Gates of Paradise (Blue Bloods 7)

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nbsp; As if to answer her question, Ahramin started stripping off her clothes. “Guess we won’t be keeping any secrets from each other,” she said lazily, standing in the middle of the room in only her bra and underwear. Bliss was annoyed until she noticed the scars that remained on the girl’s neck, and reminded herself that Ahri hadn’t had it easy.

Bliss put on her pajamas as discreetly as possible. No need to make a spectacle of herself, as Ahramin had. Pajama top over regular top, regular top removed through the neck hole of the pajama top, bra removed through the sleeves of the pajama top. Piece of cake. Just the pants left, and who cared if she showed her legs?

She looked up to see Lawson stifling, and then failing to stifle, a laugh. “What?” she asked.

“You,” he said. “That. I thought you were going to sprain something in there.”

“Shush,” she said, laughing as well. She smacked him on his bare chest with her balled-up top.

He grabbed it from her and pulled her close. “Hey,” he said. “I missed you.”

She snuggled into his arms, forgetting where they were for a moment.

“Get a room!” Malcolm yelled.

“We did!” Lawson yelled back, but he let Bliss go and she sighed.

“Good night,” he whispered when they were tucked into their respective beds. He stretched his hand so that their fingertips were touching.

“Good night,” she said, knowing it would be difficult to sleep so close and yet so far from him.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Schuyler

xcuse me?” Schuyler asked. “Cordelia told you what?”

Decca shook her head. “I’m sorry—we didn’t know. If we had known you existed, we would never have kept away. What you must think of us!”

How could Cordelia have done this to me? Schuyler wondered. How could she have cut me off from my father’s family so completely? What was she thinking? But then again, given what Allegra had done, wasn’t Cordelia merely acting in the Coven’s best interests? From her point of view, she was cleaning up her daughter’s mess by severing all ties to Allegra’s human mistake.

Decca reached over to the tray on the coffee table and poured two glasses of iced tea. Then, to Schuyler’s surprise, she burst into tears. “I knew something was strange. She’d told us not to bother with Allegra’s funeral. We didn’t even know where to send flowers, and there was no announcement or anything. I should have tried harder to get to the truth. I always thought she was hiding something from me. So your mother was Allegra—of course, I saw it the moment you walked in the room, and you look so much like your father.…You—”

“Have his eyes.” Schuyler smiled.

“Yes.” Her grandmother nodded. “I’m so happy!” Decca suddenly cried out, and clasped Schuyler’s hand.

That did it—Schuyler started crying too. And she’d been so adamant that she wouldn’t. “Me too,” she sniffled.

They spent a quiet moment holding hands and crying, and then Decca straightened her back, shook her head, and composed herself. “Your mother made him so happy. They loved each other so much.”

Schuyler nodded. She hadn’t quite managed to stop crying yet, but she took a sip of iced tea and tried to hold it together.

“After the wedding, they lived in Napa for a while, but Allegra missed New York. They moved to the city and disappeared shortly afterward, and we didn’t hear from them for a long time. I tried getting in touch—I called your mother, your grandmother, I wrote letters, but nothing. It wasn’t like Ben, but we respected his privacy. Your mother had always been…different, but perhaps I was too cautious, too willing to step aside, and then it was too late.”

Schuyler wondered if Decca could tell that she was “different” too. Most likely. She had the sense that not much got by this new grandmother of hers. The vampires must have had to work overtime to keep her from figuring out what was going on. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” she said. “I’m here now, and we’re finally meeting each other.”

“Yes, it’s wonderful, isn’t it?” Decca beamed. “I want you to tell me all about yourself. We have so much catching up to do! Are you in school now? Is there a young man in your life? Tell me everything!”

Tell her everything? That was impossible. But she could edit, she supposed. She told Decca about growing up with Cordelia, living on the Upper West Side, and going to Duchesne. She told her about her brief stint modeling, how she hadn’t figured out what she wanted to do with her life yet (not exactly true, but at least it explained why she wasn’t going to college). And then she took a deep breath and told her about Jack.

How to explain Jack?

“There was someone in my life,” she said. “I was in love. It was hard—there were challenges for us, being together—but it was wonderful.”

“You’re using the past tense,” Decca said. “What happened?”