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She was human.
He wasn’t.
She would die.
He wouldn’t.
He couldn’t keep her with him. He wouldn’t turn her and see her change. See all that he admired about her become twisted by the grief that would inevitably follow as the years passed and life went on around them. As loved ones and familiar things were lost.
He had seen how it had affected Esperanza. How it had touched the lives of Ryder and all his other friends. He had encountered one too many vampires whose hearts had grown cold, or who had gone nearly insane from the loss of those for whom they cared, and all they held dear.
He wouldn’t visit that kind of distress on anyone else. But he wouldn’t deny himself satisfaction this night, he decided, as he inched back to the edge of the glass and peered down.
Her breasts were full and as beautiful as he had imagined, with dark coral nipples he hungered to taste. The sheet draped across her body just beneath her breasts, the dark maroon color highlighting the paleness of her skin and accenting the chestnut highlights in her hair.
She shifted in bed and her long dark hair fell against her breast. She brushed the errant lock away, but then paused, her hand lingering there.
Diego swallowed back a groan as she touched herself, cupping her breast and fingering her nipple until it peaked to a hard point.
She was awake.
With his vamp senses he could detect the rhythm of her heartbeat and breathing, which said she was conscious of what she was doing. He could hear the beat grow faster and see the pulse in her neck jump as she played with the tip, rotating it between thumb and forefinger. Pulling and pinching it as a lover might.
After their brief interlude earlier that night, was she imagining that it was him?
At the thought, his erection swelled painfully against his jeans, human desire overriding the demon. As wrong as he knew it was, he couldn’t pull away from the sight of her, couldn’t stop himself from reaching down and imagining it was her palm on him.
His mouth watered as she moved her other hand downward, past the rounded curve of her hip visible above the sheet. He stroked harder as her fingers found her center beneath the sheets, and the beat of her heart surged in response.
When her hips raised off the bed, he groaned and closed his eyes, imagining how he might grasp those hips and drive into her. How he might stroke her to a release the way he now pulled at himself, harder and faster as his vamp senses picked up the erratic breaths spilling from her lips. He heard the soft moan of desire followed by a sharp gasp as fulfillment chased through her body.
He came then, violently and so swiftly he grew light-headed from the force of it.
Dropping away from the skylight, he sat at the edge, spent. Humiliated at how little control he had exhibited. Only it had been so long since he had felt such need. And it wasn’t just since Esperanza’s death nearly eighteen months earlier. Diego realized that it had been too long since life and passion had filled his being. Since he had truly lived.
At that, he bent his legs and buried his head in his knees, tears threatening as he realized the emptiness of his life. Of all that had been his existence for five hundred years.
Just because one woman’s passion had roused him as never before. A woman he could never have.
With a rough breath, he forced himself to rise and put things to right, but as he did so, he allowed himself one quick look before he left.
One look too much, he realized, when he saw that she had curled up into a ball and was crying. Her tears tugged at his heart, but before he did something he would truly regret, Diego surged off the roof, the sight of her crying driving him away, since all he could do was bring her yet more tears.
* * *
Ramona dashed the tears from her face, chastising herself for her weakness. She should never have given in to the remnants of the dream—one filled with her and Diego making love.
But she had let her need guide her, and the physical satisfaction she had given herself had been gratifying at first. Then the realization had come of how empty it was. Much like her life. Much the way her life would end.
Empty and alone.
She had spent her early teen years struggling to survive in the barrio, joining a small street gang for protection and company. With her dad gone and her mother slowly losing her mind, there hadn’t been anyone else to turn to.
A bad mistake. Their petty thievery and rivalry with another gang had landed Ramona in juvie for a few difficult months. It wasn’t the time in the detention center that had been hard, it was worrying whether her mother was coping alone. Luckily, a caring counselor had helped her out and provided her mother with a visiting nurse.
That and an art class during her incarceration had set Ramona on the path to a college scholarship. After, she had devoted much of her later teen years and early twenties to her art, perfecting it at the cost of a social life. Any time not in the studio was spent caring for her mother at home, until the Alzheimer’s worsened and her mom had to be institutionalized.
Ramona had dated now and again during the last few years, but had found no man she could imagine spending the rest of her life with. No man as attractive as Diego, who had become her patron shortly after her graduation from college.
Now thirty was just a stone’s throw away, only she wasn’t sure she would reach that age. She had been battling the anemia robbing her of life for almost three years, since the diagnosis that had rocked her world.
Dying didn’t bother her as much as the thought of dying alone and unsatisfied. Of dying without ever knowing the kind of love she had seen her parents share before her father’s own untimely death and her mother’s illness.
Diego, she knew, was capable of a love like that. She had known of his devotion to Esperanza and had seen his pain after his lover had passed.
What would it be like to love or be loved like that?
Sadness filled Ramona as she realized she could never explore her attraction to Diego. It wouldn’t be fair to him, because of her illness. Not to mention that they were from such different worlds, his one of wealth and hers of the streets.
Had she stayed in the old neighborhood, stealing would have been part of her life. A life possibly meant to end quickly by gang violence.
Her art had helped her escape the streets, but not her fate—a life cut short, and tainted now by the fact that her skills had helped someone steal from others.
She should have realized something had been odd about van Winter’s request and refused it, but she had been desperate for the money for her mother’s care.
But maybe Ramona hadn’t been deceived. Maybe there was some rational explanation for why her paintings had been on display.
As she settled back against the pillows, she knew she had to find out and make things right.
Her stint in juvie had hurt her mother and dishonored her father’s name. She didn’t plan to die with people thinking that she was thief.
The facility Ramona had chosen for her mother supposedly provided the best care for patients with Alzheimer’s disease. But what had cinched the selection had been the wonderfully manicured grounds and almost parklike settings around the buildings.
Her mom loved the outdoors, and Ramona knew the lush gardens and lawns would give her joy even when she could no longer understand anything else.
It was the reason Ramona didn’t mind the long ride out on the railroad to the institution, although she regretted that her own illness had cut back on her visits. Lately there were days when she didn’t even have the strength to get out of bed, much less spend several hours on the train. Beyond the physical demands was also the emotional drain of seeing her once loving and caring mother fade before her eyes. It was sometimes more than Ramona could bear.
She had been feeling physically stronger today and needed to visit, to talk with her mami about all that had happened. If it was a good day, her mother might actually be able to understand bits and pieces, and listen and nod. Ramona imagined those nods to be answers and not just twitches.
On a bad day, her mom would stare at her vacantly, as if she didn’t even know she was there, much less recognize her.
As the train chugged along, making stop after stop, Ramona prayed today would be a good day.
She arrived at the facility nearly two hours later, and was greeted by the receptionist.
“Ms. Escobar. So good to see you again. Dr. Cavanaugh wanted to speak with you if you have a moment,” the woman said as she handed Ramona a visitor’s badge.
“Of course, Mabel.” The older black lady had always been pleasant and helpful during her many visits. “I’d like to see my mother first, though.”
With an efficient bob of her head, Mabel called down for an orderly to escort her to her room.
“I’ll let Dr. Cavanaugh know that you’re here.”
Ramona nodded and followed the attendant down the hall to the first-floor room with a view of the grounds. He opened the door for her and she walked in.
Her mother was in a comfortable rocker by the windows facing the gardens, her back to the door. A nurse was at her side, patting her mom on the shoulder as she said, “That’s wonderful, Anita. Wonderful.”
As the woman saw Ramona, she forced a smile, patted her again and said, “You have a visitor, Anita. Ramona is here.”
It was a bad day, Ramona realized immediately.
She walked to her mother’s side and pulled up a chair. As she met the nurse’s gaze, she noted the kindness and concern there and mouthed a thank-you.
The woman nodded and left her alone with the shell of what had once been her lively and vivacious mother. Ramona slipped her hand over Anita’s where it rested on the arm of the rocker. Nothing hinted that she even sensed her touch.
Anita just stared straight ahead at the gardens, a blank, distant look on her face.
Tears threatened and Ramona’s throat choked up from the emotion she suppressed. She wouldn’t allow sadness to intrude on their time together, so instead, she sat by the rocker and told her mother all about the new paintings she had done and the show Diego had arranged. She skipped possibly being part of an art fraud, and instead focused on her plans for the gallery opening in barely a week.
She even allowed herself to fantasize for a moment, describing what she might wear and how Diego would notice her, how he’d spend the night at her side and maybe even take her for a celebratory drink after. And then who knew?
Ramona talked until she was almost hoarse, but she doubted her mother even heard a word.
When she looked at her watch, she realized she had been there for nearly two hours, and Dr. Cavanaugh might be waiting for her. Rising, she dropped a kiss on her mother’s cheek. The skin was familiar against her lips, and her mami’s smell that of her youth. Ramona had made a point of getting her mother’s favorite cologne and had requested the nurses use it as a way to try and keep her mind focused on familiar things.
It was the reason that many of the items that had once been in their Spanish Harlem apartment were now in her mother’s room. Her parents’ wedding pictures. School photos of Ramona at various ages. Some other photos of distant cousins, since both of Ramona’s parents had been only children, leaving her without much immediate family.
Near the door, Ramona stopped to call the front desk to find out if Dr. Cavanaugh was still available. Minutes later she entered his office, and the kindly older man smiled and stood. He walked over and hugged her hard, everything about his demeanor calm and soothing.
He guided her to a couch at the side of his office and he sat down beside her, holding her hand as he spoke.
“How are you, Ramona? You’re looking well today,” he said, his gaze inquisitive as he examined her.
“I’m fine, Dr. Cavanaugh. How’s mami doing?” she asked, not that she needed to be told her condition was growing worse. Despite that, his report still saddened her.
“Anita’s condition is deteriorating rapidly. Her moments of awareness and lucidity are fewer and fewer.”
Ramona thought of her mom, vacantly sitting in the chair, her mind gone but her body alive. Quite the opposite of her own state. Ironic.
“How long before…”
Dr. Cavanaugh gently squeezed her hand. “Before she can no longer function at all? Not long, unfortunately.”
Ramona sucked in a shaky breath, battling to remain calm. “The trust fund I’ve set up… It will be enough to take care of her for some time, right?”
“You needn’t worry about that. Concentrate on getting better yourself,” he said, and Ramona didn’t have the heart to tell him that there was nothing she could do to make herself better. All she could do was prolong her life just a little bit more. Just enough to make the money she needed to guarantee her mother would be cared for when she was gone.
“I will, Dr. Cavanaugh. I’ll be back soon to see mami,” she said, but as she left his office she sensed his scrutiny and knew he hadn’t been fooled by her words.
They both knew her promise to return might be an empty one.
Chapter 4
Deranged Artist Stalks Rich Millionaire. More on the news at ten. Ramona could not stop the odd thoughts as the two guards at the entrance to the van Winter building watched her closely, their hands crossed before them in that practiced pose law enforcement types must learn in a class called How to Look Menacing 101.
She’d been calling for days, but her many requests to speak to Mr. van Winter all met with the same response: he was in a meeting and couldn’t be disturbed.
Quite a difference from his behavior during the six months she had been busy copying the paintings. Then the reclusive millionaire would visit her at least twice a day to check on her progress and comment on her artistic abilities. The time they’d shared had alleviated some of her concerns about his reasons for copying the paintings.
Coming down to the building to try to speak to him hadn’t helped at all. She wasn’t on any approved-visitors list, and calls to van Winter’s assistant revealed that the woman was no longer with the company.
With determination, Ramona swept her gaze up the gleaming metal-and-glass structure of Van Winter Enterprises and thought, If Mohammed won’t come to the mountain, I’ll just bring the mountain to Mohammed.
Julio Vasquez strolled from painting to painting, stroking his goateed chin with long, elegant fingers while Diego stood by patiently, waiting for his old friend’s opinion.
“Brilliant!” he said, and whirled to face him, his arms stretched wide. “Absolutely brilliant. I can see why you would toss me aside for these gems, amigo.”
Theatrical as always, Diego thought. He approached and laid his arm across Julio’s shoulders. “You know I would never toss you aside, but—”
“You have feelings for the señorita,” Julio teased.
Diego tried to defuse any further inquiry. “I believe in her work, Julio. Nothing more.”
With a flamboyant swish of his hand, Julio slipped from beneath his arm and walked to stand before one of the paintings again. After a moment, he called over his shoulder, “She desires, you as well. It’s here, amigo. In her work. Can you not see it?”
Diego stepped up beside his friend and examined the painting once again, the one he had stood before a few nights ago with Ramona at his side. The one that had led to that rather interesting, but ill-advised, encounter.
Once again he noted the loving sweep of the brush across the woman’s hip, the possessive strokes delineating the man’s arm as it wrapped around her waist. He tracked the line of that arm up to the indistinct face.
He had thought Ramona had left the man virtually faceless as her way of allowing the observer to complete the canvas in his or her own mind. Now, though, prompted by Julio’s words, he noticed the familiar line of the jaw, the way the hair—longish and of a similar color to his—fell forward as his might if he cupped her hips to him and bent his head to taste the flesh of her neck.
“Dios mio, amigo,” Julio said with a strangled breath, and Diego suddenly realized that with his friend’s vampire abilities, he would pick up on that thrum of power that sexual desire created in their kind.
“I have not felt that from you since Esperanza,” his old friend said, for Julio had been with him for so long. Had been instrumental in giving him the eternal life he now had.
Regret filled Diego as he remembered the events that had forever changed his world.
A shadow wavered before him, waking him.
“Esperanza?”
He opened his eyes, but instead encountered an old friend—another nobleman and an aspiring artist with whom he regularly shared a cup or two.
“Don Julio.” He lacked the strength to say more or ask how the lordly painter had managed to get past the guards. The torture earlier that day had sapped what little life was left in Diego.
“Amigo, you have managed to create quite a stir with your refusal to confess.” Don Julio helped him into a sitting position.
“I am innocent,” he said, but found it hard to speak due to the weakness in his body.
