Two
Corbin Atelier stared out the window at the Vegas cityscape, feeling restless with his confinement. He’d been living in Las Vegas for nearly four decades, and never had he felt the yoke around him so tightly as now. There was no reason for it, but he longed to be able to leave the desert, to fly to the ocean, to the mountains, to smell the crisp air of Paris in late October.
A knock sounded on the door of the suite of rooms he had been staying in for the past two weeks as he oversaw Ringo Columbia’s withdrawal from his drug blood addiction. Corbin made no movement to answer the door, staring, searching, wanting some kind of answer from the view in front of him.
“There’s someone here,” Ringo said.
Corbin turned and saw that Ringo was slumped on the divan with his eyes closed, legs stretched out in front of him. A cigarette dangled at his lips, and his cheeks were pale, skin sallow. His chest moved up and down laboriously, like ancient bellows. It was difficult to watch Ringo suffer through his withdrawal, but Corbin was confident he was through most of the physical trauma. Mentally, it was never a sure thing. Addiction waged war on its victim, the battle was never completely won, and Corbin wasn’t entirely sure Ringo wanted to be free of his dependency.
The knocking came louder.
“Would you answer that?” Ringo asked, voice rising in irritation. “It’s probably Kelsey.”
Corbin didn’t know what the relationship was between Ringo and Ethan Carrick’s secretary, but her visits usually had a positive effect on the patient. However, this wasn’t Kelsey.
“It’s a mortal. I can sense it.” Corbin moved to answer the door, suppressing a sigh. He had work to do and every day he spent stuck in Carrick’s casino, forced into the role of part prison guard, part medical doctor to Ringo, the longer his research was delayed.
Brittany Baldizzi was standing in front of him when he pulled open the door. Corbin was so startled he said the very stupid and obvious, “Brittany! This is a surprise.”
“Hi, Corbin.” Her cheeks went pink, and her eyes didn’t quite meet his.
“How are you feeling?” he asked. “Are you recovered from the flu?” Truthfully, she still didn’t look one hundred percent healthy. Her skin tone was off, and she looked like she had lost weight. Corbin felt both worried and guilty. He should have checked up on her a second time, but he hadn’t been entirely comfortable with his own feelings toward Brittany, so he had avoided her. Yet again. He had done plenty of avoiding as well following the night he had bedded her.
“How did you know I had the flu?” she asked, looking startled.
“I saw you. I came to your apartment one night when you were sick.” The night he had heard her call him mentally, felt her suffering. Without thinking, he had gone straight to her and found her sick in her bathroom. He could have sworn at the time that she didn’t have a fever, but she must have if she didn’t even remember seeing him.
Her eyes went wide. “You were really there? I just thought… ”
“What?”
“That I was dreaming.”
This beautiful woman he had made love to thought he was in her dreams? That pleased Corbin more than it should. “No. I was there. I put you to bed.”
“Oh. Well, thanks.”
“You are welcome.” Corbin suddenly remembered that he had manners. “Would you like to come in? Are you here to see Ringo?”
She shook her head. “No. I’ve actually never even met Ringo. I wanted to talk to you for a minute. Privately.”
He couldn’t possibly imagine what she wanted to discuss with him, but she looked so anxious Corbin didn’t hesitate. He admittedly had a rather soft spot when it came to Brittany. Not to mention he’d been attracted to her since the first night they met, when she had thought he was a serial killer.
“Certainly. We can go into the other room.” It was a bedroom, which wasn’t the best place to be escorting a woman he thought was so beautiful, a woman he’d impulsively made love to in a moment of total sexual weakness. It had been a wonderful, madly erotic five minutes, and a bed was sure to remind him of that, but the only other option was the bathroom, and he was too much a man of the nineteenth century to speak to her by the commode.
He offered her a seat in the sleek gray suede chair next to the bed, but she shook her head.
“What is the matter?” he asked, unable to resist the urge to smooth her hair back from her forehead. She really looked ill, and he felt prickles of concern.
“Corbin… I’m pregnant,” she blurted, locking eyes with him for a second, before dropping her gaze to the floor.
“Pardon?” She’d spoken so quickly, mostly to the carpet, that surely he had misunderstood.
Those dark eyes, which he found so innocently alluring, locked onto his. “I’m pregnant. I’m having a baby.”
That was rather unpleasant news. Granted, he had not spoken to her since the night they had made love, aside from when she’d been ill, but he had foolishly thought she had felt the same way as him—knocked off his feet by their encounter. He had not so much as looked at another woman in those eight weeks, yet she had moved to another man’s bed. He was not so memorable, it seemed.
“Ah. Zat explains the vomiting,” he said, his English slipping as it always did when he was irritated. “Morning sickness, yes? Well, I wish you happy.”
The last remaining bits of color in her cheeks leeched away. She frowned at him. “Is that all you’re going to say?”
Corbin shifted uneasily. He didn’t see how the situation called for him to say anything else. “Take care of yourself,” he said politely.
“Uh!”
Tears came out of nowhere and rolled out of her eyes, scaring Corbin senseless.
“What ez the matter? Don’t you want to have a baby?” And why was he the one standing there in complete discomfort patting her arm inanely? Where was the baby’s papa?
“I want to have a baby. And I thought that it was only the right thing to do to come and tell you that you’re having a baby, but it seems like I shouldn’t have wasted my night. You could care less!”
Corbin listened to her words. Played them back in his brain. Was she saying… “I’m the father?”
“Duh. Of course you are!” Brittany swiped at the tears on her face. “Who else would be? You’re the only man I’ve slept with in six months.”
Well, that was pleasing—she hadn’t found him so lacking as a lover she’d had to find another. But that also meant… “Mon Dieu , you’re having a baby? Our baby?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”
Corbin needed to sit down. He needed a drink. He needed to think this through. Good God. A baby? A small, crying, helpless, mortal creature. That was half his, half Brittany’s biology. It didn’t seem possible. There had only been that one night. But he had made no effort to use birth control or even withdraw at the precipitous moment. Quite the opposite. He had enjoyed exploding deep inside Brittany. Just the memory had him shifting, manhood swelling inappropriately.
“You are certain?”
She sighed. “Yes, Corbin, I’m certain.”
“We didn’t use birth control,” he said, trying to reconcile what she was telling him with what had happened.
“No. But I didn’t think you had sperm.”
Corbin frowned at her, feeling insulted. “Of course I have sperm. I am still a man. I still function, do I not? I have everything that is manly the same as a mortal.”
Brittany couldn’t stop a small smile from crossing her face. Corbin looked so outraged and French. “Yes, you still have everything.” And then some. She would never forget how in five minutes he’d given her better sex than some guys had in six months of dating.
“Absolutely.” He nodded up and down once.
Brittany couldn’t tell how he was taking the news. He didn’t look angry. He looked surprised, but nothing more. Damn, he was cute. She’d almost forgotten how adorable he was in person with his caramel-colored hair and rich, chocolate eyes.
Corbin rubbed his jaw. “And as such, I owe you an apology. This is my fault and I accept complete responsibility. I will marry you.”
Brittany forgot how cute he was. “What!” Of all possible reactions, she hadn’t even considered that one. He was smoking something if he thought she was going to just marry him because he’d gotten her pregnant. And what kind of a proposal was that anyway? A sucky one, that’s what kind.
“It is for the best.” He nodded, like everything was decided. “We will marry and hire a nurse to care for the babe.”
Someone had fallen back into the nineteenth century. “Why is getting married for the best? We barely know each other.” Brittany sucked in quick, short breaths. Her stomach was churning again. “I don’t want to marry you.”
“You would have my child be born a bastard?” He looked outraged.
“This is Vegas! No one cares.” Brittany took a step back. He was so close to her she was getting dizzy trying to talk to him. “My mother was a stripper, for God’s sake!”
Corbin winced.
Brittany was offended. He didn’t like that? Too bad. “I don’t even know who my father was. My mother cheated on her husband with Mr. Anonymous. Alexis and I don’t even have the same father.”
She was blathering on in total panic, because while she was intrigued by the idea of maybe dating Corbin, or at the very least having an amicable relationship with the father of her child, she could not marry him. Jesus. What the hell did they have in common?
Just a bundle of cells that were dividing in her uterus as they were speaking.
“Brittany… ” Corbin clapped his hand on his forehead. “You and I, we have forgotten something. Your father was a vampire.”
“So?”
“So, you are half-vampire. I am a vampire. This baby you’re carrying, it is a three-quarter vampire child.”
“So?” she asked again nervously. Why did Corbin look like he was going to drop to the ground? His eyes were actually narrowing, darkening, turning almost black, and she could tell he was thinking hard.
“So, there has never been a three-quarter vampire child to my knowledge. Ever.”
That didn’t sound promising. “Why not?”
“Because vampires are not supposed to procreate. Some, of course, do anyway, when they inadvertently mate with a mortal who has the recessive gene for vampirism, which allows for conception, though fortunately their numbers are few. The resulting child is a mortal Impure. But never has a vampire mated with an Impure such as yourself, or if they have, there was no child, possibly because their mother did not inherit the gene from her mother. You clearly do have the gene, as do I, meaning the gene will most definitely be in our child. It is the most basic of biology, but there has never been such a child that I know of, one with a complete vampire gene.”
He’d already said that, and he was starting to scare the crap out of her. “And?”
“And if there has never been one, there is no scientific precedent. What is it? Mortal or vampire? Day or night dweller?”
Breast milk or blood drinker. Corbin didn’t say it, but Brittany knew he was thinking it.
“Oh, my God! You’re telling me our child is going to be some kind of… mutant, or something? Is he going to have fangs?”
“Of course not!” But he didn’t look convinced. Then he stood up straighter and his jaw locked. “Our child is not a mutant. He will be strong and intelligent, lacking mortal weakness. Yet he will not need the blood. I am almost sure of it, because it is the draining which activates the urge to feed, not the gene. Besides, I am Corbin Jean Michel Atelier, the most premier vampire research scientist, and I will correct my mistake, that I promise you.”
Wow. How reassuring. Brittany burst into tears. Her baby was a bloodsucking demon. Instead of a Gerber baby, she was going to have an infant with fangs, pale skin, night vision, and the ability to read minds. Brittany pictured a fridge full of little bottles, prancing lambs on the outside, all filled with human blood. She would have to lock down her thoughts all the time so her baby didn’t see her sexual fantasies about George Clooney or her mean unkind thoughts about her dental hygienist’s butt and the way it looked in white pants.
This was panic time.
“Corbin, you can’t experiment on our child! God, this is horrible, I’m going to be sick.” She clutched her stomach. “We were both so stupid! I’m never having sex with you again.”
“But it is not as if you can get pregnant a second time,” he pointed out, looking a little mystified. “There would be no reason we’d need birth control if we lay together now.”
“Arrgh!” How did you say idiot in French? Idi-ote? She turned to the window, tears blinding her. “I want to talk to my sister.” Fumbling in her pocket, she pulled her cell phone out of her jeans and pressed number one to call Alexis.
“Alex?” she sniffled when her sister answered.
Alexis swore. “What did the bastard say to you? Where are you?”
“I’m still in the suite you told me to come to. Alexis, Corbin says our baby is going to… going to… ” She choked on the words and dissolved into a fresh round of tears.
“I’ll be right there.”
When Alex hung up, Brittany let the tears take her over. She sobbed, overwhelmed, frightened, scared for her child. Totally flipping freaked out.
Suddenly Corbin was behind her, arms wrapping around her. “Shh. It is all right now, ma chйrie . I did not mean to frighten you. Everything will be just fine, and we will have the most beautiful child. After all, look at his mother.”
Corbin’s voice was soothing in her ear, his embrace confident and strong. She shouldn’t lean on him, should try to be strong, but she couldn’t. And she had no right to place all the blame on Corbin. She had been there that night. She had encouraged him, enjoyed their time together, and she had never hesitated or considered that there could be ramifications of their actions.
She tried to stop crying. “I did always want to be a mother.”
“Now you will be, and you will be fantastique . It will all work out.”
“I hope so.” Brittany relaxed a little. Corbin was pretty damn old, and he was a scientist, after all. He had said he was really close to an antidote to revert vampires to mortal. If anyone knew how to deal with the situation, it was him. She closed her eyes and leaned back against him. Maybe this would be okay.
“And we will get married, yes?”
Her eyes flew open. “No!” Why was he stuck on that?
There was a pounding on the outside door. Corbin moved away from her. “We are not finished discussing this.”
If he was talking about marriage, she was finished discussing. She was not going to bind herself to a man she barely knew. She didn’t even really know how old Corbin was, let alone what his personal likes and dislikes were, whether he was neat or a slob. She’d never even seen him naked, and how sad was that?
She checked out his butt as he left the room. It was very sad.
Ringo wondered if they knew he could hear every word they were saying.
Since his voluntary entry into rehab to quit the drug blood habit, he had gotten really damn good at meditation and the other new age crap his pseudo-girlfriend, Kelsey, kept encouraging him to do. The end result was that he was way more comfortable sitting still, listening, than he had ever been in his life, and with his vampire hearing, he had caught most of Corbin and Brittany’s conversation.
He had to admit, he’d had no clue vampires could knock women up. That was good info to have, if he didn’t want to create headaches for himself along the way.
And he also wondered if anyone would be interested in hearing that an Impure was carrying a three-quarter vamp bundle of joy. Like someone willing to pay for that information.
Like maybe his old drug pusher, now in New York awaiting his trial for treason.
Donatelli.
Brittany heard her sister’s voice at the door and went to save Corbin. If she knew Alexis, she’d have Corbin on the ground in a karate maneuver before he could say pardon .
She got there in the knick of time. Corbin was shaking his head, protesting in French to Ethan, while Alexis was bouncing on the balls of her feet. Brittany knew that stance. It meant someone was about to be kicked.
“Alex, don’t kick him!”
“Give me one good reason why not.”
“Because he is the father of my child.”
“That’s the reason why, not why not.”
“What?” Brittany tried to follow that logic, gave up, and settled for taking Alex’s hand and giving it a squeeze to prevent a full frontal attack.
Ethan and Corbin went back and forth in French—which she had to admit was sexy, even as she resented the fact that they were excluding her.
“I didn’t know Ethan speaks French,” she told her sister.
“I didn’t either.” Alexis was glaring at her husband. “He told me he spoke a smattering of French. Does that sound like a smatter to you?”
“I have no clue what a smatter sounds like.” Brittany looked around for a seat. She was exhausted and there were no comfortable seats in the suite. It was an artful arrangement of impractical, uncomfortable art deco furniture. She wanted a nice fat sofa with squishy cushions. Instead what she saw was a hard, squared-off set of chairs and a white sofa with a man lying on it.
It must be Ringo, and he looked uncomfortable, which any human being would when sitting on such crappy furniture. He was like an infant propped up in a seat, his shoulders and head drooping to the side, and his legs falling open. His back was taking the brunt of the awkward position, and Brittany had the urge to grab a sausage pillow and tuck it behind him.
“Can I get you a backrest or something?” she asked, feeling bad for him. “I’m Brittany, by the way.”
He opened his eyes and glanced at her curiously. He had dark eyes, expressionless, and she thought maybe she’d woken him up, because he didn’t speak.
Grabbing a throw pillow from the chair, she moved toward him. “Here, lean forward for a sec.”
He did, and she tucked, bending the pillow in half so it would fill the space behind his lower back.
“Thank you,” he said, his breath expelling on a sigh when he sank back. “And congratulations.”
“What?” Brittany stopped, half-standing, half-bent. Their eyes were almost level with each other, and he held her gaze without blinking.
“The baby. Congrats. You must be excited.”
It was a perfectly inane nothing for him to say, polite conversation, but a cold disturbing shiver rolled down Brittany’s spine. Ringo must have overheard when she and Corbin had been talking. It should have embarrassed her, to know that anyone had been witness to that bumbling debacle. But she felt an edgy unease more than embarrassment, and she stood up, moved back out of Ringo’s space.
“Thank you.”
“Brittany,” Ethan said, striding into the room. “I need to speak with you, please. Back at our apartment. Let’s go.”
“But I don’t think Corbin and I are done talking.” At least she hoped not. They hadn’t resolved anything. All they had really established was what they already knew—that Corbin had sperm, they’d had some romping good sex, and they were having a baby. Surely the conversation needed to go beyond that.
“I don’t care. We need to leave.”
Ethan could be just as stubborn as her sister, which made Brittany wonder how two such similar personalities managed to live together. Though she supposed it wasn’t like they could kill each other, given that they were immortal. They just had to fight it out.
But knowing how to handle Alexis’s stubbornness helped Brittany deal with Ethan now. “Okay, I’ll be there in two minutes. You go ahead without me.”
Ethan nodded. “Good.”
But Alexis was on to her. “If you’re not back at our place in five minutes I’m coming back for you.”
Damn. The conversation with Corbin would have to wait after all. Alexis wouldn’t play around. She’d be back in five minutes, karate kick at the ready. “Fine. I’ll just come with you now.”
She went over to Corbin, who was standing by the front door, arms crossed, looking annoyed. “So, if you think we still have some things to talk about, maybe we could get together in the next few days.” She didn’t want to pressure him, but she wanted to know how involved he intended to be so she could mentally deal with the logistics of raising a vampire baby, either alone or with his help.
“Of course we need to see each other. We have many, many things to discuss,” he said, French arrogance back in place. “I will come to you tonight.”
See, this was what had gotten her in trouble in the first place. When he did that whole appearing out of the dark sexy thing, she couldn’t help but get a little excited. She should tell him no, but they did need to talk. “Fine. But knock on the front door instead of coming in my window this time.”
He relaxed, uncrossed his arms, and cupped her cheek, stroking across her skin. Brittany stared into his pale green eyes, taking comfort in the strength and determination she saw there.
“Our baby will be fine, I am convinced of it. This child is not a mutant, or an aberration, or an accident, but a child born of passion, and I am honored that you will be his mother.”
Now that was a sweet thing to say. Brittany felt some of the tension in her ease. “Thank you. And you really think everything is okay?”
“Absolutely.”
“I’ll see you later then.” Brittany left, feeling much better.
Corbin watched Brittany leave with Carrick and her sister, and stuck his hand in his hair.
Mon Dieu , his child was going to be born a mutant.
A freak of nature, a bloodsucking baby. This was not good. And he had lied to Brittany. This was not fine, this was not okay, this was a complete and total genetic nightmare, and yet again he was to blame for such an act of total stupidity.
Nearly thirty years of mortal life, two hundred as a vampire, and he had never once gotten a woman with child. That he did now, with an Impure half-vampire/half-mortal woman, was a strange and cruel irony. Of course, skipping birth control in a century when it was available at every turn for less than a cup of coffee, was inexcusable.
Corbin had made mistakes before. Grave and unfortunate mistakes that had left one woman dead and his work in question.
But he was so close to finding a cure for vampirism. Success was just a few tests away and now this. He was such an idiot.
Corbin called in the guard who was standing in the hallway. “I must leave for a few hours. Keep an eye on Ringo.”
The guard nodded even as Ringo said, “I don’t need a baby-sitter. I’m not going to leave.”
A determined but belligerent patient, Ringo had been dealing with the withdrawal symptoms fairly well, but Corbin knew drug lust drove vampires to desperate measures. He preferred having a guard keeping an eye on Ringo. Especially since part of Corbin’s own punishment was essentially doing whatever the current government wanted him to do in exchange for being allowed to continue his research. Carrick was the head of that current government and Corbin didn’t want to anger him and jeopardize his work. Of course, getting his sister-in-law with child probably hadn’t endeared Corbin to Ethan Carrick.
He was such an idiot. He just couldn’t say it enough.
“I know you are not going anywhere. You’re technically under house arrest. He is just here to see to your comfort until I return. If you like, I can ask Kelsey to come and keep you company.”
Ringo made a face. “I’m really not in the mood to listen to her babbling.”
“Fine. I will be back later this evening.” After he’d had time to gather his thoughts and mentally slap himself around a few times. After he’d had a chat with Brittany about how they were going to proceed, and how soon they could marry. He would not heap further mistakes on top of the first by allowing her to raise an illegitimate child alone. Of that he was certain.
“Take as long as you want. I get sick of you hovering over me all the time. You make me feel like a kid with a disappointed father, you know that? It’s freaking annoying.”
Corbin winced as he headed out the door. A father. Good Lord, he was going to be a father. To a mutant child.
It did not bear thinking on.
Instead, he would head to his lab, and he, Corbin Jean Michel Atelier, would fix this.
Eventually. Somehow. Maybe.