“Get to business, Camilla? Is that why you put on mascara to emphasize those lovely, long lashes of yours? Is that why you’re all dolled up and looking incredible tonight?” He narrowed his eyes at me, looking as dashing as ever. “You dressed up just so we could discuss business?”

“The way I look and the way I dress should be of no concern to you, Claremont.” I shifted my weight on my seat, hoping that my voice wouldn’t break so that he wouldn’t see past my bluff. “I want the Red Orb. What do I have to do to get it?”

That cocky infuriating side smirk of his formed on his firm lips. “I don’t know. What are you willing to do to get it?”

I was half-expecting his over-bloated ego to make his head explode. Annoyed, I heaved a deep sigh and stood up. “This is such a waste of time.”

“No, wait.” He gently laid a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry. Let’s try that again.”

I looked into his eyes, seeing his sincerity. “Try what again?”

“Try to have a civilized conversation, Cam. I promise to be less of a jerk.” He raised one hand in the air to make his pledge official. “Hear me out.”

I kept my eyes on him and slowly sat back on my chair. I hoped that through my actions, he would realize that I was keeping him on a short leash.

He sat back down and cleared his throat.

“Don’t give me any more of your crap, Claremont,” I warned.

“No more of that.”

He then timidly asked if we should order first and I nodded. We made our orders—a strangely awkward ordeal—before I once again eyed him for some sort of explanation for our rather unusual meeting.

He took a deep breath after the waiter left. “So you really want the Red Orb?”

“I told you that.”

“I’ll give it to you then.”

My brow quirked up. “Just like that?”

He slowly nodded. “Yeah. Just like that.”

“That doesn’t make sense. You’ve been competing with me and driving me crazy over the past few weeks trying to get a hold of that artifact. Now, you’re just going to give it to me?”

“Well, first of all, you have to admit that the competition made the dig a whole lot more fun and interesting. Sorry, but messing with you was the most fun I had during that whole expedition. Seeing your reaction gave me far more satisfaction than actually getting the orb,” he admitted with an amused chuckle.

“I’m glad you were entertained,” I responded, feigning annoyance even though a smile was threatening to form on my lips as memories of all the bickering and competitive banter I had with him came to mind.

“Look…” He slightly tilted his head to the side. “I’m a guy who knows what I want. I traveled to Cuba wanting the orb and I got it, but I realized that there’s something I want more than the orb.”

I was afraid to ask, but the words came out of my mouth before I could hold them back. “And what’s that?”

“You, Camilla.”

That was the first date among many that followed after we got back to the States. I fell in love with Aiden Claremont, so when he proposed to me after several weeks of dating, I couldn’t say no. Truth be told, I was terrified. Throughout the time we were dating, we were never intimate. I told him that I wanted to wait until marriage and he respected that. The fact that he respected my choice to wait made me admire him even more, but then it also made me dread the night I had to be intimate with him.

On the night of our honeymoon, I wanted desperately to please him, to be the blushing bride eager to share a bed with her doting husband, but no matter how I tried to enjoy that night and take pleasure in his touch, I simply couldn’t. I pretended on his behalf, but the moment he fell asleep, cradling me in his arms, I burst into tears.

I was far too damaged by my past to ever enjoy such pleasures, but he didn’t need to know that. Of course, Aiden was no fool. He knew something was wrong. He noticed times when I would sort of shut down whenever he tried to make love to me, but I always avoided answering his questions about it. My past was my own nightmare to live with. He didn’t need to share the burden.

The first few months of our marriage were the best months of my life. Aiden was everything I could ask for in a man. He was loving and affectionate. He treated me in a way that made me want to be the best I could be for him. I was satisfied, but I knew that he wasn’t, or at least he wouldn’t be for long.

Whenever he brought up the topic of children, I skirted around it. I didn’t want him to know that I never wanted to have children. I kept taking birth control pills without his knowledge; thus, it came as a complete surprise to me when several months after our honeymoon, I became pregnant. I was mentally kicking myself for allowing Aiden to come with me to the checkup. If he wasn’t there, if I hadn’t seen the delight in his eyes when he found out, if I didn’t see for myself how much joy I would bring him by carrying the child, I would’ve immediately had an abortion. Sofia never would’ve been born.

I could never forget the day our daughter was born. I knew from the way Aiden stared at her that I had just lost him. I no longer held all of his heart. A great big chunk of it had just been taken from me by Sofia.

Sofia grew lovelier and lovelier each year. She was precious to me, because I knew that she was precious to him. Still, I was terrified. Though he remained a wonderful husband to me, and though he still looked at me the same way he looked at me on our first date, I was still terrified of losing Aiden. I didn’t want him to love Sofia more than he loved me.

I was afraid of being abandoned and every father-daughter outing they went on brought me into despair, the likes of which Aiden could never possibly understand. Never did I feel more weak than when Aiden spent time alone with Sofia, time I was convinced should’ve been mine. I would’ve much preferred to keep Sofia to myself than to have her be with her father. Aiden mistook this as me being selfish with Sofia and often teased me about it, but in reality, it was me being selfish with him.

I was getting obsessed with the man that I loved and through the years, I began to notice little things about him that convinced me that he would eventually leave me. Sofia, after all, was the only girl he needed in his life. She had taken my place.

I began to notice strange things about Aiden: his hushed conversations over the phone, prolonged out-of-town trips and his extra hours at work. These things were normal for him, considering the demands of his work, but as time wore on, I was convinced that he was having an affair. I tried to convince myself that I was just being paranoid, but I couldn’t help myself. One night, when nine-year-old Sofia was already tucked in bed, I eavesdropped on a conversation Aiden was having over the phone.

“The Maslens are gaining power,” he spoke in hushed tones. “We can’t have that.” A slew of curses escaped his lips. “Damn it. Track him down. Borys Maslen was last seen in Egypt. Find him and destroy him.”

The first thought that came to mind was: Aiden has gone mad. He’s absolutely insane. How could anybody in their right mind believe in vampires? But I knew Aiden. He was perhaps the most intelligent and rational man I’d ever had the pleasure of meeting. When it came to his work, he wasn’t one to believe in any nonsense.

I tried to excuse what I had heard by rationalizing that perhaps Aiden was just talking in some sort of corporate code. Perhaps “vampires” was just code for their competition.

I didn’t know how it had happened, but it became an obsession. Much as I hated it, I began to eavesdrop a bit more on Aiden’s conversations and heard more talk about vampires and Egypt and the Maslens. At some point, I couldn’t take it anymore. I began doing research. I contacted old friends of mine from libraries and told them that I was interested in anything they knew about vampires. I gave them some excuse about wanting to write a novel about it when asked why I was suddenly so interested with such folklore.

The newfound interest wasn’t something I couldn’t keep from my husband, so when he confronted me about it, I had a ready answer. “I think they exist. Don’t you?”

I was waiting for him to lie, to just laugh me off and tell me that I was being crazy, but no, he lifted one of the books I was reading and began thumbing through its pages. He then nodded. “Of course they exist.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “You… Aiden Claremont… You actually believe in vampires?”

He shrugged one shoulder as he placed the book he was thumbing through back on my work desk. “After a decade of marriage, my lovely Camilla, there are still a lot of things about me you don’t know.”

“Tell me then.”

Worry creased his handsome face. “I don’t know if I should, Cam. Why are you so interested in them all of a sudden?”

“How can I not be interested?” I shrugged. “They’re fascinating, and now, you tell me that you actually believe in them. Can you blame me for not being intrigued?”

I was expecting him to chuckle, give me a sarcastic quip about how he loved my pesky, stubborn and adventurous side. Instead he just shook his head slowly and gravely. “There’s nothing fascinating about vampires, Cam. They are the most vile creatures to ever walk the planet. Powerful, but evil beyond measure… Stay away from them.”

His admonition for me to stay away from the vampires only served to make me more curious. I began quizzing Aiden about what he knew about vampires and why on earth he knew so much about them. He willingly told me what he knew, but always kept silent about how he knew. I hated that he was keeping things from me. It made me feel betrayed that I’d been married to a man who had this mysterious and secret connection with vampires that he had never told me about, but I didn’t voice it out.

At some point, I knew he was getting irritated about all the questions I was asking about vampires. He especially hated it when I mentioned them when Sofia was around.

“Cam, I’m warning you… I don’t ever want Sofia to be exposed to these monsters… I don’t even want her to know about them. If I could have my way, I’d remove everything in this world that points to the existence of these creatures. I would do everything possible to keep our daughter away from them.”