Nightfall Read Online Free Page B

it?"
    "Like what, Sean?" At least her father hadn't startled her the way Tiernan had. She turned to glower at him. "Your houseguest, or Mabry's vampire decor?"
    "Oh, I tend to think it looks a bit like a Victorian bordello," Sean said airily, sauntering in. "You know I don't interfere with her hobbies."
    "What kind of room does Richard Tiernan have? Something with barred windows, to make him feel more at home?"
    Sean clucked disapprovingly. "You're getting sour in your old age, darling. Don't you have any compassion for the poor man?"
    "I have more compassion for his wife," she said tartly.
    "He's the victim of a grave miscarriage of justice…" Sean declaimed, but Cass interrupted him.
    "I don't think you believe that."
    "How do you know what I believe?"
    "Let me correct that. I don't think you care, one way or the other. As long as it makes a good book, that's all that matters to you."
    Sean's smile was self-deprecating, charming, the sort that would melt the stoniest heart. Cass had learned to resist it years ago. "I'm a slave to my muse," he said. "And that's why you're here."
    "I'm not going to be a slave to your muse as well."
    "Cassie, darling, you never fail to make me laugh. I need your help, not your disapproval."
    "You should have learned by now that one doesn't preclude the other."
    Sean beamed at her. "Bless you, darling."
    Cass perched gingerly on the high bed. "So what do you want from me, Sean? And don't give me some runaround about you being sick—I wouldn't believe that for a moment."
    Sean grinned. "Of course not, love. It's the book that I need you for."
    "About Richard Tiernan?"
    "Who else? The truth. Complete, simple, compelling. Stark, even. I need an editor… God, I never thought I'd admit such a thing. But all the testimony, the witnesses, are such a mess. You should see my office. I need you to organize it, pare it down, while I work with Richard."
    "You think you're going to be able to clear his name? I don't know if even the great Sean O'Rourke is a good enough writer to save his life."
    "Always the kind word," Sean said. "You let me worry about Richard's part in the book. I understand perfectly that you wouldn't want anything to do with him. You always were such a shy, nervy little thing."
    Cass, who was five feet nine and well-rounded, had never considered herself shy, nervy, or little in her entire life, but she didn't bother correcting Sean. Her father had a habit of arranging reality to suit himself. "I've got a job, Sean."
    "You've got scads of vacation time, I checked," he countered. "Surely you can give your poor old da a few weeks? Think of the glory of it, the two of us working together on my… finest piece of writing in decades. If you don't care about me, how can the professional side of you resist?"
    "I care about you, Sean. I just don't want to fall for any of your stunts."
    "No stunts, darling, I promise you. Just the two of us, working together."
    "The three of us," she corrected sourly.
    "You'll do it, then?"
    She glanced up at him. If she didn't know better, she would have thought that Sean was almost anxious about her answer. Sean O'Rourke wasn't the kind of man who asked for anything, or allowed himself to care about the answer. He considered himself inviolate, omnipotent, with the women of his family and most other mortals put on earth to serve his genius. That he did so without alienating them was a testament to his brilliance.
    But he wanted her. For the first time since she could remember, Sean needed her help, truly needed it. And she was far too human not to respond. "I'll do it," she said. "I can give you a couple of weeks."
    "I'll need at least two months…"
    "A couple of weeks," she said firmly. "And then
    I'm gone."
    "We'll deal with you leaving when the time comes," Sean said, typically oblivious. "In the meantime, let's tell Mabry you're staying. She bet me you'd have left the moment you saw Richard."
    "I should have. Don't you think you should have warned me he