Bled Dry (Vegas Vampires #3)(43)
Author: Erin McCarthy

It felt right.

Maybe they could modify his marriage idea to cohabitation. It would be good to have several months together in that kind of intimate relationship before the baby arrived. Brittany was willing to take the plunge. She’d even give up her apartment, go halfsies with him on a house, or a condo, because if they moved in together, she would put her heart, her energy, her resources into making it work. That was the way she was, and she liked the picture of her and Corbin sitting on their patio, watching their baby play in the sandbox.

The one thing she couldn’t see herself doing was marrying him. That scared her and she wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because she was afraid to fail. Maybe it was because marriage had never brought her mother happiness. Maybe it was because in twenty years she’d be sagging and Corbin would still be gorgeous.

Or maybe it was because she was an idiot.

All were credible possibilities.

And the bottom line was if she had doubts, she shouldn’t marry him. Living together, though, that was different. That could work.

Trying not to disturb him, Brittany rolled to her left and shimmied out from under the sheet. It felt like her stomach had grown just since the night before, and the baby was making that fluttery ticklish sensation beneath her belly button. “Good morning,” she whispered to Coco Renee, or whoever she would wind up being, pressing her hand over the movement.

Brittany wandered into the other room, yawning. First thing they would have to fix when they moved in together was the food situation.

“Jesus.” She blanched when she opened the fridge, hoping for OJ to miraculously appear, and instead found herself face to face with bags of blood. She should have known better. She never went in Alex’s refrigerator anymore.

“Note to self: Get two fridges for new house.” And what the hell was that noise?

Brittany heard a chirping beep over and over, coming from Corbin’s lab room. She glanced toward the door, curious in spite of herself. But strolling into a room full of viral test tubes didn’t seem like a hot idea. On the other hand… maybe she could just poke her head around the corner. If anything were toxic, Corbin wouldn’t leave the door open.

A quick glance inside showed a room very normal in appearance. It looked like an office, with cabinets and laminate countertops running around three walls. There were test tubes and a refrigerator—she so did not want to know what was in there—but everything else seemed to be tucked away into the cabinets. Corbin was neat in his work space. It was one of the three computers that was making the noise. It seemed to be some kind of alarm alert, like Brittany’s reminder chime that went off the morning she had a doctor’s appointment.

What did Corbin have on his night’s schedule? Sample collection at eleven? She remembered how she had seen him using pleasure to daze a woman while he withdrew her blood, and she hoped like hell he’d stopped using that particular method. Science be damned, she wasn’t going to tolerate his lips on anyone else if they were going to make this work.

What exactly did Corbin do all night?

The question rolled around in her head, set her imagination racing. She doubted his research would make any sense to her, but then again she’d gotten a bachelor’s degree in biology, and had gone to dental school. She knew her anatomy and physiology, and had a rudimentary knowledge of pharmaceuticals in general, and a vast knowledge of analgesics. What exactly was involved in Corbin’s vaccine?

Glancing back toward the bedroom, she couldn’t see him because of the angle of the door, but Corbin wasn’t making any sound.

This was nosy and wrong. What if he had  p**n  on his computer screen? What if he had financial data listed? What if he got e-mails from obsessive women who wanted him to bite them again?

But if it was any of the above, wasn’t she entitled to know?

Brittany chewed her bottom lip. Alex would have poked through his entire hard drive in the time she’d been standing there debating. She moved forward, tugging her sleep shirt down.

It wasn’t  p**n . A reassuring beginning.

The screen showed a row of numbers, and the beeping seemed to indicate Corbin needed to do something to continue on with whatever analysis or program he was running. Nothing particularly interesting. But it was what was sitting next to the computer that suddenly caught her attention. A plastic bag marked BALDIZZI, BRITTANY with a bar code underneath. And inside that bag was one of her dark hairs, still long from before she’d cut it.

What the frick was that? Why did he have her hair and when had he taken it? The thought that he’d picked a hair off her pillow after they’d made love sat wrong. And if he was running tests on her for something, drugs, DNA, whatever, he could have mentioned it to her first. The bar code was labeled BB1977. Which she realized was the same damn code sitting right on Corbin’s computer screen. He was running her DNA through some kind of software. It wasn’t a spreadsheet she was seeing, it was a search.

Next to her number was another code—RD1021 and an explanatory paragraph that spouted a whole bunch of words and numbers, the end result of which was the claim that, given all points of comparison, the specimen matched to within a 0.4 percent margin of error, establishing a positive paternity.

Oh. My. God. Corbin had found her biological father. RD1021 was her father, whoever the hell he was.

“What do you mean? Who’s Roberto?” Alexis asked stupidly, her hands wrapped in Gwenna’s tiny ones.

“How could Donatelli know about the baby?” Ethan asked, looming behind her, his voice tight and angry.

“Donatelli?” Oh, crap. The last man in the world Alexis wanted to catch wind of her sister’s situation. That pig would sell his mother for a quick buck. That is, if she hadn’t died about a thousand years earlier and Donatelli wasn’t a vampire.

“Yes, he knows. And he’s here, in Las Vegas, to investigate. I don’t think he knows your sister is the mother, but he knows there is a baby, the Frenchman’s child, and that he will be a special opportunity for bargaining with Atelier.”

“Bastard.” Alexis squeezed Gwenna’s hands, anger flaring. “I’ll kill him before he touches my niece or nephew.”

“How do you know Donatelli knows?”

Uh-oh. Big brother was suspicious. Alexis knew that tone from Ethan and it wasn’t a happy one. She let go of Gwenna and put her hand on his arm, feeling the taut, tense muscles.

Gwenna’s cheeks went pink and she looked at the floor. “I can still read Roberto’s thoughts if I try. He is open to me even if he doesn’t realize it. Normally nothing tempts me to listen, but two days ago, I felt sudden, intense anger from him—directed at me.” She tucked her hair behind her ear, her long, lithe fingers fluttering a little.