Chapter Sixteen

"You're still worried about her, aren't you?"

Alexis picked at the eggs on her plate with her fork. "Yes." She abandoned the food and rubbed her eyes. They were eating— well, she was eating—room service in Ethan's suite before she left for work.

"She said she was fine." Ethan took a sip of his drink, which looked remarkably like a strawberry daiquiri, minus the cherry.

"I know." Alexis leaned back and unbuttoned the jacket of the suit she was wearing. "But I have something to tell you, Ethan."

She felt like hell, running on zero sleep, and worrying about Brit-tany. While showering and slapping some makeup on, she had re-alizedthat not only did she feel like hell, she looked like it, too. But she trusted Ethan, which kind of blew her mind, but she did, and she needed his advice.

He was looking at her, a touch of wariness in his eyes, his glass hovering in front of his mouth. "Yes?"

"The other night I got an e-mail inviting me to join a vampire slayers message list. I don't know who they are, or how they got my name. But what if they know aboutBrittany ? Do you think we should tell her? Is she safe out there inSummerlin by herself? Maybe she shouldcome stay here." Just the thought of telling her baby sister, hey, your dad was a vampire, made her sick, but she'd do whatever she had to do to keepBrittany safe.

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"Vampire slayers?"Ethan looked amused. "It's a minor annoyance to be so popular these days. We have to deal with these enthusiasts. I can't imagine thatBrittany is in any danger from them. But certainly, she is more than welcome here."

"Cool. Thanks, Ethan. I'll make her stay here for a while."

"Make her?" His eyebrow rose.

What? Like she was going to feel guilty? "Hey, it's for her safety! And maybe you should tell me everything there is to know about this undead thing, so I have all the facts before I decide whether to tellBrittany or not."

"What would you like to know?" He sat back in his chair, the perfect English gentleman. Who was very intense, rough around the edges, and drank blood.

"How did you become a vampire?" Alexis went back to her eggs, turning her plate a little on the white linen tablecloth of Ethan's round dining table.

"I was ambushed on the way home during the First Crusade. I was made a Turkish prisoner, starved, and beaten before they slit my throat. The guard turned me to vampire and helped me escape by tossing my body out with the dead."

Lovely."Why did he save you? He must have seen hundreds of prisoners die."

Ethan smirked. "Not he.She. Let's just say during my captivity she was impressed with my show of strength."

Alexis rolled her eyes. "So you're saying she had thehots for you? So what happened to her?"

His smile fell. "She was a young vampire. I never saw her again. I expect she got the guillotine when the guards determined she was a woman."

"Oh. I'm sorry," she said, reaching across the table to touch him. She meant the words. She couldn't imagine being suddenly thrust into vampire-hood without anyone to guide you. In movies and books they always had mentors, even if it was just a jerk likeLestat . "Damn, I can't even believe how many people you've known in your life. It must be millions."

Ethan met her halfway, enclosed her hand with his. "Why do you think we've banded together in a governmental body? Yes, for law and order, but also because there is something inherently lonely about being a vampire. We experience so many relationships, acquaintances, people coming and going, yet we exist in perpetual solitude, locked within our unique world. Together, we can bridge that gap between mortal andvam-pire , Impure and fledgling, and thrive as a healthy, prosperous People."

Alexis stared at him, checked the earnestness on his face, and raised an eyebrow. "Did Seamus write that for you?"Because it was a total load of crap.

Yeah, for my speech tonight.What do you think?" Ethan sat back in his Irish farmhouse ladder-back chair.

"I think you're overreaching with that last bit," she said honestly.

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"That's what I told Seamus, but he's like a terrier with a bone about this kind of stuff. Sometimes I think he should be president, not me."

"He's wound pretty tight, isn't he?" A little round of golf would probably do him a world of good. "But if you want to get people's attention, you need to stand strong, confident. You need to tell them what you've done right, and if most people, vampires, I mean, are happy, don't fix what isn't broken. And I don't think you're going to recruitImpures —I really do hate that name, by the way—with some 'why don't we all just love each other' kind of BS."

"No?"

Alexis liked how Ethan pretty much always looked relaxed.Intense, but relaxed. He was wearing navy blue lounging pants and a white skin-tight T-shirt since he was on his way to bed for the day, and he was sexy hot.

She stuck her feet up onto his chair, between his legs. Even when her toes brushed his crotch, he didn't flinch. Damn, she liked that.Especially since she could feel him getting hard. But she'd never admit it out loud.

"No, you're not a touchy-feely guy. Let Seamus pass out hugs if he wants to. You need to tell these people straight up whether you'll give them what they want or not. No dancing around the issues— just hey,Impures , you can have national health insurance—or whatever it is they want."

Ethan nodded. "That's the way I would like to approach it-

"So do it." She curled her toes over his erection, grinning at him.

Strong, cool fingers gripped her bare toes, shifted them off him. Ethan sat slowly up, leaning forward, lips parted. Eyes deepened toa rich cobalt and Alexis sucked her breath in.

Sexual energy radiated off him and he was coming to get her. She licked her lips.

Ethan said, "Move in with me, Alexis.Permanently." Huh? Her feet fell to the floor. "What? Can you run that by me again?"

"Move in with me. Not for the election, but because you are my chosen one.My mate."

Hello. Alexis almost swallowed her tongue. "What? Where did this come from?" And why did it suddenly make her feel inflated, giddy,euphoric ?

But he didn't back down and he didn't let go of her hand. "From the first moment I touched you, I knew you were different. I have known many women—"

"Thanks for reminding me," she sniped. They were probably all taller and darker than she was, too.

"And none have given me the sense of completion you have. I've fallen in love with you."

Shegasped, the words like a blow to the chest. "Oh." Tears pricked at her eyes, startling her. She never cried, ever, but she did now because, looking at Ethan, she realized the strange truth was that she might have fallen in love with him, too, at some point. It was possible. But she wasn't ready to commit to it yet.

Concern furrowed his brow. "Alexis?"

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Shaking her head, she bit her lip.Tried to speak.Blinked hard to keep the tears behind her lids, where they belonged. "I'm falling for you, too."

Okay, so she'd left off the "l" word, but hey, she'd gotten close.

"You are?" He looked inordinately pleased.

"Yes, Garlic, it's sad, but true. I really kind of have a thing for you." She cleared her throat and squeezed his hand, hoping she could say this right, wishing that she could leap into his arms without the bitterness that seemed to plague her, the understanding that she wasn't a woman who could manage a long-term commitment.

"But I can't live with you… I mean, what would we have, ten years? Fifteen tops? And I've seen how people get when they're married, how they make each other miserable with all their personal flaws spilling out onto each other. I don't want to walk away from you in ten years hating you, or you hating me."

He frowned.

"I don't know how…" It wasn't coming out coherent at all. She bit her lip. "Ethan, I'm never going to get married… Okay, I know you didn't ask me to marry you, but I'm assuming eventually that would happen, or even if it didn't, I mean, living together is committed, it's like marriage in that you're in each other's space and…"

Alexis took a deep breath and tried to reorganize her thoughts, clamp down on her panic. "I told you a little bit about my mother, but I didn't tell you about the day I realized I hated her.Brittany didn't hate her, but I did, because her own selfishness, her own personal shit, ruined her relationship with every person she said she loved."

God, she'd never told anyone about any of this stuff. She didn't even talk toBrittany about it. But Ethan had to know, deserved to know why she felt the way she did. Why she felt damaged beyond repair.

"She was married four times, the first time to my father. The second husband was short-lived, which was good, because he used to scare me. He had a motorcycle and all these tattoos and he drank. But when I was nine, my mom married Bill. He was a good man, he worked for an insurance company, and we moved into his house, which was clean and kept up. He treated Brittany and me like we were his, and he loved us, Ethan, he did, you could see it in his eyes. Some men can't love kids that aren't theirs but Bill wasn't one of those guys."

Alexis felt the fat, heavy tears roll down each cheek, but she didn't bother to wipe them off. "I was so happy, because for once everything was so normal, and the way it should be, and I took Bill to the Girl Scout father-daughter dance and I was so proud. I didn't know it at ten years old, but my mom was jealous of that affection he had for us. It took his attention away from her, you know? The more he cared about us, the more she gave him hell for it."

Staring at the glob of yellow putty her eggs had become, Alexis forced the words out. "When I was twelve, she called the cops and told them Bill was molesting us."

"Good God." Ethan's hand jerked in hers. "Alexis, I'm so sorry. What happened? Surely they could tell you weren't being harmed?"

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"They said I was protecting him.That since I was almostthir -teen, I had created a fantasy that I was in love with him, and he had probably told me that if I kept quiet, he would marry me. It was so sick… they were so-called professionals and they were ignoring everything I was saying, ignored the physical evidence that showed I hadn't been sexually assaulted. But I realized I hated my mom when I figured out she was talking to Brittany, telling her things, confusing her, so that when Brittany was interviewed, she said things that the police and my mom led her right into. Yes Daddy Bill likes to tickle me, yes, he helps me get dressed." She shuddered. "It was just disgusting…Brittany was barely six years old and she didn't understand what they were doing. They were taking everyday things a father does in the care of his child—stuff my mother couldn't be bothered to do—and turned it into something vile."

She knew her voice was hoarse, knew she sounded hateful and full of anger, but she didn't care. "That's when I decided to become a lawyer.To wade through all the crap and find the facts. And I decided I would never get married, and that I would never forgive my mother for taking a father away from me twice."

"Did Bill go to prison?"

Ethan's voice was compassionate, though she couldn't bring herself to look at him. "No, thank God. But he was barred from any contact with us ever again." Alexis swiped at her eyes, tears blurring her vision.

"When my mom died, I tried to find him. He had died of a heart attack six months before, but his current wife showed me these boxes he had… filled with pictures of Brittany and I, cards we'd made him for Father's Day. She said it broke his heart to leave us with our mother."

Her voice shattered into a sob, and she was totally mortified. But Ethan stood up, pulled her over to him, and she let him. She was grateful for the way his arms came around her, the way he sat her down on his lap and tucked her head against his shoulder.

She never cried. And now it felt like nearly thirty years' worth dislodged all at once. Weakness was something she despised, but sometimes it was damn hard to always be the strong one, to fight it and shove it all aside, and be tough.

The prosecutor's office was still mostly male territory, and she worked with male criminals. Being the blond broad, as her boss had once eloquently called her, was something she enjoyed.Most of the time.

At the moment, she just wanted to curl into Ethan Carrick and let him support her. Let someone take care of her for a change.

Ethan rubbed Alexis's back and murmured words of comfort. He felt bloody helpless. Women crying had always bewildered him, because they cried over everything.Happy tears, sad tears, laughing tears, manipulative, angry, and fake tears.Tears of pain. It was hard to believe just how much pain he had witnessed in his very long lifetime.

Yet only one other woman's tears had moved him the way Alexis's did.

After his turning, he had gone home, toEngland , and arrived right after his sister's death. His mother had stood overGwenna's body as a woman who had buried all her children, and assumed her oldest son was lost in the Holy War. Silent, stoic tears had trailed down her pale cheeks. Ethan had felt at that moment that his heart had been torn out of his body and hacked by a sword.

He felt that same way now. He couldn't help Alexis, couldn't Wake it better for her, and that was a man's pain.

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"I'm sorry that the woman who gave birth to you didn't know how to be a mother." He brushed his lips over the soft, silken brands of her hair. "But I would imagine that if someone had asked Bill, he was glad to have been part of your life. I would imagine he wouldn't have changed that, despite the outcome."

Her sobs had quieted down to gulping tears. "I guess I know that."

"And I guess you know that you give the woman who gave birth to you too much control over your life.

She doesn't deserve that much attention." She hadn't deserved to be a mother at all, but that was one of life's mysteries Ethan would never understand.

"I guess I know that, too. But it's not all that easy, you know."

"I'm sure it's not. But I have learned through the years that sometimes we make things more complicated than they need to be." He played with the waistband of her skirt and rubbed his thumb-over the small of her back, amazed at the depth of what he felt for this woman. "I'm sorry if I moved too fast for you, but I think I'm at the point in my life where I can trust my feelings and instincts. I've lived long enough to know real versus imagined, and what I feel for you is real. You're the first woman I've asked to live with me."

Neither had he ever told a woman he loved her and truly meant it, but he didn't think he could say that without sounding like a cad. Yes, with you those words have meaning, but all the other women before got exaggeration in the course of seduction . That wouldn't exactly win his case.

Nor could he really explain why he hadn't asked her to marry him. For all his self-realization, something had made him stop short of that, and he was fairly certain it was because he expected her rejection.

"I didn't mean to rush you, Alexis. It's just that I look at you and I think, damn, she's just perfect for me.

Absolutely perfect. I'll never be bored, never stop laughing,never stop desiring her. Do you understand what I mean?" And she'd said he wasn't a touchy feely kind of guy. He was feeling pretty goddamn poetic at the moment.

Not to mention sweatingvampiric bullets. God's teeth, it was painful to lay your heart out on the table for a woman to toss onto the floor.

But he couldn't hide his feelings, didn't want to. He meant what he'd said. When you lived nine hundred years, you knew what you wanted when you found it. Alexis was born to be his mate—the one woman who could lock him out of her thoughts, and the one woman who could drop him to the floor, literally.

"I understand what you mean." She talked to his chest, her voice raspy, but she had definitely stopped crying. "But a decade or so is all we'd have, Ethan, and I just can't give you that much ofmyself then watch you walk away. I can't."

He sighed, burying his chin in her hair, disbelieving. He couldn't have found her, only to never really have her. That he couldn't accept. He would take whatever she was willing to give. "So what can we have?"

"Now.We can have now.This week. Until theelection's over, which is what, six weeks? I can't promise anything beyond that, Ethan, I just can't."

The blood in her veins flowed frantically with the rapid beat of her heart. He could smell her fear, a Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

sickly sweet odor that clung to her skin. He didn't want to be the source of that, but he couldn't wing himself to drop the subject either. It felt too cruel just to accept the crumb of six weeks with her.Six bloody weeks in a life that would last another thousand years. Fifty-two thousand weeks… this time with her would be nothing. It would be everything.

"Let me turn you." The words were barely out beforehe regret-tedthem. He'd never offered the Dark Gift to anyone before… it was a temptation too great for most mortals to refuse and he didn't want to think that the lure of immortality was what brought Alexis to him. That .she'd chosen eternal life instead of just him, freely and without doubt.

She moved back away from him and stared. "Are you crazy? Did you drink bad blood? Straight from the psych ward blood? If I became a vampire, I would have to quit my job. I wouldn't be able to play with the kids Brittany's going to have someday. I wouldn't be able to eat chocolate. No, I absolutely do not want to be a vampire."

Pushing on his shoulders, she stood up and wiped her swollen eyes. "You knowwhat, I need to go to work. We can talk about this tonight. I'll be ready at eight, okay?"

Alexis tossed her hair back, blotted her lips and under her eyes with her napkin, then grabbed her purse and rushed out of the room, the door gently gliding shut behind her with a soft snick.

"Smooth, Carrick." He scratched his chin and rubbed his chest. There was a pain there that must be residual aftereffects of the shooting.

No wonder he'd never proposed or professed love to a woman before. He'd completely botched the whole job.

He'd sounded desperate and ridiculous.Impulsive and weird.

And he couldn't even blame it on bad blood.

It was love.

Master Vampire reduced to idiocy by his romantic heart.

How cute. Why didn't he just wear a smiley face button white he was atit.

Ethan threw Alexis's abandoned bowl of fruit across the room, satisfied when it crashed through the glass of his balcony door, juice and shards flying with appropriate drama.

Then he realized that the bowl itself, a white ceramic job, had gone hurtling over the balcony, and would be landing on the Strip—and possibly someone's head—in a second or two.

"Shit." Ethan ran across his room and jumped off the balcony in a swan dive, grabbing the bowl as it flew past about the tenth floor.

Which meant there wasn't time to stop, reverse.

He hit the ground with a splat and a crunch, as his nose and both wrists broke. Pain shot through him and he heard a woman screaming hysterically.

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Damn, love hurt.

And he didn't think Alexis was going to appreciate that he'd literally fallen for her.