He watched his editor slam the letter back on the pile and move on to another. She muttered the whole time about him being an arrogant jerk, and added other uncomplimentary descriptions. "Insensitive" and "lacking in social skills" were just two. All of which Lucern knew he wasn't supposed to hear.
He wasn't offended. He was six hundred years old. A man gained some self-confidence in that time. Lucern supposed that to most people he would seem arrogant, possibly even a jerk. Insensitive certainly, and he knew his social skills were somewhat rusty. Etienne and Bastien had always been better at this social stuff. Yet, after years of living as a reclusive author, he was terribly lacking and knew it.
Still, he couldn't see any good reason to sharpen those social skills. He was at that stage in life where impressing someone seemed like a load of bother.
He'd taken a waitress for dinner once who'd explained the way he felt rather nicely. She'd said, "You can go along, working your shift and everything's fine. Most of the customers are pretty good, though there might be the occasional bad one. But sometimes you have that night where you get a real nasty customer, or even two or three in a row, and they bring you down, make you tired and miserable, feeling like the whole human race sucks. Then a baby might coo and smile at you, or another customer will say "Rough night?" with a sympathetic smile. Then your mood picks up and you'll realize maybe people aren't so bad."
Well, Lucern had suffered a couple of bad decades, and he was feeling tired and depressed and as if the whole human race rather sucked. He didn't have the energy or desire to put up with people. He just wanted to be left alone. That was why he'd started writing—a solitary pursuit that kept him busy and took him into much more pleasant worlds.
He knew that all it would take was someone to smile and say "rough decade?" to change that. Someone like Kate. As much as he'd resisted having to deal with her, he'd begun to enjoy her company. She'd even made him smile several times.
Realizing the path his thoughts were taking, and that they were rather warmer than he was comfortable feeling for his unwanted house guest, he drew himself up short and began to scowl. Dear God, what had he been thinking? Kate C. Leever was a stubborn, annoying woman who had done nothing but bring chaos to an orderly existence. He—
" 'Dear Mr Argeneau,'" she read grimly, drawing Lucern out of his thoughts. " 'I've read your vampire novels and enjoyed them immensely. I have always been fascinated with vampirism and read everything on the subject voraciously. I just know that there really is such a thing, and suspect you yourself really are one. I would love to be one. Would you please turn me into a vampire, too?'" Kate rolled her eyes and stopped reading, glancing at him. "What would you say to her?"
"No," he said firmly.
Kate threw the letter down with a snort. "Why does that answer not surprise me? Although I suppose it would be ridiculous to try to explain to someone of that ilk that you really aren't a vampire, that there truly is no such thing, so you couldn't possibly 'change' her." She laughed and moved on to the next pile. Looking at the first few letters there, she added, "It would be kinder just to tell her to go to her local psychologist to see if he couldn't help her with her reality problem."
Lucern felt his lips twitch, but he didn't say anything, merely waited as Kate settled on the next letter.
" 'Dear Mr. Argeneau,'" she began. " 'I haven't read Love Bites, One, but I will, I guarantee it. I just finished Love Bites, Two, and thought it was wonderful. Etienne was so sweet and funny and sexy that I fell in love with him even as Rachel did. He's my dream man.'" Kate paused and glanced up expectantly. "What would you say to those letters?"
That was easy enough. "Etienne is taken."
His editor threw her hands up in the air. "This isn't a joke, Lucern! You can't just—" She paused as the doorbell chimed, then turned away with a sigh as Lucern reluctantly stood to answer it. He already knew who it would be. Thomas had delivered the blood, which left the only other company he ever got: his family. And since Etienne and Rachel were busy with wedding preparations, and Bastien, Lissianna and Gregory would all be at work at this hour, the only person it could be was his…
"Mother." His greeting was less than enthusiastic as he opened the door to find Marguerite Argeneau standing there. He really had no desire to have his mother and Kate Leever in the same room; it would definitely give the older woman ideas. And since he already suspected she tended in those ideas' direction, he didn't think it was good to encourage her. But what could he do? She was his mother.