"I don't mind," he said.

"Well, I do. I need to find my own way when it comes to this sort of thing."

God, I was being so mature. It was a little sickening. For my entire life I thought having a rich boyfriend would be the perfect solution to all of my problems, and don't get me wrong, it was fantastic. But it also made me feel… dirty. And not in a good way. It made me feel that by taking his money I was less of a person. Less of a vampire. Whatever.

Ten weeks ago I'd been fired from my full-time, lousy-paying, but regular job as a personal assistant. My funds had dwindled away to practically nothing. I was down to bartending tips and Thierry's generosity. A real job was way overdue.

A small smile curled up the side of his mouth. "Are you saying that you don't want me for my money?"

I smiled back at him. "Oh, I want you. But the money thing is something I need to work out for myself."

He reclipped the money and slid it back into his pocket. "If you insist."

I felt a quick pang of regret but stifled it. It was the right decision. I wasn't a kept woman.

And it's not as though we were married and half of Thierry's bucks immediately became mine.

No, the position of "Thierry's wife" had already been filled by a gorgeous seven-hundred-

year-old French vampire named Veronique.

She wasn't in the country at the moment.

Not that she minded our relationship. In fact, strangely enough, she encouraged it. They'd been married "in name only" now for over a century. Apparently divorcing somebody you'd been hitched to for six hundred years wasn't something you could do by simply hiring a lawyer and signing some paperwork.