asked.
“That’s trivial in the context of my life. I mean centuries. Since
Marian.”

The last two words hung between them.
He looked appalled by them; she felt helpless, as if she were
floating against a tide she had no control over.

“Is that a line you use on all the
women?” she asked after a moment.

He shook his head. His expression was
tight.

She suddenly regretted her
question. She had wanted him to feel as uncomfortable as she did,
and she had clearly achieved that. In fact, she had made him feel
more uncomfortable.

She had hurt him.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “That was rude
of me.”

He blinked and seemed to
get control of himself, but his eyes were wide and pain-filled.
Still, he forced himself to smile.

“I deserved it,” he said. “I guess
it’s odd to think that someone like me, someone who has been around
forever, would fall for someone else in less than a
day.”

Her breath caught. Fall for? He wasn’t
lying. She would be able to sense it if he were lying.

Wouldn’t she?

“It does seem improbable,”
she said, and her words sounded lame. Worse than lame, they were
slightly cruel.

Why was she hurting him? Because she
was afraid of him?

Not him, exactly.

She was afraid of the powerful
emotions he was drawing up from inside her. She had worked for most
of her adult life at masking her emotions, hiding behind the screen
she’d learned, being as calm as she could be.

She was anything but calm around
Rob.

“Yeah,” he said and smiled again ever
so slightly. “It does seem improbable. But everything about me is
improbable.”

She had to give him that. She had to
give him more than that. She had to stop fighting whatever it was
between them.

“Everything about this day has been
improbable,” she said.

“I’m moving too fast for you.” He
leaned against the car and rested his arms on the roof, staring at
her.

She resisted the urge to look around
him to see if the attendant was listening.

“Everything is moving too fast for
me,” she said. “I’m not good at surprises.”

“It seems to me you are,” he said.
“You were able to handle the Interim Fates better than I could
have.”

She shrugged. “I work with
teenagers.”

“Not teenagers with enough magic to
destroy the planet.”

“Oh,” she said softly, “some of them
think they do.”

“I mean literally.”

She nodded. “I know that.
But there’s not a lot of difference between thinking you have that
power and actually having that power.”

“Unless you use it,” he
said.

“With their father around, do you
think they would?” she asked.

He grinned. “You see, you do really
well with surprises. You have a lot of this figured.”

“And a lot of it is just
me swimming upstream.” She was used to swimming upstream. When her
parents had adopted her, they’d already had Travers and Vivian.
Megan had felt like she was behind the curve from the moment she
had arrived in that house.

The world had always been
an inexplicable place, and she worked hard at not being
noticed.

And here was a gorgeous man—a
gorgeous, accomplished man—a gorgeous accomplished man in many
countries and many lifetimes—noticing her.

More than noticing her.

Wanting her.

For whatever reason.

“So,” he said. “I was right. I scare
you.”

Megan nodded. It was difficult to be
honest with him, but it felt good at the same time. Still, she
wanted out of the conversation.

“I scare you,” he said, “because of
who I was.”

She shook her head. “Because of who
you are.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Rob Chapeau,
Billionaire Playboy? I already told you that’s made up for the
press.”

“Magical, good-looking, a little—” (a
lotta, but she wasn’t ready to say that) “—old-fashioned, smart,
and strong.”

He smiled, clearly flattered and a bit
bemused. “Why would that frighten you?”

Honesty time. She had promised
herself. “Because you’re interested in me.”

“Why wouldn’t I be? You’re
beautiful—”

She snorted.

“—
smart, strong, and
intuitive. I like all of that.”

“I’m sure there were countless women
in your past with all of those traits.”

He nodded. “But none of them with the
ability to see me, and see me clearly.”

Her gaze met his. “I don’t know if I
see you clearly.”

“You walked into my magic circle last
night,” he said.

“Drove in,” she said.

“And your questions this afternoon
kicked my magic enough out of control that I showed you parts of my
past no one has seen. Then you were able to talk with the Interim
Fates. That’s amazing. I’ve never met anyone like you.”

“So,” she said, trying not to let
disappointment into her voice. “It’s all about that empathic
ability you were talking about. That rarity.”

He shook his head. “It’s about you. I
find you fascinating, and I want to protect you, and I want to hold
you—”

“I don’t need protection,” she
snapped. She hated it when he brought this up. If he persisted in
this attitude, there would be nothing between them.

“Ah,” he said, leaning his
chin on the backs of his hands. It almost seemed like he was part
of the car this way. “But you do need protection, Megan.
You—”

“I can take care of myself. I have for
twenty-five years. I’m a very strong woman, you said so yourself,
and I can—”

“I know you’re strong,” he said. “I
know you can take care of yourself. But no one has looked out for
you, have they? Not once. No one told you that you have a special
ability. No one showed you your magic, like they showed your
brother his.”

“My brother had no idea until this
week.” She was glad the car was between her and Rob. She needed the
shield. She was getting more and more unsettled.

“But you’re so sensitive about how you
look and your own abilities,” Rob said gently. “That comes when
someone has to take care of herself, when she has no one to defend
her.”

“My family’s great,” she said. “It’s
just weird. I have a pretty, petite sister, and a brother who looks
like a 1950s version of an All-American basketball player, and then
there’s tubby little old me.”

Tubby. She winced when she said that
word. It just came out.

“Was that what your parents called
it?” Rob asked gently.

She shook her head. “They said it was
baby fat. They said I’d grow out of it.”

“You’re voluptuous.
Bottitcelli’s
Venus
,” he said. “So incredibly beautiful. Women need to celebrate
their looks, their femaleness. You do.”

“I don’t,” she said. “I’d
give anything to be a size six. But I could starve and never fit
into anything smaller than a ten. I’m big-boned and big-hipped and
big, big, big.”

He could probably hear the
self-loathing in her voice. Her counselor had told her to work on
body image, and she tried. But that meant accepting she would never
be small, she would always be short and round, and nothing she
could do would ever change that.

“Womanly,” he said.

“Fat,” she said.

“In today’s culture,” he said, “I can
see how you feel that way. But women like you were rich in most of
the years I lived through. Rich and strong because you had to be
lush to bear children, to live through the hardships. Women like
you represented the ideal female beauty, warm and soft and
curvy.”

She stared at him but continued to
lean against the car so that he couldn’t see her body.

He actually seemed to mean those
words. He said each one as if it were a sensual detail, as if he
were describing the best meal he’d ever had or the tastiest bottle
of wine.

“You believe that, don’t you?” she
said.

He nodded. “My Marian was built like
you, not like the thin things that portray her in the movies. She
was a great beauty. Like you.”

Megan shook her head slightly. “I’m
not beautiful.”

“Half the cultures in this world would
think you are. And most of the cultures in the past. America has a
sickness. It has infected you, so that you believe you have no
beauty at all. You are stunning.” Then he smiled. “This is what I
mean by protecting you.”

She frowned. “I’m not
following.”

“I mean that like all of us, you have
damaged places, hurt places, and those places need a champion,
someone to help them heal. I don’t want to take over your life and
diminish you. I would like to be beside you, and keep those harmful
attitudes from hurting you worse. There is nothing wrong with
having someone strong beside you, to give you added
strength.”