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“Absolutely.” Bibi motioned for everyone to start walking. “Lead the way.”
Marissa led the charge, and I fell into step beside her. She looked at me, lips parted, but didn’t say anything. Fuck. She thought this could somehow be true.
I shouldn’t have said that I thought Suzanne would screw with the results. But we had to be prepared for all possible scenarios when it came to Suzanne Marlowe.
Especially after the bombshell I’d unearthed about her.
Stephanie and I had dug deep, and I was waiting for the last piece of irrefutable truth before I leveled this claim. It would change absolutely everything, and I wanted to make sure I had every detail perfectly in place.
Marissa settled into her chair in her office and turned her computer on. “I have to say, it feels good to be back, even if this was the last thing I ever expected to have to do.”
The tap of her fingers on the keyboard was unbearable. Everyone was watching her work. Her expression was blank as she scanned the screen.
“Why is she doing this?” my mom leaned over and whispered.
“Instinct,” I said. “Gotta trust them.”
My mind was racing. I had no doubt this wasn’t the last thing Suzanne had planned for us.
But if Suzanne managed to fuck with the test results, get that one last twist of the knife before I managed to snap the fucking thing in half, what would I do?
Marissa’s face lit up. “I knew it. Here she is. Courtney Flannagan.” She turned the screen so we could all see her headshot. The person in the picture was all done up, and she’d gone to a great photographer, but it was definitely the woman that had accompanied Suzanne on stage. The one I’d gone out with. “She applied to be a contestant onThe Mating Game. When I dug into her past, she had one too many reality shows on her resume for my liking. Always a contestant and never got far enough into the show that anyone would remember her. That wasn’t what we were looking for here.”
Stephanie and Tina shared a look. “We should checkThe Real Werewivesarchives too.”
“That’s very interesting, but Bjorn said he’d gone out with her when he was in Los Angeles, working onThe Scoop. The Mating Game didn’t exist yet, andThe Real Werewivesnever filmed in California.” Bibi tapped her finger against her chin. “I’m not sure I’m connecting the dots. Did she try to contact you after you broke up? I would assume she’d want you to know if you were indeed the father of her baby.”
“She didn’t.” Perfection be damned. I had to make my move now. I could only hope that Marissa would be ready for what happened next. “But I think I know how this all fits together.”
ChapterThirty
Marissa
“I’m all ears.” When I interviewed Courtney for the show, I thought she was a little awkward, kind of plain, and her obsession with being on reality shows didn’t add up. Some people had a rich fantasy life, but she didn’t strike me as the type to act on it. And she never mentioned a baby. I’d done the math, and she must have given birth right before we talked. It wasn’t the type of thing you forgot to mention to a reality show producer when you hoped to star in a TV show where a shifter might pick you to be his forever mate.
But I’d had more than my fair share of strange encounters with potential contestants, and to be honest, she didn’t come close to the top ten worst ones. She was average in every way, and to make a splash on a show like this, I needed my contestants to stand out immediately. Funny how I’d never taken ownership of anything like that onThe Scoop.
I quickly sent Courtney our standardthank you for your interest, but we’ve decided to move in another directionemail and forgot all about her.
The old Marissa would have thrown her into the mix for precisely the reasons I’d dismissed her. She obviously had an axe to grind or an obsession with being in front of the camera, and I would have wanted to find that thing that made for remarkable reality TV. But now that Courtney had made herMating Gamedebut, I could say beyond a shadow of a doubt that I had been right. She didn’t belong anywhere near this show.
No matter how furious I was with my mother, it felt damn good to be thinking like a producer again.
Bjorn stepped forward, all rumbly bear, more gorgeous than ever. I hated that there was a sliver of doubt shadowing our relationship. It was all too perfect how Courtney had somehow managed to snag a guy like Bjorn…of course, the bear was too lawful good to reject her advances. But how many had she actually made? She didn’t seem like she had a big flirting game.
He’s lawful good, I reminded myself. He wouldn’t knowingly abandon a baby.
His hands were on the edge of my desk, hair hanging forward, looking far sexier than was necessary right now. “How well do you know your dad?”
“Michael?” Why was he asking about my dad now? He was actually my stepdad, but he’d always been in the picture. He’d been a producer onThe Scoop, but even he hadn’t wanted to touch this comeback my mom was making. Last I’d talked to him, asking him to please come collect his wife, he was happily on a golf course in Scottsdale and told me to deal with it myself. Which hadn’t come as a surprise. He liked the moneyThe Scoopbrought far more than the mess. “I grew up with him. Worked with him. Why are you asking?”
I didn’t like where this was going.
Bjorn shook his head. “Not your stepdad. Your real dad.”
Bibi gasped but put her hand over her mouth like she could take it back.
“He died when I was a baby.”
