“Madre de Dios,” Ildaria breathed with horror.
“Yeah,” he said unhappily and then added, “Fortunately, he hadn’t eaten all of it and there was enough left of the destroyed check that the bank was willing to issue a new one. But I was sweating it until they agreed.” His mouth tightened at the memory. “I started calling him the hundred-thousand-dollar dog after that.”
“H.D.,” Ildaria breathed with realization.
“H.D. for short,” he agreed. “H.T.D.D. was a mouthful, and H.D. is close enough to his real name that he answers to it.”
“What’s his real name?” she asked with interest.
“Eddy.”
“Eddy?” she echoed. Teddy would have fit better. He looked like a teddy bear after all.
“Edward Simpson Guiscard on his registration,” G.G. announced. “Eddy.”
“So you’re G.G. Simpson Guiscard,” she said with a faint smile.
“Joshua James Simpson Guiscard,” he corrected quietly. “G.G. is a nickname. Joshua James Simpson was my birth name. My birth father was John Simpson, but he died when I was young and my mother remarried Robert Guiscard. Robert adopted me and Guiscard was legally added to the end of my name.”
“Ah,” Ildaria murmured, thinking Joshua was a nice name. It didn’t really suit the Mohawked and tattooed man beside her though. G.G. did.
“And you?” G.G. asked with interest.
“Me?” she asked uncertainly.
“What’s your full name?”
“Oh.” She blinked, and then blurted, “Angelina Ildaria Sophia Lupita Garcia Pimienta.” The moment the words left her mouth, she frowned and turned to stare blindly at the mirrored shelves behind the bar, wondering why she’d told him that. As a rule, she avoided telling it at all, or lied. The last two hundred years she hadn’t used Angelina at all. She’d gone by Ildaria and used Garcia because it was as common as Smith in North America.
“Pretty name,” G.G. said, and she turned back to him with surprise to see a faint smile tilting his lips before he popped the last of his first burger into his mouth and began to chew.
“I just go by Ildaria Garcia,” she murmured, feeling her tension slowly subside as she watched him eat. Some part of her mind was assuring her that it didn’t matter that he knew her name. It was fine. She was in North America now, far away from the Dominican Republic and the danger that revealing her name held there. Letting her breath out, she searched for something to say, and found herself asking, “So, how did a mortal end up owning and running not just one, but two nightclubs for immortals?”
G.G. shook his head, and swallowed the food in his mouth before pointing out, “You still haven’t told me why you dropped out of uni.”
Ildaria blew out a breath of irritation, but supposed it was only fair she answer his question if she wanted him to answer hers. Raising the drink he’d given her, she took a sip to give herself time to decide what to say. Her eyes widened with surprise when the taste hit her tongue. It was nice. Tasty. Sweet and fruity.
“Good huh?” he said with amusement, and she glanced over to see him grinning as he watched her face.
Ildaria nodded, and took another drink.
“So . . .” G.G. said as she swallowed and set the glass back on the bar. “You dropped out because . . .”
“I didn’t drop out,” she said at once. “Lucian insisted I should switch from night to day courses, but it’s too far into the semester, so I had to withdraw so the classes won’t show up as ‘fail.’ Worse yet, I can’t get a refund on them.”
“Ouch,” G.G. said with sympathy.
“Si.” Ildaria sighed the word and then shrugged. “It’s my own fault, I guess.”
“Why?” G.G. asked at once, and then added, “And why does Lucian want you in day classes?”
“Because he thinks it’s safer,” she muttered, answering the second question first.
“Safer?” G.G. asked on a bark of surprised laughter. “You’re an immortal. Not much can harm you.”
“Si, but—” She broke off with a grimace, and then took a deep breath and explained, “He’s not worried about my safety that way. It’s more that he doesn’t want me to be put in a position . . .”
“He’s worried about you going vigilante again,” G.G. guessed solemnly when she fell silent.
Ildaria’s mouth tightened. “You know about that, huh?”
He nodded almost apologetically. “This place is gossip central, and people seem to like to talk to me.”
She rolled her eyes at that, and took another swallow of the drink he’d given her, enjoying the sweet treat.
“What made you go vigilante down in . . . some city in Montana, was it?” he asked with a frown.
Ildaria nodded, but didn’t bother to say which city. That part of her life was over now. She was stuck in Canada for the foreseeable future. Setting her drink back on the bar, she ran her fingers up and down the condensation on the outside of her glass and muttered, “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me,” he assured her quietly and Ildaria glanced his way, surprised to see the sincerity in his face. G.G.’s expression suggested that what she had to say was the most important thing in the world to him in that moment.
Three
Ildaria tore her gaze away from G.G.’s and swallowed thickly, trying to remove the sudden lump lodged in her throat. It didn’t do much, and after another swallow she gave it up and shrugged. “Do you know Jess Stewart Notte?”
“Raffaele’s life mate. Yes,” he said, nodding. “I’ve met her a couple of times when she was up here with Raffaele visiting family. You lived with her in Montana, didn’t you?”
“Si. Her and Raffaele,” she added with a faint smile. Raffaele hadn’t been able to stay away from Jess once he’d found her. Not surprising for life mates. But it had meant the three of them living in the house Jess had inherited from her parents, instead of just the two of them. Ildaria hadn’t really minded after getting to know the man. She’d even ended up liking Raffaele as a person. Despite that though, she still wished Jess had chosen Ildaria’s old captain, Vasco, for her mate. She’d had the choice between the two, and Ildaria knew Vasco was a good man under all of his swagger. Besides, he’d saved her life more than once and was like family. Well, she supposed she hadn’t let him close enough to be family, but he was important to her. Shrugging her thoughts away, Ildaria explained, “Well, as you say I was living with Jess and Raffaele, but as new life mates they were pretty wrapped up in each other.”
G.G. nodded. “I’ve noticed that happens.”
“Si.” She sighed the word. She liked Jess. They had become good friends despite the little bit of time they’d actually spent together. “But that was okay. I made friends at the uni there. In my classes,” she added.
“Mortal friends you mean,” G.G. filled in for her, getting it.
Ildaria grimaced. “Si. I didn’t want to specify and sound racist or something.”
G.G. blinked. “By mentioning that your friends were mortal?”
“Well, you can’t call anyone anything anymore without offending someone. Every time I learn the rules, they go and change them.”
G.G.’s mouth twitched briefly with amusement, and then he pointed out, “So, you were explaining why you went vigilante?”
Ildaria grimaced, but nodded and said, “Well, as I said, I had mortal friends at uni. Three of them, like I have here.”
“You have friends at university here?” he asked, eyes widening.
“You needn’t sound so surprised. I’m a charming person,” she informed him a bit testily.
That brought a laugh and he shook his head. “I’m just surprised because you haven’t been here long.”
“Almost two months,” she told him and shrugged. “That’s long enough to make friends.”
“Yes, it is,” he agreed soothingly.
“Hmm.” She eyed him suspiciously for a moment, trying to figure out if he was patronizing her, and then let it go and said, “Anyway . . . So, one of those friends was a lovely girl named Alicia. She was beautiful, sweet, funny and super smart. And she never missed class. I mean, never. She could be hacking up a lung and sneezing up a storm, Kleenex in every pocket and trailing her like bread crumbs, and she’d show up for class.”
When she paused briefly to take a sip of her drink, G.G. nodded to let her know he understood. Swallowing the sweet drink, Ildaria set down the glass and continued. “But then one Monday, she didn’t show up for our Business Analytics course.” Her mouth tightened at the memory. “I meant to call her that night to check on her, but . . .” Ildaria shrugged unhappily. “Between full-time classes and my full-time job waitressing, I forgot.”
“Life gets busy,” he said in an understanding rumble.
“Si, it does,” she agreed on a sigh. “But when she didn’t show up for the Thursday Mergers and Acquisitions class we had together, I headed straight for her dorm the minute class was done.” She ran one finger over the condensation on her glass again. “Apparently her roommate came back to the room after class on Monday to find Alicia’s things gone, and was told she’d dropped her courses and moved home.”
When she paused again, G.G. made a sound in his throat that was part growl and part hum. As if he suspected what was coming wasn’t good and he was already angry at whoever was at fault for this unexpected occurrence.
“Alicia’s family lived in a small town an hour outside the city,” Ildaria continued quietly. “I waited until the next day because it was so late, and then I drove out to see her. Her mother answered the door, asked me to wait a moment and then went to find Alicia. She came back a few minutes later and said very apologetically, that Alicia didn’t want to see anyone.” Ildaria swallowed at the memory. “I could tell she was upset. That she wanted to tell me something to soften the blow of her daughter’s rejection, but didn’t feel it was her right.”