“Allo?” he said.
“Where’s Brittany?”
There was a pause. “Alexis? Brittany should be at your apartment by now. Have you called her cell phone?”
“She’s not answering. Why didn’t she go to work today?”
“You mean you haven’t spoken to her at all? There was no message from her?”
“No.” Alexis started to feel annoyance and a nagging little worry morph into serious fear. “Was she supposed to call me? What’s going on?”
“Brittany was planning to ask for some assistance. That is all I wish to say at the moment.”
Every time she thought she might actually learn to like him, he had to go and piss her off. “Ethan and I need to talk to you and Brittany. Get your French ass over here.”
“I will be there in a few hours. I have an issue or two to resolve here first. Brittany and I intend to meet at your apartment around eleven.”
That wasn’t good enough. “Gwenna is here.”
“Gwenna Carrick?” Corbin sounded surprised. “Why?”
“She has something she needs to share with you and Brittany.”
“Perhaps I can get there sooner.”
She thought so. “Good idea.” Even though she meant to play it cool, she couldn’t help voicing her suspicion. “Are you two planning to elope?”
There was a pause. “No. That is not what we are planning.”
The words should have been reassuring, but instead they scared the crap out of her.
Brittany had spent her whole life in Las Vegas, and had frequented her fair share of casinos and bars in her teens and early twenties. But she had never been inside a suite at the Bellagio.
She would have been impressed with the luxury and the amazing décor if she hadn’t been tied to a chair and scared out of her everlovin’ mortal mind.
There were two guards posted on either side of the door. A woman lounged on a divan reading a book, her long legs crossed at the ankle, her expression bored and disinterested. And three men staring at Brittany, each in a club chair that matched hers. One was Ringo, and he looked half-asleep, a glass of blood in his hand that he continually sipped from. She briefly wondered if a vampire could overdose on drugs, because he looked perilously close to a coma. One of the other two was Donatelli. Her father. He gave her encouraging smiles, alternated with inquiries into how they might make her stay more comfortable. Would she care for a pillow? A drink? A bite to eat? It was irritating to listen to him being so civil, when she was strapped down like cumbersome luggage on a car top. But the annoyance she felt at Donatelli was nothing compared to the fear she felt when she looked at the third man. He was huge, with a thick beard, broad shoulders, and fat, hairy hands. His appearance wasn’t the only reason he terrified her. She wasn’t real thrilled with the sick smile on his face. He was enjoying her fear. And his eyes were dead, empty. Insane. He didn’t speak, so she tried not to look at him. She concentrated her attention on Donatelli, who was doing all the talking.
It appalled her to look Donatelli in the face and admit to herself that he was her father. That he had oozed oily charm and suckered her mother into bed, and she was the result of that illustrious encounter. What was worse, though, was the realization that he knew she was pregnant. There was no hiding it. And it was clearly the reason she’d been brought there, because Donatelli’s overly casual questions all focused on the baby and Corbin.
“So when are you due?” he asked, crossing his leg.
She didn’t answer.
“Come now, no need to demur. I can see that you are at least four or five months along. April? That is a pleasant month to give birth. Lots of walks in the spring sunshine. Good for you and the baby.”
Moving her head to flip her hair out of her eyes, she kept her mouth shut. She didn’t know what he wanted or why, and she didn’t want to give him whatever information he must be seeking.
“And Atelier will be there when you give birth? That is so charming.”
It wasn’t hard to stay quiet. She had no interest in making chitchat with him.
What she wasn’t prepared for was the big, boorish man to suddenly stand up and smack her cheek with the back of his hand. He moved so fast she couldn’t even try to shield the blow, and it stung like hell, ripping tears out of her eyes and an involuntary gasp from her mouth.
“Show some respect and answer.”
Brittany flinched, but he only returned to his seat. The woman on the couch gave a casual glance up before turning the page of her book.
“I’m due in April,” Brittany said quickly when he made like he was going to stand up again, hand raised. She was actually due in May, but Donatelli had guessed April, and it felt safer to lie.
Donatelli sat forward, elbows on his knees, a frown on his face. “Really, Gregor, that was not necessary.”
“She gave you an answer, did she not?” Gregor’s accent was thick. Russian.
“I’m sure she’s willing to be reasonable, aren’t you, Brittany?” Donatelli asked, giving her a charming smile.
“I can be reasonable.” In her head, she screamed for Ethan, hoping he would hear her cry for help. She was afraid to call for Corbin, fearful of what would happen if he showed up and the men in front of her forced Corbin to hand over his research. Besides, her mental connection with Corbin had been silent since their second separation, after she had told Corbin about the baby. She didn’t understand why, but they could only hear each other during sex.
Alexis had never been able to hear Brittany’s thoughts, but Ethan could. Once he’d even heard her cry out from an amazing orgasm the first time she’d been with Corbin, and Ethan had been miles away from them, which had been really damn embarrassing. But surely he would hear her fear now if he had been able to hear her pleasure then.
“We know Atelier is the father of your baby. What we need to know is what he plans to do with your child.”
“Nothing.”
“So he has told you nothing about his plans?”
She shook her head, confused. What did they think Corbin was going to do with her baby?
“Alright, that’s fine. Perhaps he hasn’t been forthcoming with you. You are a surrogate. No need for him to share everything with you.”
Brittany frowned. A surrogate? Why would they think that? She glanced at Ringo, who had heard her telling Corbin he was the father of her child. He knew she wasn’t a surrogate. Why would he lie to Donatelli? But he clearly had, and his face revealed nothing. His eyes were hard, glassy, going in and out of focus.
“I’ve done everything I was supposed to,” she said carefully. “I’ve taken vitamins, I’ve been to the doctor, I’ve gone to childbirth classes. What do you want?” It wasn’t hard to put a tremor into her voice. Her fear was legit.
“Why did you do it? Having a baby isn’t the easiest way to earn a dollar.” Donatelli asked, “Did you really need the money that badly? Is your dental practice failing?”
Brittany was a good liar. Much better than Alexis, who was incapable of hiding her feelings. “I... I... got into some gambling debt.” She glanced at her lap, as if she were ashamed. “I owe fifty grand, and I didn’t want my sister and her husband to know. Atelier offered me a hundred to have his baby.”
Donatelli whistled. “Gambling. So like a woman to be weak. What is your game?”
It had been years since she’d played, but she said, “Blackjack.” She knew the rules to that, could answer questions about it.
“We’ll give you a hundred and twenty-five thousand if you give the baby to us.”
The shocked gasp she gave wasn’t faked either. “But it’s his sperm. His kid.”
Gregor stood up and came at her. Brittany tried to shrink back, but his thick hand grabbed a handful of hair on the top of her head and yanked her back so she was staring straight up at him, the pain making her wince. “Maybe I’ll just bury my own sperm in you. What do you think of that?”
She thought she was going to be sick. Her stomach roiled and she was sure she was going to vomit right into his salt-and-pepper beard. It wasn’t hard to believe him. He looked like he could rape her and enjoy it.
There was a torrent of Russian from the woman on the couch. Gregor broke eye contact with Brittany and turned around. She breathed deeply, trying to calm her stomach down, clamp down on her terror, hold on to her nerve.
“Your wife doesn’t seem pleased with that idea,” Donatelli said in amusement.
“My wife does not speak English. But she is still a jealous little minx.” He let go of Brittany’s hair with a jerk and moved toward the woman. “Sasha.”
But the woman was up off the couch, flouncing away, her hair bouncing down her back, her little backside swaying. Her chin was tilted indignantly. Brittany wanted to throw something at her. Like a boulder. Or a grand piano. How could she just sit there and let her husband tie up a pregnant woman? Of course, she had to be a heartless bitch to be married to a beast like Gregor.
“That is why I’ll never get married again,” Donatelli commented as Gregor followed Sasha out of the room. He crossed one leg over the opposite knee. “Now are you agreeable to our terms?”
“What do you want the baby for?” With Gregor gone, she felt emboldened. Donatelli didn’t seem nearly as threatening.
“Sasha has always yearned for a child.”
That woman wasn’t raising her baby. No way, Russian José. “What do you have to do with all of this?”
“I’m the middleman. The negotiator. As you can see, Gregor has poor social skills.”
“The answer is no.”
He grimaced. “That is the wrong answer. I will continue to ask the question until you give the right answer.”
“No. I may not have intended to keep this baby, but it is still a baby. It belongs with its father.”
Donatelli sighed. “All these goddamn ethics are so exhausting. I’m trying to be reasonable. Spare you the rod.”
A high-pitched moan floated out from the next room. Brittany couldn’t prevent a grimace. She so did not need to hear that at the moment. It was Sasha, giving an exuberant cry of pleasure, which was seriously gross, considering that her husband was just about Satan with facial hair.
Yet Ringo actually stirred and glanced toward the door, naked longing on his face, and a good-sized tent in his pants. Blech. She didn’t need to see that any more than she wanted to hear Sasha and Gregor getting it on.
Which was getting more disgusting by the minute, a nice rhythm building to the groans and yelps. Sasha did the Russian version of an “oh, oh, yes, oh, oh, aahh,” over and over. And over and over. You know, if Brittany wasn’t mistaken, there was actually some faking going on there. Having pulled that a time or two in her life, she recognized the signs. Sasha’s voice was too even, too rhythmic, too poised. Gregor was silent, which made her wonder where his tongue was, which made her stomach flip again.
At least Donatelli seemed unnerved and uninterested. But he also held his hand out to her. “Sleep, Brittany.”
She tried to resist, tried to close her mind to him, but she felt herself falling under, into darkness.
“If she is not here, where is she?” Corbin asked, staring at Alexis, who was wringing her hands together.
“I don’t freaking know! That’s what I’m telling you,” Alexis shouted at him. “No one has seen her all day. She’s not answering her cell phone and she’s not at home. I went over there. Her car is in the driveway, but she’s not there.”
“Did it look like she’d been packing?” he asked. Brittany was probably just en route to Alexis’s and had stopped at the grocery store or the bank. Though he found it odd that she had not called Alexis. She knew she needed Ethan’s assistance to get new identification.