“Garage—”

The three men all spoke at the same time, with greater urgency than she’d thrown at the Great Ghost Pepper Non-Incident.

“Sorry,” she said. Security concerns, of course.

Doc Jane put an arm around her. “Let’s go this way.”

As they headed off, Sola was aware of Assail staring after them, his moonlight eyes intense. But then his cousins were talking to him, and he stayed back in the kitchen.

Out in the garage, Jane preempted any questions. “He’s doing really well,” the doctor said. “I think you can start to relax a little.”

Sola frowned. “But what about the cancer? It’s still in his brain, isn’t it? I mean, how can you say I should start to relax?”

Doc Jane almost caught her reaction. Almost. But that subtle recoil and the widening of the eyes were the kind of things that, when someone was scared to death about their loved one’s future and reading every single fucking nuance about the person who knew the situation best, were as obvious as a Broadway stage actor’s tap-dance and arm-circle routine.

The other woman cleared her throat. “Listen, I think you need to talk to Assail.”

“You’re his doctor.”

“Please, go speak to him.”

“About his cancer.”

Doc Jane’s forest green eyes shifted ever so slightly to the left. “Yes.”

“Okay. I will.”

Sola spoke the words with a defiance that was maybe unwarranted, but she wasn’t going to worry about that as she turned away and marched back into the house. As she came into kitchen, the three men looked over at her.

“You mind if we go talk?” she said as she walked by Assail.

She didn’t wait for him. And he did follow her, out into the hall that led to his office and the stairwell to the second floor.

Spinning around, she had to remind herself that whatever might be going on, he had just been critically ill and hospitalized for it.

“You want to tell me what the hell’s going on,” she demanded in a low voice.

Assail’s handsome-as-sin face was remote. “About what, pray tell.”

Sola crossed her arms over her chest. In the back of her mind, she wondered whether she was going too far—but no, her instincts told her things were simply not adding up.

“Your doctor won’t tell me about your cancer. And I have a feeling that’s because you don’t have it.”

THIRTY-FIVE

As Marisol stood before him as if she were about to enter into a bar fight—and win it—Assail felt an exhaustion that had nothing to do with his recovery. Indeed, this was the problem with lying to intimates, he thought. The untruths always came home to roost and never in a way that justified the falsity, however small or large it had been.

Because, in fact, there was never a justification to lie to someone who loved you.

“Do you have cancer or don’t you,” his female demanded.

Assail wished he’d had more time. But for what? As if that would change this part of things?

“Come,” he said, taking her elbow. “I should like some privacy.”

She jerked herself free of his hold, but she did go into his office with him. And as he shut the door, she went over to the windows that ran from ceiling to floor.

“Please do not open the drapes,” he said as she reached out.

“Why. Don’t like the light of day?”

“No, I do not.”

“So?” She turned around. “You want to tell me what’s really going on here?”

Assail lowered himself into the padded chair that was opposite all of his computers. As he propped his chin up with his fist, he stared across at her. “I am sorry you were deceived by my cousins.”

She blinked, as if taking a moment to absorb the news. “So you’re not terminal.”

“I was. But I am no longer.”

Her laugh was short and harsh. “I don’t know whether to be relieved—or get my grandmother and take her back to Miami right now.”

“I am sorry they chose not to be honest.”

Marisol jabbed a finger at him. “Don’t get it twisted. They may have started it, but you kept the lie going.”

“You are correct.”

When he didn’t go any further, she crossed her arms again. “I’m waiting. And I want to know everything, whatever it is.”

As he scrambled in his empty head to find words that made sense, he couldn’t decide what was worse. Baring his weakness before her, or knowing, in the depths of his dark heart, that the real secret was one he could never share with her: He could not tell her what he was. As a rule, his species did not reveal themselves to humans—and in the very rare, extremely rare, case where that operating principle was violated, if the human somehow was able to accept things, they had to leave their life behind and find their way within the vampire world.

It required a complete immersion. A never-go-back.

And he wasn’t prepared to ask that of her—because her grandmother, her most important responsibility, who happened to be a devout, God-fearing Catholic, would either have to be jettisoned at the proverbial side of the road…or Mrs. Carvalho would have to come with.

And that was not going to happen. Even if Marisol could evolve into the reality, her grandmother with her traditions and her strict codes and her God was never going to get there.

Assail was not about to ruin that wonderful old woman’s life.

“You have one more minute,” Marisol announced, “and then I am getting my car keys—”

“I have been addicted to cocaine for a good year now.” Assail took a deep breath. “And by addicted, I mean…vials and vials of it up my nose every night. I was a raging coke addict, Marisol. I am not proud of this, and yes, I was doing it hardcore when I was with you.”

Her brows lifted. “I never saw you do drugs.”

“Why would I ever have snorted a line in front of you? I wanted you—I still want you—to find me suitable as a mate. That is not the kind of behavior that creates such an impression.”

“Were you…did you do anything intravenously?”

“No, I never used needles.”

She seemed visibly relieved. “I, ah, I knew you were dealing it.”

“But you didn’t know I was my own customer.” He focused on her socks because he was afraid of what he would see in her eyes. “When one is in a fancy suit, living in a house like this, drug addiction is far easier to hide than if one is a junkie in a cardboard box in an alley. But the reality is, both the homeless man and I are exactly the same when it comes to being crippled.”

“You detoxed,” she murmured.

“I did, yes. Three months ago, I went to the clinic to be medically supervised while I got off the cocaine. Unfortunately, my”—he touched his head—“my brain did not do well. I had a period of psychosis.”

“Why didn’t your cousins just say this?”

“Would you have come if you’d been told I was dying of insanity?” He wanted to reach out to her, but he stayed where he was because he didn’t want to pen her in. “I am very sorry that you were deceived, and I do believe that you, and you alone, are the reason that I am here instead of still at that clinic. But you shouldn’t have been lied to. That was wrong.”

Marisol opened her mouth, but didn’t speak right away. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“I haven’t been thinking correctly. And more than that…I was ashamed. Addiction is an ugly, nasty disease, and I didn’t want you to know I was so weak as to get lost in it.”

She looked up at the ceiling. Refocused on him. “So you are not dying.”

“No, I am not. Not more than any other living, mortal entity.” He shook his head. “And please know I am sorry. I truly am.”

It was a long while before she moved toward him, and at first, he assumed she was leaving the room to go gather her things and her grandmother. But then she stopped in front of him.

Tilting his chin up with her forefinger, she stared into his eyes, and he prayed that she found whatever she was looking for.