Filthy Rich Vampire Husbands (Filthy Rich 2)

“I kinda just get on with things. Can we talk?”

“Y-yes, of course, come through, take a seat. I’ll make us a drink. Do you drink coffee?”

“Yes I do. I’ll take it black, thank you.”

He made the drinks and brought them over, setting them down on the table. “So how did you find me so quickly?”

I stared at him. “Well, I used to be a reporter for a gossip magazine. I used my resources and here we are. I was going to demand a DNA test but looking at you I don’t think that’s necessary.

We had the same eyes, the same nose, the same shaped chin. He even had a white mark on his front tooth, similar to one I’d had on mine until Ortho took care of it. His hair was gray and mine was from a salon, but I guessed my whole coloring came from Vern. It explained why I looked nothing like my mother.

“So, let’s cut to the Chase, Vern. I’m here because I want to know about you and my mom and how you made a baby. What do you want? Is it a nice fat check now you’ve seen your daughter is hanging with the filthy rich?” I raised an eyebrow.

“No!” He said vehemently, making me shoot back a little.

“Sorry. It’s just certainly not. I have enough money of my own. I have my bookstore, it gives me a regular income and that’s all I need. It was just I saw your photo in the press and I read your age and that you’d previously lived in New York. Everything I read made me question things, especially when they said you’d been adopted and your mother had died when you were young. There were too many coincidences. I had to meet you, to find out if you were indeed related to me.” He met my stare. “If this is the only time we see each other, I’ll understand and that’s okay. But I think we both need answers. Now what do you want to know?”

“Let’s start with how you met my mother and how I came to be and then move on to how I came to be adopted when one of my parents was still alive.”

I crossed a leg over the other, lifted my cup to take a sip of coffee, and I waited for Vern to start talking.

“Let me close up the shop.” Vern got up and spoke with a couple customers. By the time he returned my coffee was empty and without asking he went and made me another cup, also bringing a glass of water. My body was tied in knots with the delay. When I was investigating other people’s stories I loved extracting each thread until they built up into a beautiful story web, but now, when it was mine. I couldn’t deal.

Finally he sat back down and assessing him I realized he’d probably needed that time to compose himself.

“I met your mother in a bar downtown. It was a strange evening because she’d come over to me and asked me to buy her a drink and I just, well, I couldn’t refuse. She was drop dead gorgeous with her red corkscrew curls and a smattering of freckles. I’ll never forget it. She was wearing a green dress which molded to every curve in her body and a pair of bright red heels. I ended up in a hotel room with her, and when I woke up, I found myself in the hospital.”

“She’d hurt you?”

“They couldn’t work out what was wrong with me. Just I’d checked in to the hotel for the night and the maid had found me unresponsive in the bed the next day. They did a battery of tests on me but couldn’t find anything wrong. But I guess there aren’t any modern day tests for how much of your soul got drained right out of your body. Of course, I didn’t know that back then. All I knew was they’d phoned the contact in my wallet, my fiancée. As you can guess that ended well.” He looked into the distance.

“So there I was: an unpaid hotel bill, a ruined relationship, and just hazy memories of a hot redhead who’d, well… given me a good time, let’s put it that way. I got my energy back and got on with my life. Except I kept having dreams, dreams of the woman, and after them I’d not wake for hours. I lost my job next. There are only so many times you can fail to tu

rn in for work. Sleep studies came next and visits to all kinds of physicians but they yielded nothing. I got desperate and started researching online where I read about the succubus. Before I met your mother, I’d have booked you a place in an asylum if you’d mentioned anything paranormal, but like I said, I was desperate. So I got myself some books on the subject. Got me an interest in the magical realm and of reading.

“And so I tried a summoning spell after talking to a warlock who helped me, and wouldn’t you know, I got your mom to appear right in my room. We bound her there until she told me what she was and what she was doing. She fought against the truth spell but eventually it forced her to speak. She told me she had taken my sperm and transferred it to an incubus, who had in turn impregnated a human woman. There was someone out there carrying the child of this mix.

“I became heavily involved in magic, in the occult; dragged into things beyond what I could do as a human. But I kept track of your mother and followed her as she made regular visits to a house. A house containing a woman who over time became more heavily pregnant. I tried and failed to get either your mother or the surrogate to listen to me. I ended up with a restraining order and being committed for insanity on more than one occasion. The next I knew the woman was home with her baby and then she was gone. I had no idea what happened after that. Future summonings failed.”

I held up my hand. This was just far too much to process. “I need a minute.”

“Take all the time you want.”

I left the table and began to walk around the bookstore, staring at the different colors, heights, and widths of the books, but not seeing many of the titles, too lost in my thoughts. It was only a short while ago I had been a human woman who thought she’d been given a raw deal on life. Now part of me wanted to go back and erase where I’d come from. My birth was abnormal and abhorrent. And what was I? Half and half? It was that question that drew me back to the table.

He expected my question and began answering before I’d uttered a word.

“You’re known as a Cambion. Mythology would suggest that you are part demon and able to drain energy from people, also to glamor. So many things. But in reality the recorded studies suggest you would be like a normal human, albeit with an extra-strong power of persuasion.”

I gave a chin lift. “Yeah. I thought I was a talented reporter, but it looks like I was just born that way.”

I looked at the floor.

“You need to know, I’ve never stopped looking for you, Serena, but I never found a single clue to lead me to you. I didn’t even know your name.”

“Well, I was adopted when I was three. We lived in New Jersey. Me and my adopted family that is.”

“I’m sorry that your mom passed.”