Vampires and Vixens (Psy-Vamp) by Cassandra Lawson Read Free Book Online Page B

the blue. “I’m glad he found someone like you.”
    Her eyed widened. “Wow! I thought I was
blunt.”
    It surprised Hannah to see Maggie return
so quickly with their food.
    “Thank you! It looks fantastic.” It was
true.
    Noah thanked her as well.
    Hannah had a mouthful of food, and had
her eyes closed. Noah was right, the food was great. She was making happy
humming noises that would have caused her mother to have heart palpitations.
    “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone
enjoy a burger that much,” Noah seemed amused. “You almost make me want to start
eating meat again.”
    She blushed. “I can’t believe my manners
are so bad around you.”
    Noah waved a dismissive hand. “I’m not
very refined so it doesn’t bother me.” With that he bit into his own food.
    They were both so hungry that they made
it halfway through their meal without uttering another word.
    Hannah was the one to break the silence.
“What has Nathaniel said about me, aside from telling you that I’m a student?”
    “I can’t remember all of it,” Noah
replied. “I can tell you that my brother is really excited about seeing you
this weekend.”
    That made her smile. “I wish he would
call me.”
    “Nathaniel hasn’t dated in quite some
time. He’s a little out of practice.” Noah started to say something else, but
stopped.
    “I have to admit that I’m a little
jealous of you,” she said.
    “Why are you jealous?”
    “It must be nice having a brother,” she
said wistfully.
    “It is,” Noah said without hesitation. “You
don’t have any siblings?”
    Hannah shook her head. “I’m not even
sure why my parents had me. My mother was thrilled when I was old enough for
her to send me away to school. Sadly, she couldn’t get me into a year-round
boarding school so she had to see me during the summer.”
    Noah gave her a sympathetic look.
    Hannah suddenly felt guilty about
complaining. “You just told me that you lost your mother as a child, and here I
am complaining about my mother. That’s pretty insensitive.”
    “It sounds like you have good reason to
complain. What about your father? You mentioned that he was detached.”
    “He’s been busy as long as I can remember.
He runs a large corporation, and he just doesn’t have time for anything else.”
    Noah reached out and squeezed her hand.
“You seem pretty close to your cousin.”
    Hannah smiled. “Lyd is great. My mom
can’t stand her.”
    “Why?”
    “Apparently Lydia is a very bad
influence on me. She even got blamed for my worst rebellion, despite that fact
that she wasn’t even in the same state at the time.”
    Noah leaned closer. “What did you do?”
    “I was fifteen, and my mother had come
to visit me at school. She was hoping to run into another mom that she wanted
to network with. My mother is big on expanding her social circle with the right
people. When she realized that my closest friend was there on scholarship, and
came from a very poor family, she lost it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my
mother show that much emotion, and it was all over how bad I was making her
look with my poor friend. She assured me that we gave plenty of money to those
people, and we didn’t need to socialize with them. She actually slapped me.”
    Noah’s eyes widened. “Wow!”
    “So,” Hannah continued with an innocent
smile, “I figured that since charity was my mother’s big thing I would make her
happy.”
    “What exactly did you do?”
    “I emptied my accounts, and took out
cash advances on my credit cards. Then I took a cab to the nearest homeless
shelter and gave it to the people there.”
    “How much money was that?”
    She shrugged. “I think I managed to get
around twenty-thousand dollars.”
    Noah had just taken a drink, and he
choked on it. “You walked around with twenty-thousand dollars?”
    She nodded.
    “You‘re lucky that you weren’t robbed,
or killed, or worse.”
    “I’m not sure that there’s much worse
than being killed,