Bled Dry (Vegas Vampires #3)(48)
Author: Erin McCarthy

“How du you nowb?” she asked, words thick from squeezing her nose shut. Closing her eyes, she fought a rising panic. Her father was a loon. Her mother had slept with a nutcase. The man she was falling in love with wanted to marry her only to protect their child from evil vampire forces. And she was going to die from a nosebleed.

“I read one of those baby manuals. What to expect when you are birthing an enfant or something like that.”

Somehow she didn’t think any book was titled that, but it wasn’t the time to quibble. She let go of her nose and gave a test sniffle. It seemed to have stopped bleeding as quickly as it had started. “Does Donatelli know he’s my father?”

Corbin shook his head. “I doubt it. If he did, he would have raised the issue during the election. He would have approached you long before Carrick did.”

He went back to the computer and started clicking again, moving files.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m deleting this match. In fact, I’m deleting your DNA results altogether from my database. I do not want Donatelli or anyone else to know that he is your biological father.”

“Why not?” she asked, even as she knew the answer.

“He’ll want the baby, Brittany. He’ll want to raise the child, groom him for power. You are carrying his grandchild. He’ll see the possibilities and want to act on them.”

Damn it, that’s what she’d been hoping he wouldn’t say. “No, Corbin, no. No, no, no. We can’t let him do that.” The thought of that man with her child—influencing her, keeping her from a normal, nurturing life—made every cell in her body vibrate in protest. It made her want to dissolve into a full-fledged hysterical panic. But she couldn’t. She needed to act, and it seemed there was only one obvious solution. “Shit. I just need to leave, don’t I? I need to change my hair, my name, start over somewhere else. Hide from him. Never let anyone know.”

Corbin stopped clicking and deleting, and slowly rubbed his forehead. “Mon Dieu. Brittany.” He turned to her and his face was hard, eyes agonized, a rich cobalt blue. “Maybe that would be the smartest thing to do. At least temporarily. If anyone asked, Alexis can just say her sister had moved to California or something. And then you can go to Atlanta or Boston, somewhere far from California. Hell, maybe Europe or India and get lost in the crowd.”

Wet washcloth wrung between her hands, Brittany nodded. “I’ll have to tell Alexis and Ethan, but no one else.”

“I’ll destroy all evidence of the biological connection. I will move my other files, then destroy this hard drive. It will take me a few hours.”

“Can you stay awake?” She knew how hard it was for vampires to function during the day.

“I’ll have to.” He nodded. “It will be fine. Everything is fine. You go and pack and I’ll pick you up tonight. We can leave immediately.”

That stopped her. Her mind had been racing ahead, mentally picking a replacement for her dental practice until she could sell it, trying to decide where she’d want to live, what her name might be. How she would need Ethan’s help to establish a new identity for herself. An identity by herself.

It had never occurred to her to take Corbin with her.

While part of her wanted to fling herself into his arms and let him fix everything, her pride, her independence, and mostly, her maternal instinct told her Corbin couldn’t leave with her.

“I was planning to go alone.”

He stopped clicking on things long enough to stare at her, mouth wide open. “Alone? No, I am going with you. I will protect you. Watch over you and the babe at night when you cannot.”

Brittany made note there was no mention of love or devotion or how he couldn’t picture his life without her.

But regardless of that, even if he did love her, which he clearly didn’t, he still couldn’t go with her. It was dangerous, she sensed that. Felt it instinctively. “Corbin.”

“Yes? Explain this to me. I cannot let you go without me.”

“You have to. No one knows you are the baby’s father, remember? That is the key to our success. No one knows about the baby. Or if they do, they will assume the father is mortal. That was your plan all along, and it was a good one, even if you didn’t tell me. If I leave, alone, no one will think twice about Alexis’s half-mortal sister moving to another state. No one will bother to check to see if I went where I said I was going. No one will care. If you leave with me, everyone will want to know where you went. And they will start to put two and two together and wonder if we left together. If vampires start asking questions, they might find answers we don’t want them to. They might get suspicious. They might eventually find us.”

He shook his head. “But… I cannot just let you go off into the night by yourself. I cannot.”

“You have to.” She swallowed the massive lump in her throat. “I know you want to protect us, and this is the best way. The same reason you wanted to marry me before is the same reason you can’t marry me now.”

It was a solid minute before he answered her. She could see the agony on his face, but she knew by the set of his jaw he had made the right decision.

“You are right.” He shook his head. “I hate it. I despise the idea of letting you go without me, but you are right. Brittany, I am so sorry that I have brought this all upon you. It is all my fault.”

“Hey, I was there that night, too.” And while she was terrified, she wasn’t sure she’d undo anything. She was having a baby, the child of the man she loved. That was worth any sacrifice, any inconvenience. And she would battle the devil himself to protect her baby. “Recriminations are a waste of time. I admit, I’m very angry that you didn’t disclose the danger of the situation to me, and it’s possible I’ll have a hard time getting past that, but it has nothing to do with my rationale here. We both know this is what we have to do. And I promise to let you visit if it’s safe, and I’ll send you updates and contact info through Ethan and Alex.”

At that, he stood up, and she realized that her words of reassurance had just undone her previous logic. In two seconds, he was on top of her, expression fierce and passionate, pulling her tight against him.

“There has to be another way, damn it.”

Brittany closed her eyes and let her face rest against his chest. “You know there isn’t another way.” She wrapped her arms around his middle and breathed deep. Touching him calmed her, and she savored the moment, knowing this might be the last time she was this close to him. “We have to think about the baby. That has to be our priority.”