Twilight Hunger. Maggie Shayne

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      “In the category of best original screenplay, the nominees are …”

      A hum seemed to fill her head, the room, her ears. She couldn’t hear what they were saying any longer, but suddenly she saw her name on the screen along with four others. “Morgan De Silva, for Twilight Hunger.”

      David surged to his feet, hugging her hard against him, smiling and laughing and twisting from side to side as he held her. Morgan surrendered to the rush of darkness that swamped her brain and simply went limp in his arms.

      She was lying on the chaise when she opened her eyes again. David sat close to her, patting her hand. “There you are. It’s all right. I guess this meant more to you than I realized.”

      “It’s not that.” she began. Then she recalled what had just happened.

      God, it was true. She was nominated for the top award in the film industry. For work that wasn’t even her own. She had never expected it to go this far. And yet, she had, in a way, known it would. It had to. The stories were too good not to be recognized as such. There was something. transcendent about them. Something that touched the audience on a level that was almost visceral in its intensity.

      “Are you all right?”

      She nodded but didn’t bother trying to sit up. This was very odd. She had expected to feel … jubilant at this moment. Wasn’t this beyond her dreams? Wasn’t this supposed to fix everything that had been missing from her life? Why did she still feel so empty inside?

      “You’re going to have to come back to L.A. with me now,” David said. He pushed one hand through his thinning honey-blond hair, which was getting gray at the temples. “There are going to be parties. Receptions. Interviews. You should be seen.”

      The thought of leaving this place set her heart racing. She shook her head quickly, fighting back her panic. “I can’t leave now.”

      “But—”

      “The new one is at too delicate a point right now, David. I can’t stop working on it without losing my momentum. And I can’t work anywhere else. So I have to stay right here.”

      He closed his eyes slowly, as if attempting to digest her words.

      “I should be finished with it by the time of the actual ceremony. I’ll be able to come out for that. I promise.”

      His eyes popped open. “But you need a dress. And hair and … honey, people plan for months to get ready for this one, special night. God, if this had happened to the girl I knew five years ago, she’d have insisted I fly her to Paris to shop for a gown. And probably would have bought three of them before making a final decision.”

      Sitting up, very slowly, so as not to induce the return of her familiar lightheadedness, she met his eyes. “I’m not that girl anymore.”

      “No,” he said. “You’re not. You’ve changed, Morgan. And not for the better. You’ve practically become a recluse.”

      She banked her anger. He was right, and if she spoke her mind, she would tell him to go home, so she could get right back to her reclusiveness. Crawl back into the velvet darkness of Dante’s world. She hated not being enmeshed in it, missed him like a lover when she went a day without wading through his life, processing it through her own mind and soul, and onto her computer screen. Changing his memories, his deepest thoughts, into lines and stage directions, so that he could come to life on the screen. It was almost as if she were somehow trying to resurrect him from death by giving life to his memories.

      Not enough. God, it was never enough.

      “I’ve made you angry,” David said.

      “No. No, I’m just … overwhelmed.” She smiled up at him. “So are you taking me out for breakfast to celebrate or not?”

      Lifting his brows, he sighed. “Yes, of course I am. How soon can you be ready?”

      She forced herself to look happy. To play the role of the excited honoree, eager to celebrate the achievement of a lifetime.

      The truth was, she just wanted to get it over with and return to her house. His house. To be alone with the nonexistent man who haunted her, day and night. Heart and soul. Who possessed her mind.

      Dante.

      The man who had written volume upon volume in the first person, and who had, she was convinced, believed every word he had written.

      He had believed he was a vampire.

      She almost wished it could be true.

      5

      Dante stood outside in the darkness, the wind in his face, tangling its cool damp fingers in his hair. Just a hint of rain looming. He felt its touch on his skin in that wind. He tasted it. The waves from the sea crashed to the shoreline just beyond the house. His house, or it had been once. Warm yellow light spilled from its windows, as if welcoming him home. But he knew better. Someone was inside. He could feel and taste them the same way he did the rain in the air. A woman.

      When he had decided to come here, he hadn’t even been certain he would find the place still standing. Last time he’d seen it, the house had been on the verge of ruin. But no more. Someone had gone to great pains to restore the house he had built over a century ago. The white flagstone walkway that curved up to the front door was just as he remembered it. The lampposts at the far end like sentries. Oh, they hadn’t been electric, of course, as they were now. Nor had the lights inside the house. But the shutters were black, and the paint was white and fresh. And the chimney was the same size and shape, even though the bricks were all brand-new.

      The door was different, he noted. It had been white, with four glass panes in a fantail pattern in the top. The new door was far more elaborate, wider, flanked by tooled hardwood borders and a wide mantle arching over the top. Artificial flowers were affixed in that arched mantle. It struck him for a moment, how false that was. How ridiculous. The smell of plastic and silk on the things made a mockery of the beauty they tried to imitate.

      Artificial flowers were a sacrilege.

      An oval of stained glass stretched almost the whole length of the door, and the handle was gleaming brass. The place looked almost new again. Two cars sat in the white gravel driveway, both of them foreign and fast. Money lived here now. A woman with wealth. And youth. He tasted that on the air, as well.

      There was a man. Older. Robust. Strong. While the female had a weakness about her. He didn’t smell sex in the air, so he assumed the relationship was platonic.

      He was curious, he had to admit. Eager to see what had been done to the inside of the place. And he couldn’t leave, anyway. Since his near miss with the scarred man, he had found his every haven invaded, his every familiar haunt under watch. The man knew his secrets somehow. So Dante had come back here—to a place he hadn’t used in over a century—to find safety and solace, until he could figure out what to do.

      Obviously, he’d stayed away too long. Someone was living here.

      Not that it mattered.

      He walked around to the rear of the house, found the willow tree still there, but so much larger than before that he had to look twice. СКАЧАТЬ