Biting the Bride Read Online Free Page B

of it.
    “Why don’t you come to the gallery tomorrow, and bring Dennis?” Sunni asked as Isabel slid her arms into her crutches. “A piece came in that I think he’d be interested in. We can have dim sum afterward at the Golden Dragon. ”
    “What’s the piece?”
    “A Qing dynasty porcelain vase with a garniture of Louis XV bronze mounts.”
    “English, please,” Isabel said.
    “A vase made in China in about 1750, brought to France and decorated with bronze handles in the shape of lions’ heads.”
    Isabel frowned. “Doesn’t he already have a bunch of vases?”
    “Yeah, he has a bunch of Impressionist paintings too, but does he stop buying them?”
    Isabel laughed. “At least I like the Impressionists.”
    “When you inherit you can sell everything you don’t like.”
    “He’ll probably give it all to a museum for the tax write-off before he dies. Are you coming, Sunni?”
    Sunni shook her head. “I’m going to have another drink.”
    “Suit yourself. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Isabel maneuvered slowly through an obstacle course of tables and chairs. Sunni wondered, not for the first time, if public establishments had any idea how difficult they made it for people with mobility issues. Would it be so hard to put tables in a straight line?
    She beckoned for the waiter with all the piercings and ordered another margarita. Normally she wasn’t much of a drinker, but her encounter with Jacob Eddington had left her agitated. When the waiter returned with her drink he leaned toward her ear.
    “The gentleman over there would like to buy you a drink.” He indicated the table of rowdy men. Sunni would have assumed they were stockbrokers, except with the stock market in the toilet it had been a while since she’d seen any of those types celebrating.
    “Those frat boys?” Sunni asked.
    The waiter shook his head. “Past them. At the bar.”
    Sunni looked again. A man in jeans and a black leather jacket lifted two fingers over his whiskey glass. His blond hair was fluffy with product. She couldn’t really tell if he was handsome, but she was feeling that familiar restless, diffuse anger, directed at everyone and no one. She wasn’t going to sleep tonight. She lifted her glass and gave the man a smile. He picked up his own drink and made his way over.

Chapter 3
    The Sea Watch Bar was one of the oldest in the city. It was dark, dank, and smelled of stale beer. The low ceiling was papered with dollar bills and the bar itself was pockmarked and cigarette-burned. At one time the Sea Watch had actually been on the waterfront. The bar was still in the same location, but a hundred and fifty years of landfill had created six blocks of land between it and the bay. It was populated with old men, die-hard drinkers, who said little and glared at strangers. It was Jacob’s favorite bar, because it reminded him of the Fox and Hound in Providence, a pub that stood in the same location for two hundred years, until it was razed for a freeway overpass in the 1960s.
    He came here late at night, when she was safely asleep, and returned before she woke up. On this night he had followed her from her friend’s wedding to her favorite bar, where she picked up a human man and brought him to her sailboat, presumably for sex. Jacob pushed away the uncomfortable feelings this brought to mind. She could do whatever she wanted, what did he care? He wasn’t her husband. It was her business if she wanted to bed wimpy little human men with coiffed hair. The wimp wasn’t a vampire, that was all that had to concern him.
    Jacob swirled the Scotch and then smacked the glass down hard. It did concern him; it concerned him too much. He had handled the wedding very badly. He should never have let her get close enough to speak to him. But when that human man tried to violate her … a flush of anger came over him just thinking about it. He had lost his composure and gotten far too close to her. And then, instead of just eliminating the