by Heidi Betts
There had been another woman, a very, very long time ago, who’d touched him the way Chloe did. One he’d been this attracted to, cared for this strongly. She was long gone, though, and despite the thin thread of loss that would always run through him, Chloe was the first woman in decades, possibly centuries, that he’d opened himself up to in such a deeply emotional way.
He wasn’t ready to use the L-word quite yet.
Was it possible? Yes.
He thought about her often enough. Thought about being with her, making love to her, simply talking with her over a glass of wine or while they were lying in bed.
When they weren’t together, he wished they were. At dawn each morning, as he was preparing for The Deep Sleep, he pictured her in his mind, knowing she was likely getting ready for bed, too, after a long night of being onstage. When he awoke again at dusk, he thought of her once more, wondering if she was up yet and what she might be doing. He didn’t usually wait long to call and find out, either.
So the L-word was on the horizon, he was aware of that. And, frankly, he thought it would be rather nice to be in love with the woman he was going to be married to for the next several years. Possibly eternity, if it worked out that way.
He hoped it did. Sebastian might enjoy his lone wolf lifestyle, but Aidan needed more.
He was charming and intelligent, sure. He wasn’t too shabby when it came to business dealings, either. Sebastian might be the casino mogul, the one who owned milliondollar properties all over Las Vegas and the world, but if Aidan had wanted to, he very easily could have followed in his brother’s footsteps. He’d built this high-end apartment complex, hadn’t he?
The problem was, big business and real estate didn’t interest him. It was sad to realize, this many years into his existence, that he wasn’t sure what did.
No, he hadn’t spent his entire life—before or after his turning—aimless and uncertain. He’d had jobs. Careers, even. Hobbies and passions and moneymaking ventures. Sebastian had always been the more focused of the two brothers in that respect, but Aidan was no sloucher.
At the moment, though—for quite a while now, actually—he was floundering a bit. Nothing seemed to catch his interest, or at least didn’t hold it for long.
Nothing, that is, until Chloe.
She had caught his interest in the blink of an eye. The sparkle of a sequin. The twitch of a tail feather. And unlike everything else that had come and gone, she was still holding on strong.
Meeting her had been the catalyst to Aidan’s beginning to think about what he did want for his life these days. It wasn’t money; he had plenty of that. Or fame; he was no Brad Pitt, and the attention he got just from being a frequent partygoer was plenty enough. Or immortality; he had that, too, in spades.
What he wanted—he was pretty sure, anyway—was a home. Family. All of those things that came to mind when studying a Normal Rockwell painting or watching a scene on television of a busy park full of playing children and parents watching them with eagle eyes.
He couldn’t have all of that, he knew. It was possible for vampires to procreate, but not easily. And no children had ever been born of a vampire/human mating, which meant kids were off the table entirely unless Chloe agreed to be turned. Or they adopted, but that opened a whole other can of worms.
But that wasn’t even the issue. If he’d wanted kids alone, he could have limited his dating to other vampires. There weren’t a lot of them out there wandering around—certainly not as many as there were sun walkers—but they did exist, and he’d had his fair share of affairs with several of the fanged-and-female variety over the decades.
What he wanted was the home and hearth and haven of being with someone he truly cared about and who cared about him. Someone to come home to, to wake up with in the evening, to maybe adopt a shelter dog with so they could take long, leisurely walks in the moonlight.
Plus, Chloe was the first woman in a hell of a long time who had sent all of his wheels spinning to a milliondollar jackpot. So he’d met her first, then started feeling the tugs toward commitment.
And she’d seemed just as eager to settle down with him. Sure, he realized his wealth was a heady lure. She could very well have been a gold-digger, out to hitch her wagon to his star and live extremely well off of her husband’s millions.
Something told him, though, that wasn’t the case. She was too open, too genuine for those kinds of games or deceptions.
Which made him think they might actually have a shot at making things work. Yes, he was a vampire and probably should have told her that before he’d popped the big question and talked her into eloping. But once she came to terms with his little condition and accepted the changes that would have to be made to adapt to his unique lifestyle, they could still do the modern blood-drinker’s version of the white picket fence, right?
A vampire could hope.
Of course, there was still the small problem of Chloe not believing one hundred percent that he was a vampire.
He’d already bitten her, drained her of enough blood to send her reeling, and given her any number of amazing, otherworldly orgasms. Did she think she could come like that with some lame-ass mortal man? Yet she apparently required further proof.
Not an easy feat, considering how well his kind blended with the rest of humanity. With the exception of being allergic to the sun, sleeping rather soundly during the day, and needing to ingest blood to survive, he doubted anyone could pick a true vampire out of a lineup.
“We’re going to have to wait until morning,” he said suddenly, spinning around to face her. The crack of his voice in the otherwise dead silence startled her so that she jumped and finally let go of her neck.
“What?”
“Going into the sunlight. It’s the only thing I can think of that will convince you. But obviously we’ll need to wait a while, since it’s dark outside right now.”
“What are we going to do until then?”
An easy smile spread across his face and he waggled his brows at her. “I’ve got a few ideas.”
Her own brows rose to her hairline above her Frisbee-wide eyes. “Doubtful, Bite Boy. You really are crazy if you think I’m going to let you touch me after being told I married a vampire. One who bit me on my wedding night, no less.”
“I told you I was sorry about that.”
Her mouth twisted wryly. “I don’t know if you can apologize for putting a hole in someone’s jugular. Two holes.”
He didn’t know quite what to say about that, so he said nothing.
A minute later, her nose scrunched. “How do you go around biting people and not leaving big, ugly, very obvious wounds on their necks?”
She wasn’t cowering in fear anymore, which he took as a good sign. And if she was asking questions, wanting to know more about how he lived, then maybe she was opening up to the idea of exactly what he was.
Moving slowly, he stepped to the sofa and took a seat at the opposite end to her, making sure not to spook her by getting too close. No throwing up his arms like he was wearing a cape and doing the whole scary Count Dracula thing.
Stoker really hadn’t done them any favors with that one, the jerk-off.
“We possess an enzyme. In our saliva,” he explained. “After we drink, we lick the wound to close it and begin rapid healing.”
Her fingertips once again traced her own fang-dots. “These don’t seem to be healing all that fast. And that still doesn’t explain why people aren’t walking around with bite marks everyone and their mothers can see.”
Eyes going wide, she sat back and gave a small gasp. “Unless that’s the motivation behind the whole scarf fad. I never understood the point when only about three of every ten women can pull it off. And turtlenecks . . .”
She gave a small shudder to show how she felt about that particular fashion statement. Of course, Chloe was far from a turtleneck kind of woman. She was every man’s fantasy, with a body Hugh Hefner only wished he could get in his magazine. She rarely did
long sleeves, let alone anything that hid her amazing cleavage.
“I’m sure scarves have come in handy a time or two,” he told her. “But most times the enzymes begin to heal the wound within only a few hours.”
She gave him a look he had no trouble interpreting. Licking his lips, he returned a sheepish one of his own.
“I was too eager, too rough with you. I did give the wound a cursory swipe, but because of my . . . over-enthusiasm, I may not have done it carefully enough, and it may take longer than usual for you to heal completely.”
“So I’m what? Scarred for life?”
He winced at that, considering the expression’s double meaning. “No. At least, I don’t think so. The marks should heal the same as any cut, leaving behind maybe just the tiniest hint that they were ever there. And I promise, next time I’ll be sure to patch you up properly.”
The minute the words were out of his mouth, she was up and off the sofa. Her turn to pace, apparently.
“I told you, there isn’t going to be a next time. I’m not entirely sure I believe there was a last time. This is all just a little too bizarre for me, you know?”
“I know. I’m sorry. I never should have let things between us go as far as they have without telling you. I didn’t mean to lie to you, but that’s exactly what I’ve done. It was a lie of omission, and for that, I apologize.”
With a huff, she threw up her hands. “Stop it!” she nearly yelled at him. “Just stop apologizing.”
“But I truly am sorry,” he continued. He didn’t know how else to convince her. “I should have come clean with you from the very beginning, or at the very least before we ran off to that Little Blue Chapel and tied the knot. It wasn’t fair to you, and I need you to believe that I really am—”
“Don’t say sorry,” she ground out. Putting her hands to her temples, she rubbed as though fighting the beginning of a headache. “Don’t apologize to me one more time.”
“But I need you to understand—”
“I do,” she interrupted him again. “I do understand. But every time you apologize for keeping your secret from me, you make me feel like a piece of crap.”
That brought him up short. Narrowing his gaze, he thought about it for a minute, then asked warily, “Why?”
Chloe let her arms fall to her sides, gave a long-suffering sigh, and turned her head to meet his gaze. “Because I lied to you, too.”
Seven
This was so not how she’d wanted to break the news to him. Then again, she hadn’t exactly wanted to be married to a man who claimed to be a vampire, either.
He was so adamant about it, too. And she’d seen the fangs, the inhumanly glowing eyes, and had a tender, scabby bite mark on her throat.
If it looked like a duck, quacked like a duck, waddled like a duck . . . Let’s just say there was a part of her that was beginning to believe he was a duck.
She also believed he was sorry for not breaking the news to her sooner. He couldn’t have been more convincing on that score. But the fact that he’d admitted something personal and questionable to her meant she couldn’t stay here any longer and pretend she hadn’t been lying to him, too.
Releasing a pent-up breath, she returned to her spot on the sofa, sitting down with her head bowed and her hands clasped together between her knees. She continued to breathe, sucking air into her lungs like an asthmatic, then letting it out. Sucking in, blowing out.
“So here’s the deal,” she said, trying to work her way up to the whole shebang. “I’m not exactly who you think I am, either.”
Slanting a glance in his direction, she saw that there was no censure on his handsome face. Where she’d flipped out, gone straight for the “you lied to me!” crazy white woman banshee response, he merely looked curious. His expression was eager and interested, but otherwise blank. Which only made her feel worse.
Tamping down on her guilt, she took another deep, stabilizing breath, squeezed her eyes shut, and blurted out, “I have a son.”
Eyes still squinted tight, she waited. For what, she wasn’t sure. Questions, accusations, a violent outburst? When none came, she slowly pried open one eye, then the other.
He wasn’t angry. If anything, he looked positively gleeful.
“You have a son?” he asked.
She nodded. “His name is Jake. He’s four years old.”
When those details were met with more silence, she shifted on the sofa and began wringing her hands. Fidgeting. That’s what she was doing. Her stomach was in knots and her heart was pounding harder than it had when she’d thought Aidan was going to bite her again.
“I had an affair with this guy a few years ago,” she began, knowing she was about to ramble, but somehow unable to stop herself. “He was rich and attractive, and I really thought we had something. I thought he might be The One. Then I got pregnant.”
With a sigh, she leaned back, pulling her legs up and wrapping her arms around them, her chin on her knees. “I didn’t do it to trap him, in case that’s what you’re thinking.”
And then to herself, Sound defensive much, Chloe?
Yes, she did. For good reason, she supposed. She hadn’t gotten pregnant on purpose, even though she really had believed Peter was her Prince Charming.
Just like she’d said, he’d been everything she wanted in a man—rich, attractive, charming, successful. Marrying him would have saved her from a life on the stage and dying covered in sequins and feathers, the same as she was now hoping marriage to Aidan would do.
Of course, the minute she’d told him the stick had turned blue, he’d dropped her like a flaming bag of dog poo. Dumped her, and broken her heart a second time on his way out by telling her she’d been a nice piece of ass, but he’d never seen her as anything other than a temporary amusement, considering he was already married with other legitimate children at home.
She’d cried herself sick for two weeks after that. Cried and puked, cried and puked, and she didn’t think it’d had the least bit to do with morning sickness. That hadn’t really kicked in until Peter was far enough away to be little more than a dot on the horizon.
Now here she was, making the same mistakes all over again. Only this time, she wasn’t knocked up, and the most eligible bachelor she’d managed to find was a self-proclaimed bloodsucker.
“That’s not what I was thinking,” Aidan assured her.
She gave herself a mental head shake, glad to be dragged out of her maudlin thoughts. Not that their current conversation was much cheerier.
“I was actually wondering why you didn’t say anything before now. All the times we were out, talking about our pasts and our families. Admittedly, we both skipped over a lot, but I’m surprised you never mentioned you had a child. Or that you needed to get home to take care of him.”
“Are you implying that I’m a bad mother?” she asked in a deceptively low, steady voice. If he thought she’d gone off the deep end when he’d confessed to the whole unholy, unnatural, unbelievable undead thing, he wouldn’t even want to be in the same county when she reacted to the implication that she was an unfit parent. Because that’s one topic she was defensive about.
“Of course not,” Aidan replied, as though that had been the furthest thing from his mind.
Blowing out a breath, she let the tension leak from her muscles and bones. She really needed to stop jumping to conclusions and getting her panties in a bunch before she had all the facts, but where Jake was concerned, she was a complete mama bear.
Bad enough she worked nights and slept much of the day while Jake was awake.
Bad enough she worked on The Strip, in a casino where drunks and gamblers and all manner of lowlifes hung out to watch her shake her bon-bon, proposition her, or pat her on the ass.
Bad enough that one day, when Jake was a bit older, his friends and schoolmates would likely start to think as their fathers did—that “showgirl” was just a fancy term for “whore”—and torment him with cruel jabs aimed at his mother’s job and r
eputation.
She had enough to feel guilty about, but where her son’s health, happiness, and well-being were concerned, she took her job as his mother very seriously.
“Most people who have children love to talk about them, though,” Aidan continued. “Brag about them. Show off their pictures. I’m just surprised you were able to keep him a secret for so long.”
He was right, it hadn’t been easy not to talk about Jake. A thousand times, his name had leapt to her lips, and she’d nearly let the cat out of the bag. Nearly pointed to a game or toy in a store window Jake would have loved . . . nearly let his picture in her wallet be seen . . . nearly said she needed to call it an early night so she could get home to her little boy.
Licking her lips, she ignored the gooseflesh breaking out over her arms and told him the truth. “I was afraid you wouldn’t be interested in me anymore if you knew I had a kid.”
For a second, he said nothing. Then he blinked like an owl—a really sexy owl—and said, “Well, that’s just stupid.”
Chloe didn’t know whether to be offended or relieved by that response. She chose to be relieved.
Before she could say anything, though, Aidan asked, “So where is he now?”
That wasn’t quite what she’d expected, so it took her a second to answer. “At home. With my mother.”
Startling her once again, he hopped to his feet and clapped his hands in front of him. “Let’s go see him.”
“What?”
“I want to meet him. He’s my stepson now, right? So I should get to know him.”
He looked positively giddy at the very prospect, but all Chloe could think was that Aidan was a vampire . . . or at least claimed to be one . . . and taking a vampire to meet her little boy didn’t exactly scream Mother of the Year.
“It’s late,” she told him. “You said it’s nighttime already. He might be asleep by now.”