Free A Charmed Life (Halloween LaVeau Book 5) by Rose Pressey Page B

so that he would snap out of it.
    Finally, he looked at me. “I’m sorry, Hallie, I just don’t want a repeat of what happened to you.”
    “I appreciate that, but I also don’t want to lose business. Things are just now turning around.”
    He touched my cheek. “I’ll do better.”
    “Besides, what makes you so sure that he’s up to no good?”
    He shrugged. “Nothing, I suppose. It’s just the way he looks.”
    “He looks nice to me,” I said.
    “Yeah, that’s part of the problem,” Nicolas said.
    “So you don’t think I’m a good judge of character?” I asked.
    “If you want me to be perfectly honest with you, no, I don’t.”
    I narrowed my eyes. “Now I’ll have to prove you wrong, won’t I?”
    “I’d like nothing more than to be proven wrong by you.” He leaned down and kissed me again.
    I was still a little mad at him at first, but then my tension eased. I supposed I could see where he would think I was a bad judge of character. I’d been wrong on many occasions. I was just being stubborn and needed to admit when I was wrong. Except this time I didn’t think I was wrong and I would prove that to him.
    When the front door opened, we spun around. Liam stormed through to the parlor.
    “What’s wrong?” I asked.
    He ran his hand through his hair. “I came to make sure you’re okay. I just couldn’t shake off that bad vibe.”
    With his dark hair and piercing blue eyes, Liam looked a lot like his half-brother. They had the same father, who had remarried after his first wife had been turned by a vampire when Nicolas was just a baby. There was only a couple years’ difference in their ages. That had been back in the 1800s.
    Liam and Nicolas exchanged a look and nodded. I got the feeling they had already discussed this.
    “You guys need to calm down,” I said.
    They offered no response.
    I waved my hands. “Hello? Don’t treat me like I’m a damsel in distress who needs to be protected.”
    “Nicolas, would you go with me out on the front porch? I need to talk to you about something.” Liam gestured.
    I rolled my eyes. As if I didn’t know what they were talking about.
    “We’ll be right back,” Nicolas said and then headed toward the foyer with Liam.
    How long should I let them continue this little game? Obviously, they didn’t think I could handle myself. I’d thought they knew me better than that by now. Sure, I had self-doubt sometimes, but deep down I knew I could get things done.
    I paced the hardwood floor as I waited for them to return. After a couple of minutes, they walked back in. They stood in the room’s entrance, side by side, and looked at me.
    I quirked an eyebrow. “Are y’all done yet?”
    “What do you mean?” Liam gazed at me with his big blue eyes.
    They tried to act as if they had no clue what they were doing wrong, but the looks on their faces gave them away.
    “I’m upset with both of you,” I said.
    They frowned.
    “Why are you upset with us, Hallie?” Liam asked.
    I placed my hands on my hips. “I can handle myself, in case you all didn’t know.”
    Nicolas moved close and touched my arms. “Hallie, we will never let anything happen to you. If that means being a little overprotective, then that’s what we have to do.”
    I shook my head. “No, that’s not what you have to do.”
    “Then what do you expect us to do?” Liam asked.
    “Be there when I need you? We don’t know that anything is wrong yet. So you all need to calm down. Do you understand?” I stared at them with my stern face, which I was pretty sure didn’t appear intimidating in the least.
    The men reluctantly nodded, but I knew they didn’t want to agree.
    “You have to tell Liam what’s going on.” Nicolas gestured with a tilt of his head.
    “There’s more?” Liam’s voice raised a level. They really had formed a bond since that rainy night when they’d shown up at my front door.
    “I have quite a few guests,” I said.
    “That’s a good thing,” Liam