Hierarchy (3 page)

Bronwyn grimaced. “For both drinks if she wants to,” she murmured, then dragged in a deep breath and forced herself to look him directly in the eye. “Nanna always said a lady shouldn’t allow a gentleman to buy her drinks, because he might not actually
be
a gentleman and he might get the idea that he was paying for something else.”

Constantine stared at her blankly for a moment and surprised himself by chuckling, although he was already beginning to suspect this ‘Nanna’ was going to be a serious roadblock to attaining what he wanted. “Did she? Who is Nanna?”

Bronwyn felt her throat tighten. “My grandmother. She died ….” She trailed off, trying to remember just how long it had been. In some ways, it seemed like forever.

In others … it was hard to grasp that so many years had passed. She’d been shy of her eighteenth birthday by three months. She wasn’t certain if she would’ve remembered that, given her grief, except that it had become yet another of life’s trials. Fortunately, it had taken the county people months of arguing to come to a decision and by that time she’d turned eighteen and they couldn’t uproot her and plant in a foster home because she was underage.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

Bronwyn looked up at him at that coolly delivered platitude. She didn’t expect him to understand or feel anything for her. She was a stranger after all, but she thought she would’ve preferred it if he hadn’t bothered when he clearly felt no sympathy. She smiled at him brittlely. “You’re not much of a liar yourself.”

Anger glittered in his cold blue eyes briefly, then disappeared. “It’s better to put such things from your mind.”

“Easier said than done.”

He shrugged, looked vaguely uncomfortable. “It gets easier with practice.

Although it’s better still to simply avoid it by not getting attached to begin with.”

Bronwyn nodded. “It’s the price you pay for love. I’d rather suffer over it the rest of my days than not to have had her in my life. She was … special in so many ways.

I can’t imagine, don’t want to imagine, what my life would’ve been like without her.”

He looked surprised and disbelieving. “If you could erase the memories and the pain with them, you wouldn’t?” he asked curiously.

“Not if it meant having to give up the memories.”

He frowned at his glass, turning the stem between two long, elegantly tapered fingers. “Stephen mentioned something about a tattoo your grandmother had given you.

Do you mind if I see it?”

Bronwyn studied him doubtfully, but finally extended her arm across the table, palm up. Constantine stared down at the tattoo, feeling oddly breathless. He’d wondered if his reading had been clear, mostly because he had never truly believed he would see it.

After a moment, he reached to trace the markings on her wrist that were indisputably

‘natural’. It might be nothing more than a strange sort of coincidence that she’d been born with a birthmark that so closely resembled a sunburst and then, just as coincidentally, freckles had formed on her skin in the shape of a crescent moon and stars.

Anyone looking for designs in nature could find them if they looked long enough and hard enough—clouds that seemed to be the face of a woman—or dragon. The natural
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swirls and knots in a piece of wood that appeared to be a horse or a bird.

He didn’t believe that. In a sense, he supposed he wanted to.

He didn’t find the woman seated across from him
un
desirable—far from it, as surprising as that was to him—and yet she was so far from the woman he’d imagined all these centuries that he almost felt cheated. He’d
expected
her to be perfect in every way.

He’d
expected
her to be the epitome of beauty in his eyes, he realized wryly—this very ordinary woman who was no more than just pretty, but whose smile made him want to smile back at her and whose laugh made him feel a strange stirring of warmth inside.

This woman who could give him the one thing he had never been able to have for himself, no matter how great his powers had become over the centuries. This woman who was meant to give birth to the first vampire since their beginnings when the progenitors of the vampire race had emerged from their mother’s wombs, who would be more powerful than any who’d come before him, who would be a day-walker.

* * * *

Bronwyn wasn’t quite sure of how she felt about her evening once she’d returned home, partly because she was more than a little addled with the alcohol she’d consumed and partly because she was a
lot
addled about the men she’d met. She couldn’t deny that she’d enjoyed herself. She’d never had so much attention from so many good-looking men! The pink halter, she decided happily, was a
lot
more flattering than she’d thought it would be!

Actually, she’d really liked the way it looked right off, but she’d been a little doubtful about it because she thought it might be too ‘young’ for her—and it was a lot more risqué than anything she’d ever worn before.

She’d felt ‘wicked’ leaving her breasts unfettered—because the thing was backless and she couldn’t wear a bra—but the odd thing was that she’d
liked
feeling that way.

Maybe she’d caught their interest because she’d appeared to be a bit on the slutty side? Or maybe it had all been in her attitude? Maybe, because she’d
felt
pretty and sexy, she’d come across as more attractive?

Shaking the thoughts, she dressed for bed and crawled in, staring dizzily at the ceiling when she discovered that closing her eyes only made the sense of floating intensify.

Marco and Stephen had both been good looking men, although Marco, in her opinion was by far the best looking of the two. Unfortunately, he also seemed to be the youngest. It had been dark inside the club, and there hadn’t been a lot of light outside, but she was pretty sure that Marco was probably barely legal.

In any case, she thought he was just trying to be nice. He had seemed to be flirting, but she thought that might just be his personality.

She didn’t know what to think about Constantine. Physically, he was pretty close to drop dead gorgeous in a completely classical sense. His facial features were almost
too
perfect, almost too symmetrical. It made her want to simply gape at him and at the same time more than a little uncomfortable to look at him. She doubted his physique was nearly as perfect as his face. He’d sounded European and they weren’t like Americans about such things. They weren’t constantly on a quest for physical perfection.

It was hard to convince herself of that when he’d looked so fabulous in that suit
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he’d worn, but then maybe the suit made the man and not the other way around?

Not that it mattered. He was way out of her league and even if he had been remarkably generous as a host she didn’t believe for a moment that he had any particular interest in her. She thought she’d probably looked as good tonight as she ever had in her life, but she knew her limitations and she didn’t doubt that they’d been very apparent to him.

Then, too, he didn’t look to be much more than thirty if he was even that. She hadn’t had much opportunity for experiencing interaction with men, but she’d had plenty of opportunities to observe and it seemed to her that all of the men, whatever their age, wanted the women who were eighteen to twenty-five. That had certainly been the case of most of the couples that had passed through the boarding house. Married or not, they almost inevitably went into ‘pointer’ mode when a young girl walked by and everyone else was invisible.

The thought prompted memories of her own attempts to date and her spirits took a nosedive.

Sighing, she punched her pillow and rolled over.

God! One mistake! And she was going to have to live with it forever, it seemed!

Looking back, she wondered what had possessed her to confide her ‘deep, dark secret’ to her ‘best friend’. If she’d just kept her mouth shut no one would ever have known what a freak she was! But no, she’d just
had
to talk it out and Mary Ellen had just
had
to share that juicy tidbit with her cousin who’d had a mouth the size of Texas!

Trying to evade the memories of all the awful things that she’d endured as a consequence, she rolled onto her back again and stared up at the ceiling. The unwelcome specter of times past descended on her in spite of all she could do, however, and Johnny Patterson’s hazy image filled her mind. Oddly enough, she couldn’t really see his face clearly anymore—just that smile that had charmed the sense right out of her and her pants off.

She’d thought he was different, that he wasn’t like the boys she’d grown up with that had already been tormenting her for years. He was new to town, and she’d been stupid enough to think he hadn’t heard the rumors about her.

She should’ve known better. Nanna had tried to warn her, but she’d been ‘in love’. She hadn’t listened and she’d paid for her stubbornness with pain and humiliation—and not just the pain of losing her virginity to a boy that knew very little more about sex than she did, who’d been rough and careless enough she’d cried.
Then
he’d topped it off by getting pissed off with her because the rumors weren’t true. She didn’t have two pussies! He was outraged, actually—and then he’d gone back to school and lied through his teeth to the other jocks, telling them she did, and that he’d took her virginity twice! The lying snake.

Well, that had just set them all on fire to have a piece of her! She could’ve been the most popular slut in the school if she hadn’t minded being used and discarded, but she’d learned her lesson—a painful one. She was probably the only girl in school who hadn’t had a single date throughout high school!

Even
she
hadn’t realized the ignorant morons had decided she had two pussies!

How could she when all they did was leer at her, whisper behind her back, and snicker whenever they saw her? Once she knew, she also knew she wasn’t likely to get a date except some guy that wanted a gander at her ‘tofer’.

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Shit! She should’ve
guessed
what that damned nickname meant--‘tofer’—two for one Bronwyn!

She threw the covers off and got up, heading into the bathroom to take a hot shower to try to relax. She’d
been
relaxed until the memories had come back to haunt her!

Stripping while she waited for the water to heat, she stared down at herself.

Outwardly, there wasn’t a sign that she was different. She looked like anyone else. If only she hadn’t been so freaked out about it she’d felt the need confide in her best friend!

What girl wouldn’t be freaked out to discover she had two wombs and four ovaries, though? To learn that she was actually two people—with the organs of a twin that had never completely developed inside of her?

And she really
was
two people, because the tests they’d run on her had also revealed the fact that she was a chimera—She had
all
of her mother’s DNA and
all
of her father’s. Even her wombs were ‘different’ people!

If it hadn’t been for the trouble she’d had with her periods she might never have known—at least not until she’d been grown and might’ve been able to handle it better.

Maybe
then
her entire youth wouldn’t have been blighted.

Or if she’d kept her secret to herself.

Or if her trust in Mary Ellen hadn’t been completely misplaced.

Or if she’d been able to leave Greenville and live somewhere else.

That thought gave her pause as she climbed into the shower and allowed the hot water to pelt the tension from her. She
was
living somewhere else! She finally had the chance to date without running the risk that all the guy wanted was to have sex with her because he thought she had two pussies!

Constantine didn’t
know
she was a freak! And there was no reason that she could think of why he needed to know!

Assuming, of course, that he actually had any interest in her.

19

It was just as well that the following day was Sunday and the Club Rouge wasn’t open. It ate at Bronwyn half the day that there was no way she could visit the club and see Constantine again but, by the time the afternoon had rolled around, common sense had returned.

She didn’t know why Constantine had seemed to single her out, but, try as she might, she couldn’t think of anything he’d said or done to indicate he was actually interested in her. Relief and disappointment filled her when she realized that. She hadn’t made a fool out of herself by dashing back like a lovesick puppy! Thank god!

As disappointed as she was, her spirits didn’t plummet completely. Her rambling thoughts the night before had finally settled on something ‘big’—freedom. She’d been liberated from the black cloud that had hung over her almost her entire life—or at least seemed to. She was in the city and absolutely no one knew her! If she did meet someone, she could date without the nagging worry at the back of her mind that the only reason they had any interest in her was because of her plumbing!

Of course, she wasn’t naïve enough to think they wouldn’t also be interested in getting laid—it seemed a preoccupation of men in general—but she’d at least have some chance that they were interested in her as a person. She didn’t even mind that part. After all, it was a fact of life, and there weren’t going to be any children if she didn’t have sex!

In any case, she
wanted
to experience that part of life like a ‘normal’ woman. She wanted to know what it was like to be desired—as a woman, not a freak!

It was amazing how giddy that made her—and restless. She was thirty years old and she hadn’t had more than a handful of dates in her life! Because she’d discovered even long after school, her reputation still shadowed her. Even the few men she’d tried to date after high school, who’d seemed to be interested in her, weren’t. They were still chasing that dream of a woman with two pussies, were so
preoccupied
with it that they hardly even looked at her face!

She was free! She could do anything she wanted to. She could be as wild as she’d wanted to be when she was a teenager! She was single. She didn’t have a job, but she had money! She could party!

Instead of heading out job-hunting first thing Monday morning as had become her habit, she headed out to shop for clothes. The price tags gave her an unpleasant shock and brought her back to Earth. If she went wild in the clothing stores, she’d be penniless before she could spit!

She didn’t actually
need
a lot, she decided. Everyone at Club Rouge had seemed to be wearing leather, but, although she tried on everything she could find that would fit her, she finally had to accept that she just wasn’t ‘built’ for leather. It didn’t just make her look fat—er. It squeezed everything into the wrong places and made her figure look hideously lumpy. Aside from that, it was miserably uncomfortable and she didn’t think she would have much fun if she couldn’t get her mind off of how uncomfortable she was.

She decided instead to buy a black dress. The skirt was short enough it didn’t seem to
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make her look shorter and squatter and it flared slightly around the hips, making her waist look nicely trim. The neckline, scooped low in front and even lower in back, wouldn’t allow for a bra, but she’d rather liked going braless. It made her feel more free.

The price tag gave her a tension headache and she decided to stop there and look for a pair of shoes that would set it off. The high spike heels really appealed to her—

especially since they made her look tall—but she discarded the idea of buying them when she discovered she couldn’t walk in them without being in danger of a twisted ankle—

stone cold sober. One drink, and she would bust her ass and then she’d
really
look sexy!

She wasn’t particularly happy with the short heels she finally settled on, but she hoped the focus would be on the dress anyway—particularly considering what she’d paid for it!

Although she did splurge a little more on a new hair cut, after her ‘wild’ shopping trip, she decided to spend the rest of the week job hunting and was finally rewarded with a waitress job, mostly because the waitress she replaced had just walked out.

It didn’t pay that well, but it was sort of familiar, at least. She’d served the table in her boarding house—and cooked. She was sure she could handle it.

The new job required another shopping trip for uniforms and serviceable shoes, and, while she was at it, she bought a couple of pretty tops to add to her growing collection of ‘sexy’ clothes.

Her new work schedule didn’t bode well for her aspiration to become a partier.

She discovered when she showed up for her first day that she was expected to work through the weekend. It was day work, though. There was no reason why she couldn’t still go out Friday night, she decided.

Except that she was more exhausted than she’d been when she’d run the boarding house by herself. Saturday was worse. She arrived for the noon shift and discovered that one of the girls on the evening shift had quit and the boss wanted her to do a ‘double’.

The good news was that he gave her Sunday off. The bad news was that, by the time she got off at eight that evening, she wasn’t sure she had enough energy left to drag herself back to her apartment much less consider going out to party.

There was a long, glossy black stretch limo parked in front of her apartment building when she finally trudged home. As tired as she was, the sight of a car like that in a neighborhood like hers was unusual enough to catch her attention and she studied it curiously as she headed toward the entrance.

A window in the rear was lowered as she came even with the car.

“I thought you might like a ride to the club.”

Bronwyn jumped all over as the disembodied voice emerged from the dark depths of the car. She’d already tensed to race inside when it abruptly dawned on her that she recognized the voice. Keys in hand, she leaned down to peer cautiously inside the vehicle. Constantine sat forward and opened the door at almost the same instant, and she gaped at him, thrown into a complete state of shock as he unfolded his long, lean form from the rear of the car.

“What are you doing here?” she finally managed to ask.

He smiled faintly. “Offering you a ride.”

Bronwyn frowned, glancing uneasily up and down the sidewalk. “How did you know where I live?”

He shrugged easily. Folding his arms over his broad chest, he leaned back against the car. “My driver happened to spot you.”

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Bronwyn’s doubts increased. “But … how would he have recognized me?”

“He bought you a drink when you visited the club.”

Bronwyn blinked at him, searching her mind. “Marco?”

He got out of the vehicle when she called his name, grinning at her over the top of the car and she felt a lessening of tension. “You didn’t answer my question,”

Constantine reminded her. “Would you like a ride?”

“Oh! Well … I’m already home. I live here. But thank you for offering!”

Constantine sent her a wry look, but he chuckled. “I thought you might like to go out.”

Bronwyn stared at him, blinking as she tried to assimilate that. “On a date, you mean? With you?”

“Not with Marco,” he retorted dryly. “Although, he will be driving.”

Bronwyn reddened, but her irritation was brief. “Sorry. You caught me off guard.”

“Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?”

Bronwyn grimaced. “I just got off work and I pulled two shifts. I’d love to go, but … I’m not dressed to go out,” she said instead of simply telling him she was too exhausted even to feel any enthusiasm for a night out—because she suddenly wasn’t nearly as tired as she’d thought she was a few minutes earlier.

“I’ll wait.”

Bronwyn chewed her lip indecisively. Nanna would never have approved of her inviting a strange man into her apartment, but she couldn’t picture Constantine as a rapist or murderer. He was business owner. Even if it was a nightclub, he seemed unlikely to be dangerous. Surely, he could be trusted? “It might take me a while. Would you like to come up?”

The smile he gave her unnerved her. “You’re inviting me into your home?”

She grimaced. “Such as it is. You might actually be more comfortable waiting in the car.”

He’d already pushed away from the car, however, and strode toward her expectantly. With an inward shrug, she unlocked the door, pausing to glance at Marco and wondering if she should invite him up, as well. He’d already gotten back into the car, though, and Constantine didn’t seem pleased that she’d considered it.

Not that she intended to let that bother her! It was just plain bad manners to invite Constantine up and leave poor Marco sitting in the car!

“He needs to watch the car,” Constantine said coolly as if he actually
had
read her mind.

“I hadn’t thought about that,” Bronwyn responded, unlocking the door and heading inside. “The elevator doesn’t work.”

Constantine paused and turned, but he didn’t comment as he followed her up the stairs.

Bronwyn was slightly breathless by the time she’d reached her floor but the climb had little to do with it. She was so keenly aware of Constantine’s presence behind her all the way up that it had taken an effort to focus on the steps to keep from tripping. She threw him an uneasy glance as they reached her floor and she turned down the hall toward her apartment. “This feels really strange,” she muttered when she reached the door and inserted the key in the lock.

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“How so?”

Bronwyn frowned, wishing she hadn’t voiced her thoughts aloud. “I don’t know.

I just hadn’t expected to run into you, I guess … and I’ve never taken anyone to my apartment before.” Never taken
any
man into her home, let alone a man like Constantine!

He looked so completely out of place in her living area that she felt her face beginning to heat with embarrassment. “It isn’t much,” she mumbled, “but I didn’t need a big place and I didn’t bring anything in the way of furniture with me when I moved.”

She could tell by his expression that he wasn’t keen on the idea of sitting on her couch. “I had it cleaned when I moved in. I know it looks awful, but it’s clean.”

He smiled faintly. “I apologize if I’ve made you uncomfortable. If it makes you feel better, I’ve been in worse places—lived in worse.”

Bronwyn looked at him in surprise. “Really?”

“I wasn’t born to wealth. I … acquired it.”

It did make her feel better. She smiled at him a little more easily. “Would you like something to drink? Juice? Tea? I don’t keep a bar.”

He shook his head. “Don’t concern yourself. I’m perfectly content to wait.”

In spite of his comment, Bronwyn was uneasy about making him wait, afraid that he’d grow impatient. Leaving him to his own devices, she went into her room and locked the door behind her—just in case. A quick shower revived her and excitement was already threading her veins as she patted herself dry and headed for her new black dress hung in her bedroom closet. She’d worried that she’d wasted the money, but she was so glad, now, that she had splurged on it! At least she had something to wear that wouldn’t make him ashamed to be seen with her!

While her hair was air-drying, she applied a touch of makeup and perfume and then used her blow dryer sparingly until her hair was just barely dry. She was glad, now, that she hadn’t allowed the hairdresser to whack all of her hair off in a ‘stylish’ short cut.

Instead, she’d gotten him to layer it and trim the ends. It looked far better than any cut she’d ever had before and was still long enough to make her feel feminine.

She hadn’t admitted, even to herself, that she hadn’t wanted to cut it short because she thought Constantine might like it long—it was the only thing about her that anyone had ever complimented her on, her pretty hair—or that she wasn’t comfortable with the idea of having shorter hair than he did. Of course, he wore his smooth against his head and tied back, but she’d noticed it was really long and she thought that must mean he liked long hair.

He looked surprised when she came out, which disconcerted her. “Too much?”

she asked uneasily.

He blinked, meeting her gaze finally. A faint smile curled his lips. “Almost too much for my heart—beautiful.”

Embarrassed at his extravagant praise, Bronwyn laughed and blushed at the same time. “The dress is gorgeous,” she said, smoothing a hand over it happily. “I couldn’t resist it.”

He closed the distance between them so swiftly that she blinked in surprise when she lifted her head and discovered he was towering over her. “The dress is lovely.
You
are beautiful.”

“Oh!” Bronwyn said, charmed and breathless at his nearness. “That’s so sweet! I
23

had my hair done, too! Do you like it?”

Something flickered in his cool blue eyes as he studied her. A faint frown appeared between his brows. “You’re sweet. Where ever did you come from, little Bronwyn?”

Bronwyn smiled wryly. “Is that a polite way of pointing out that you can tell I’m from the Styx?”