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maneuver before he could say pardon .
    She got there in the knick of time. Corbin was shaking his head, protesting in French to Ethan, while Alexis was bouncing on the balls of her feet. Brittany knew that stance. It meant someone was about to be kicked.
    “Alex, don’t kick him!”
    “Give me one good reason why not.”
    “Because he is the father of my child.”
    “That’s the reason why, not why not.”
    “What?” Brittany tried to follow that logic, gave up, and settled for taking Alex’s hand and giving it a squeeze to prevent a full frontal attack.
    Ethan and Corbin went back and forth in French—which she had to admit was sexy, even as she resented the fact that they were excluding her.
    “I didn’t know Ethan speaks French,” she told her sister.
    “I didn’t either.” Alexis was glaring at her husband. “He told me he spoke a smattering of French. Does that sound like a smatter to you?”
    “I have no clue what a smatter sounds like.” Brittany looked around for a seat. She was exhausted and there were no comfortable seats in the suite. It was an artful arrangement of impractical, uncomfortable art deco furniture. She wanted a nice fat sofa with squishy cushions. Instead what she saw was a hard, squared-off set of chairs and a white sofa with a man lying on it.
    It must be Ringo, and he looked uncomfortable, which any human being would when sitting on such crappy furniture. He was like an infant propped up in a seat, his shoulders and head drooping to the side, and his legs falling open. His back was taking the brunt of the awkward position, and Brittany had the urge to grab a sausage pillow and tuck it behind him.
    “Can I get you a backrest or something?” she asked, feeling bad for him. “I’m Brittany, by the way.”
    He opened his eyes and glanced at her curiously. He had dark eyes, expressionless, and she thought maybe she’d woken him up, because he didn’t speak.
    Grabbing a throw pillow from the chair, she moved toward him. “Here, lean forward for a sec.”
    He did, and she tucked, bending the pillow in half so it would fill the space behind his lower back.
    “Thank you,” he said, his breath expelling on a sigh when he sank back. “And congratulations.”
    “What?” Brittany stopped, half-standing, half-bent. Their eyes were almost level with each other, and he held her gaze without blinking.
    “The baby. Congrats. You must be excited.”
    It was a perfectly inane nothing for him to say, polite conversation, but a cold disturbing shiver rolled down Brittany’s spine. Ringo must have overheard when she and Corbin had been talking. It should have embarrassed her, to know that anyone had been witness to that bumbling debacle. But she felt an edgy unease more than embarrassment, and she stood up, moved back out of Ringo’s space.
    “Thank you.”
    “Brittany,” Ethan said, striding into the room. “I need to speak with you, please. Back at our apartment. Let’s go.”
    “But I don’t think Corbin and I are done talking.” At least she hoped not. They hadn’t resolved anything. All they had really established was what they already knew—that Corbin had sperm, they’d had some romping good sex, and they were having a baby. Surely the conversation needed to go beyond that.
    “I don’t care. We need to leave.”
    Ethan could be just as stubborn as her sister, which made Brittany wonder how two such similar personalities managed to live together. Though she supposed it wasn’t like they could kill each other, given that they were immortal. They just had to fight it out.
    But knowing how to handle Alexis’s stubbornness helped Brittany deal with Ethan now. “Okay, I’ll be there in two minutes. You go ahead without me.”
    Ethan nodded. “Good.”
    But Alexis was on to her. “If you’re not back at our place in five minutes I’m coming back for you.”
    Damn. The conversation with Corbin would have to wait after all. Alexis wouldn’t play around. She’d be back