Bitten by Cupid by Lynsay Sands, Pamela Palmer, Jaime Rush Read Free Book Online

something first?”
    “And get back into these stinky clothes?” Tiny asked dryly, pausing at the door. He glanced back to peer at her and smiled faintly. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. Take a bath, then maybe talk to Stephanie.”
    “Talk to her?” Mirabeau asked with dismay, forgetting her worry for him. “What about?”
    “About what she’s been through,” he said quietly. “Other than her sister, you can probably help her more than anyone.”
    “Me?” Mirabeau squeaked with disbelief. “What makes you think I—?”
    “Because you lost your entire family at a young age too, didn’t you?” he said quietly. “Of anyone, you should understand at least part of what she’s going through.”
    Mirabeau felt herself closing up. It was as if something was squeezing tight around her. The slaughter of her family was a subject she never allowed herself to think of. She supposed Marguerite had told him about it for some reason or other, but she didn’t appreciate it and didn’t know how to respond other than to say almost resentfully, “Her family is still alive.”
    “But she can never see them again. She can never enjoy their love and support again,” he pointed out quietly.
    “She has Dani,” Mirabeau insisted grimly.
    “Not at the moment, she doesn’t,” Tiny said, then added quietly, “Talk to her. She’s as alone and lonely as you.”
    This time Mirabeau didn’t stop him from leaving but simply watched the door close behind him while a small storm of emotion rolled through her. Alone and lonely? Where the hell had he gotten that idea? And there was a vast difference between Stephanie and her. While the girl couldn’t, or at least shouldn’t, approach her family now that she’d been turned, she at least knew they lived, could check on them from time to time and reassure herself of their happiness. However, Mirabeau’s entire family—mother, father, and three brothers—were all dead, along with the once-favored uncle who had killed them. She had no one, she thought, turning to enter the room Tiny was to use.
    She had entered the bathroom before acknowledging that that wasn’t really true. She had the Argeneaus. Mirabeau had been seventeen when her family had been killed, and Lucian had taken her to stay with his sister-in-law, Marguerite, afterward. That fine lady had taken her under her wing. As if sensing that treating her like a daughter would be too painful and would simply remind her of what she’d lost, Marguerite had offered her a combination of love and friendship that an aunt might offer a niece. She had opened her home and made her welcome in her family, and Mirabeau had eventually come to be treated by the whole clan as a dear family friend and offered all the love and support she could wish…but lovely as that was, it could never replace the family she had lost and simply made Mirabeau uncomfortable. While she was always included in special celebrations like Christmas or weddings, those events always reminded Mirabeau of her own lack of family…and she supposed that was something Stephanie would have to go through as well.
    Sighing, she turned on the shower and quickly stripped off her ruined clothes to step under the hot spray. She turned under the showerhead, rinsing away the worst of the muck coating her, then grabbed the hotel soap, her mind on what she could possibly say to Stephanie to help her through this. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything anyone could really say to make it better for the girl. Even Mirabeau herself could only let her know she understood and perhaps take her under her wing as Marguerite Argeneau had done for her.
    The problem was, Mirabeau wasn’t sure she was any good at that kind of thing. She hadn’t had a lot of practice. Other than Eshe and the Argeneaus, she hadn’t really opened herself up to anyone since the deaths of her family, and her opening up to the Argeneaus was wholly Marguerite’s doing. The woman was like some