Bled Dry (7 page)

“Brittany, tell me about your childhood.”

“Oh, uh.” Maybe they shouldn’t go there. Brittany crossed her legs and cleared her throat. “Well, you know, I grew up here in Vegas.”

“And your mother was a stripper?”

“Yes.” She wasn’t ashamed of that, not in the least, but it probably didn’t mesh with Corbin’s image of Mother Material. “My mom died when I was thirteen.”

“I am sorry. How did she die?”

“She overdosed on painkillers.”

“You were very young to be without a mother.”

“I had Alex. She was eighteen and she took care of me, kept me on the straight and narrow, and put me through school. I’m normal and well adjusted, Corbin, I swear. My childhood wasn’t a walk in the park, but it wasn’t hell either. We had food and a roof over our heads, and our mom loved us in her way. We even had a stepfather for a few years who was fantastic and provided a positive male role model in our lives. I can be a soccer mom, I want to be a soccer mom, even if that’s not the way I was raised.”

“Soccer mom?” Corbin looked puzzled.

He really was out of the domestic loop. Too much night dwelling. “A suburban mother who drives a minivan full of her kids and their friends back and forth to soccer practice. It’s sort of a general term for a suburban mom who spends a lot of time ferrying kids around.”

“Ah,” he said, but it didn’t look like he was getting it.

“How were you raised?”

“My parents were very wealthy French landowners who escaped to England during the Terror. I was born in London, but was sent to boarding school in France when we returned to the Continent after the defeat of Napoleon. My early years were spent learning to fence, learning to ride, and tending to my education. I did not spend much time with my parents, as it would have been unseemly for them to attend to my daily care.”

Wonderful. They could just scratch using their own experiences off their parenting skills checklist. If they did that, Brittany would be popping Vicodin and Corbin would be too busy with his opera house mistress to ever see them. They were going to have to use common sense and do this their own way.

“Okay, if we’re putting this in a nineteenth-century context, think of me as coming from a middle-class merchant family. How would a tradesman have raised his child?”

It was meant to get him to look at child-rearing in a more hands-on way, but Corbin merely stared blankly at her.

“How should I know?” he asked. “I was not a tradesman.”

Brittany felt the urge to smile, but squeezed her lips together tightly. “Maybe we should hit the bookstore and get some parenting books.”

That seemed to offend him. “I do not need to read a book to learn how to raise a child. Zat is absurd.”

“I mean it as an information-gathering expedition. We should know our facts, see where we stand on the issues.”

“I know the facts. You are expecting my child. That is the only fact that is relevant.”

Yeesh, he was damn cute when he was being so French.

“Thank you,” he said. “Though I am not fond of the descriptive
cute
.”

“What... ” Brittany felt her cheeks heat up. “Get out of my head, Corbin! Stop listening to my thoughts.”

“They were wide open to me,” he said with a twirl of his hand. “I was not fishing. They floated over to me.”

That was so annoying. Brittany attempted to do a mental door slam on her thoughts. “
Anyway
. How do you feel about an epidural versus a natural childbirth?”

“I think that is entirely your decision since you are the parent giving birth. I would not presume to tell you what to do.”

Score one point for Corbin. Brittany smiled at him. “Inducing labor? Cesarean sections?”

“I am not an obstetrician. We will discuss those issues with your doctor should they arise.”

Geez, he was unshakable, with an answer for everything. He was looking stiff and determined, resigned to do his duty, and didn’t look like he’d be curling up with a baby-naming book anytime soon. While she was grateful he wanted to do the responsible thing, she didn’t want her child to have a father who resented his role.

“Do you think a baby can ever get too much love?” She wouldn’t be able to stand it if Corbin was going to ride her for spoiling their child with attention. She was a cuddler, and she was going to cuddle the heck out of their baby while she had the chance.

His eyes narrowed. “Am I being interviewed for the role of father?”

“No!” Not really. “Of course not. I just think it’s important we get to know each other’s parenting style. See where the other one is coming from, so we can iron out any differences ahead of time before we’re up to our ankles in diapers and bottles.”

He continued like she hadn’t spoken. “Because I am the father and zat is indelible. Unchangeable.”

Next he’d be slapping her face with a glove and challenging her to a duel. He was so outraged in an old-fashioned way and she thought he was adorable. “I know. Chill out.”

“I will not chill, as you say. I will answer all your questions, but then I demand the right to ask some of my own.”

“Fine. Absolutely. So what do you think about the whole letting a baby cry thing?” Brittany wasn’t sure about it herself. She saw both sides of the issue and figured it fell into the category of feeling her way through it.

Corbin frowned. “Babies cry. I don’t understand how that is a question.”

“Some people think you should pick them up right away, other people think you should wait five minutes and let them cry it out.”

“I have no opinion at this time,” Corbin said stiffly. “Though I would question what is the difference? If you can, you pick the babe up. If you cannot, you don’t. What is the grand debate?”

Well, that certainly put things in perspective. “What about the family bed?”

“The what?” Corbin tilted his head. “I think perhaps my modern English is not very good, as I have never heard those two words put together.”

“It’s where the parents and the child sleep in the same bed every night.” Brittany wasn’t sure how she felt about it, having known friends who were happy on both ends of the spectrum. She was open-minded and willing to try whatever was going to work for her and her child.

But the look of horror on his face gave her his stance on that particular issue.
“Why?”

“Um... for comfort and a sense of family, I guess. So a child doesn’t feel abandoned.” He didn’t want their baby to feel abandoned, did he?

Corbin made a snorting sound. “I can tell you right now that if you and I are sharing a bed, there will
not
be a child in it with us. Ever. For any reason. If you and I are not living together, and you choose to have our child in the bed with you, I will not interfere, but never could I be convinced that such a thing is either necessary or appropriate. That is my final word on that topic.”

Okay then. French vampire had spoken. Feelings of abandonment were not his concern. Duly noted.

“You are putting words in my mouth,” he accused. “I would never, ever want our child to feel abandoned. As long as he is living, I will do my best to love and protect him.”

His last words made her forget how annoying it was that he seemed to have no problem reading her mind. “Corbin... I just realized that you won’t die. This baby and I, we’ll get old, we’ll die, and you and my sister and Ethan and Seamus and Cara, you’ll all just go on and on and on.” The thought made her unaccountably sad. They would all know entire centuries of living without her. “You’ll be like that old lady from
Titanic
and I’ll be Jack, a faded distant memory. You’ll be young and sexy and dating some exotic South American woman or something and I’ll be fertilizer.”

Brittany started to sniffle. Damn, the business about hormones really was true. She couldn’t stop tears from pooling up in her eyes.

Corbin swore, feeling guilty as hell. For getting Brittany pregnant, for making her cry, for war and poverty, for all human suffering, you name it, he felt guilty for it. A woman’s tears did horrible, cruel, vicious things to his insides, and even more so with Brittany because she was normally so cheerful, so sweet. He had reduced her to this, he had made it obvious to her that her sister would live long after she was dead and gone.

He wasn’t sure if now was the best time to tell her that the baby wouldn’t die either, that Corbin strongly suspected this child would be born immortal—not vampire, since he wouldn’t need blood, but not mortal either. Corbin expected the only one who would die in the equation would be Brittany herself and that thought was disquieting in the extreme. He had lost many people he had cared for in his early years as a vampire until he had isolated himself, focusing on his research, avoiding relationships.

Now he was in one up to his eyeballs.

“Brittany, hush, it is not so bad as all that.” What the hell was he saying? It was a goddamn mess. And she was out and out sobbing now.

Corbin stood up, unable to sit still. “We will take things one day at a time, yes? Let’s enjoy this blessing we have been given, and live in the now.” Vampires were good at that. You had to be, or you’d go mad. Though he was lousier at it than most, and prone to melancholy. Perhaps he should keep that flaw to himself, though.

Conviction swept over him. He pulled her to her feet and wiped her tears. “And I will not be dating a South American woman because I will be married to you.” That was the right thing to do. He knew it both intellectually and emotionally. It was the responsible, moral, and safe thing to do to ensure Brittany and the child’s protection. He knew all that, had determined it was the proper course of action.

Plus he found the idea of being married to Brittany Baldizzi appealing in the extreme. He wanted the right to make love to her whenever the urge struck him, and he wanted to be there with her and his child through all the trials and triumphs. He had been given a gift. For a brief period in his long, long vampire life, he could live as a mortal man did, with a beautiful wife and a child. He wanted that with a fierceness that surprised him.

Her shoulders slumped and she looked nervous. “Corbin... ”

“Do not protest. Let me show you how it can be between us.” Corbin brushed back her hair, certain he had found the answer, the solution to all the confusion and guilt he’d been feeling. Yes, a marriage of convenience, but one that was passionate and comfortable. “Let me court you, Brittany, and show you that together we can raise our child, enjoy each other’s company.”

“Court me?”

Brittany was easy to read. Her face hid nothing, and she always spoke the truth. At the moment, she looked intrigued and pleased by his proposal. Her cheeks were pink, and she was a bit glassy-eyed.

It seemed a very natural thing to kiss her. To just close the space between them. “Yes, court you.”

“I guess that would be okay,” she said in a whisper, his mouth cutting off any further words.

Her lips were warm, plump, open for him, and Corbin savored the taste of her. He put his arms around her, drew her tight in to him, and took the kiss deeper. Brittany was delicious, felt so good against him, and that was why he had lost control the first time he had kissed her, and turned a simple touching of the lips into impending fatherhood. He wouldn’t do that again—lose control, that is. But on the other hand, he could not get her pregnant a second time, and she felt so right, her soft sighs, her body flush against his spiking hot, eager desire. Surely he could indulge in a small taste of her charms.

She pulled her mouth back enough to murmur, “Corbin.”

“Yes,
ma chérie
?” He buried his hand in that thick dark hair that flowed down her shoulders and back. That sigh she gave was very pleasing and he wanted to taste more of her, deeper. He kissed her again, sliding his tongue inside to mate with hers.