She slid her card into the card reader, then yanked the door open to reveal a surprisingly large room, its floorboards scattered with rag rugs. Chintzy curtains and stout, handmade wooden furniture completed the rustic picture. Folksy artwork hung on the whitewashed walls, and she almost didn’t notice the discreet price tags. A five-star hotel room made to look likeLittle House on the Prairie. Grant Bronson was standing there, sexy as sin and stripped down to his boxer shorts…kicking the bed with his bare feet. The footboard had splintered.
The beautiful blonde girl, Mandy, was sitting in a chair across the room, fully clothed, with her back to him. She had earplugs in and was listening to an iPod.
There was a Bluetooth speaker sitting on the dresser, playing the sounds of a couple having screamingly loud sex.
Grant hurried over to the dresser and switched off the iPod next to it.
“What the hell?” Celeste shouted.
Grant stared at her, shaking his head in confusion. “Jennifer’s…sister? Twin?”
So, while Jennifer had been calling up Celeste wailing about how her abusive boyfriend Grant had knocked her up and abandoned her…she’d never mentioned Celeste’s existence to Grant. Typical. To Jennifer, people only existed when she could find a way to use them.
Celeste shook her head, struggling for words. She couldn’t even fathom what was going on here. Broken bed? Sex sounds blaring from a speaker? She didn’t want to know. Was this a werewolf thing, or was he just a total weirdo?
“You…you freaking freak! You don’t deserve to be Jeffrey’s father!” she yelled.
She heard footsteps pounding down the hallway towards them, and Taylor and Chantelle burst into the room behind her.
Grant stared at Taylor and Chantelle. “It’s not what it looks like!” he said defensively.
“Oh, you aren’t paying Mandy and all the other women you date to pretend that you’re a horn-dog? While never even having sex with them? Just so you can avoid having a relationship with anybody, ever?” Taylor said irritably. “There are therapists for people like you, you know.”
“Can’t I just be a pervert with a fetish for kicking beds while a beautiful woman watches?” Grant asked hopefully.
“She wasn’t watching. She’s ignoring you. She doesn’t even know we’re here.” Chantelle pointed at Mandy.
“And by the way!” Taylor raised her voice. She made a “T for Timeout” signal with her hands. “Son? This woman mentioned that you have a son?”
Mandy finally realized that there were other people in the room. She spun around in her chair and took her headphones out of her ears.
“Hello, everybody,” she said. “Uh, I don’t do orgies. That would cost extra.”
“The jig’s up,” Grant said gloomily. “She figured it out.”
Mandy shrugged. “Oops, too bad so sad. You’re still giving me that shopping spree. Hey, that’s the girl who asked me if you ever hit me. Hello, weird girl, I’m Mandy.”
“I’m Celeste. Not that it matters,” Celeste said bitterly. She turned to leave.
Taylor blocked her.
“Why does nobody care that Grant has a son?” she shouted at the top of her lungs.
“You do? Holy shiznit. Congratulations,” Mandy said.
Now Grant looked angry, and bitter. “Of course I don’t have a son. First of all, I never had sex with this woman. So I would assume that she’s trying to claim I fathered a son with her sister Jenny. Seven years ago. So, let’s see, my alleged son would be six now. And you know how I know that’s a lie? Because if I had a son with Jenny, she would have gone after every single cent she could get from me for that child. So yeah, apparently Jenny has a twin, and her twin is as big a grifter as she is.”
Celeste stared at the splintered wood on the floor, then back at Grant, shaking her head in amazement. “Wow. Just wow. I must say, I’m quite impressed. Jennifer was always scraping the bottom of the barrel with her men, but she really outdid herself with you.”
“That’s rich, coming from the scam artist’s clone,” Grant scoffed. “I’m a little sad, though. She couldn’t pull her hand out of her latest mark’s pocket long enough to visit me in person?”
Celeste’s lip curled in disgust. “Sorry. She’s busy being dead.”
“Sure she is,” Grant said, glowering at her. He grabbed his wallet off the dresser top and pulled out a wad of thousand-dollar bills held with a money clip. He threw the money at Celeste. It bounced off her chest and fell to the floor.
Something twisted miserably inside her. He thought he could just throw money at the problem; money that meant nothing to him because he had so much of it. She’d known he was a shallow, self-centered bastard, so why did her heart suddenly feel dead and cold in her chest?
“Jenny needs money and she couldn’t face me?” Grant yelled, his face flushing with anger. “There it is. Twenty grand. Keep it yourself, split it with her, I don’t give a—”
