Christ, Julia! I'm done waiting around. We need to set the date, right here, right now," Nathaniel said, glancing at me with his sharp hazel eyes.
Okay, so he was going off on one again and I really wasn't in the mood to discuss the subject of our wedding, but we’d been putting it off for so long that it wasn't funny anymore. I wanted to marry him, I really did, but the whole thing was getting on top of me. I shifted in my seat, wondering why I was so reluctant to plan the wedding. It was going to be my dream day after all, and we’d gone through so much to finally be together.
Maybe I needed a couple of days to get used to the idea that I was now en-gaged to Nathaniel La Caz, the pharmaceutical tycoon who admittedly had bro-ken my heart on more than one occasion. He was able to pick up the pieces and make it whole again by getting down on one knee and asking me to marry him.
Nathaniel had proposed to me in front of my entire family, who stood star-tled for several minutes, staring at both of us in shock and disbelief. No one knew he’d planned it; my mum was the first person to start congratulating us, looking ecstatic. Other members of my family weren’t quite ready to have a half vampire within their ranks. For as long as I could remember, my grandmother had been warning us about vampires. In her opinion, it was too risky for us to get in-volved with other creatures, and no one dared to go against her wishes, well, apart from my dad and, now me. Grandma couldn’t bear the fact that I was ready to share my life with someone other than a full-blooded elf. She left as soon as she had a chance that day, not even wanting to listen to my father’s or my arguments.
According to her, my whole family’s reputation was on the line. From the very beginning, Grandma was clear that she was never going to accept my choice. It was the twenty-first century and it was time for her to come to terms with the fact that I’d chosen real love over dating within my caste.
I didn't remember much from the rest of that night, but I did feel happy hearing congratulations from all my cousins: Claudia, Paula and Paulina. Even Aunt Dorothy managed to hug me. My own father had fallen in love with a hu-man woman and ended up marrying her, going against his mother and her values. That night, Dad looked happy, truly relaxed about the fact that his only daughter was now engaged. I was breaking yet another stigma. Vampires were intoxicated by an elf’s scent and most paranormals held the belief that this kind of relation-ship would never survive. Well, I was going to prove I was an exception to this rule.
"Congratulations, hon, it’s about time," Dad said, embracing me with his steady arms. I kept staring at my beautiful diamond ring not believing this was really happening.
"Thank you, Dad," I said, feeling magic flow through me, dancing on my skin. "I'm so happy, but what are we going to do about Grandma?" I sobered quickly thinking of the disapproving matriarch of our family.
"Don't worry. She didn't speak to me for two years after I married your mother," Dad said with a morbid chuckle. I knew he had struggled to convince his mother to see his side of things, but they eventually managed to work through it. My grandmother had never really connected with Mum, but at least she was tolerant of her.
“You know, I mean—"
"Nathaniel, come on. Let's open some champagne," Dad shouted to my fian-cé. I guessed this wasn't the best time to discuss what happened in the past, when everyone was so relaxed, drinking Irish cream and munching on mince pies.
"Julia, are you even listening to me?"
Nathaniel’s voice pierced my thoughts, startling me, bringing me back to the present. I needed to stop daydreaming like that. We were in my car on the way to see my grandmother to salvage our engagement joy and smooth over whatever had happened, hoping to convince her we were very much in love. I wanted her to understand that Nathaniel wasn't with me because he was intoxicated by my scent, that he truly did love me for who I was. Surely, Grandma only needed to be reminded that he came from a respectable background and he was ageing like a normal human.
She hadn't spoken to me since the party. I tried to get in touch with her of-ten, but she never answered her phone, and whenever I showed up at her house, she was never at home. She was making this very difficult for me. I even wrote to her, but she hadn't responded to my letters. Nathaniel was very supportive, try-ing to convince me that Grandma would come around eventually.
"Yes, I'm sorry. I was just lost in my thoughts."
He narrowed his eyes and diverted his gaze back to the road ahead.
"I hope you’re not having any second thoughts."
"No, of course not."
"Julia, the sooner we make it official, the better. I’ve waited long enough; we both have."
"We’re getting married, Nathaniel; nothing is going to change that. I don't know why, but I have a bad feeling about this conversation with Grandma," I said, unable to rid myself of a strange sensation in my stomach. "I think we should set the date now. How about the tenth of June?”
Nathaniel smiled and placed his hand on my thigh. Heat shot through my body, waking up my magic. Even now, after so many months of being back to-gether, my power reacted to him; his touch was magnetic, sparking against me with electricity.
“I'd rather have you a bit sooner. I'm thinking more like the seventeenth of May," he said, his eyes hooded with arousal, and my magic cannoned through me again, piercing my heart.
"Let's just focus on convincing Grandma that there isn't anyone else right for my life but you. I expect you to behave." I looked over and smiled at him.
We knew this was going to be an almost impossible task, because my grandma was the most stubborn person alive. The difficulty of the job in front of us weighed heavily, leaving a deafening silence in the car.
"I bet Jasper thinks you still owe him something," Nathaniel said, breaking the silence, reminding me that so much was still unresolved.
After my short conciliation, things between Jasper and me were still danger-ously complicated. He had made a dark promise to come back for me, whatever that meant. That was almost eight months ago, and thankfully I hadn't heard from him since. I tried to be vigilant about not finishing work late and going home alone. Nathaniel was worried that eventually Jasper would try to come af-ter me again.
"Jasper isn’t a problem at the moment and you, Mr. La Caz—don't even think about getting me a bodyguard. I'm fine," I said, making sure I was loud and clear about my expectations. Nathaniel was often ready to go to extreme measures, just to keep me safe.
"He threatened you, Julia, which means he threatened me, too. You can't expect me to sit around and wait for him to attack you."
"He won't attack me, Nathaniel. That’s not his style," I said, releasing elec-tric sparks that unfortunately melted holes in my seat. Yeah, even after shagging each other every day my energy was still pretty active and moving through me, demanding to be released. "Let's forget about this. The wedding—so, seventeenth of May, right?"
I deliberately changed the subject. I didn't want to start another pointless ar-gument. Like everyone in this world, I had a past, a very complicated one that involved Jasper. Nathaniel just needed to accept it.
Suddenly, the car started making very strange noises, and then it stopped, right in the middle of the road. Nathaniel tried to bring the engine back to life turning the key and pumping the clutch, but he gave up after a few attempts. It was dead—no spark, no noises, nothing other than a series of clicks. We still had a fair distance to go before we would reach Canterbury and people started look-ing through our windows, glaring at us, honking their horns and gesturing wildly, as we were blocking the traffic.
“What's going on?" I asked.
It was just after five on Friday evening and rush hour traffic was beginning to build up. Nathaniel pulled the handbrake and got out of the car; I followed and helped him push the car to the lay-by on the roadside. We were on the outskirts of London, and the road was almost at gridlock. He asked me to open the bonnet and started looking at the engine. He’d most likely never dealt with a broken-down car. Nathaniel could afford the best of things.
It was frosty outside; the late February temperatures were below zero. Na-thaniel stood staring at the engine, muttering to himself about things I didn't un-derstand anyway. It was getting dark pretty quickly.
"So? Anything?"
"It's the battery. When did you last change it?"
I pulled a face at him. "Never?"
He closed the bonnet and embraced me in his arms.
"There you go. Anyway, let's call Roberto. We’ll get someone to collect the car later."
I wrapped my arms around him and nestled into his body heat while he spoke to Roberto. His driver was on the way, so we would make it to my grand-ma’s eventually.
"You should sell this death trap on wheels and get a new car. This shouldn't be happening."
I laughed, looking at him. "I'm trying to save up. Besides, this car is perfect-ly all right."
"I'll buy one then. Soon, you’re going to be my wife, which means what’s mine is going to be yours."
"But—"
"There is no but, Julia. You’re not safe in London while that bastard is still out there. Besides, what if Elvira was right? She wasn't the only one who thought you have an extraordinary power."
