Chapter Three

 

Celeste wandered through the lobby of Mystic Lodge, trying to figure out why the heck security was so tight. It looked like a normal group of people – men and women wandering through the building, chatting, talking on their cell phones, flirting with each other…not doing anything sinister. But she was getting very odd looks, and she couldn’t figure out what kind of group this was.

She’d found Grant in the small town of Pineview a few days ago, when she’d searched for his name on the internet and a picture of him shopping downtown had popped up on a social media site. She’d driven to Pineview with Jeffrey, seen Grant driving in town, and snuck a GPS tracker under his car when he was shopping. That was how she’d found out he was staying at Mystic Lodge.

After getting her fire inspector disguise together that morning, she’d left Jeffrey at a drop-in daycare in Pineview. She’d promised to come right back, but he’d sat in the corner, sullen and furious. She hated to leave him, but she was afraid if she brought him here and Grant rejected him to his face, he’d be heartbroken. Leaving him in a safe place for a few hours felt like the lesser of two evils.

She was fortunate that she’d showed up prepared, because she never would have been able to talk her way in otherwise. Her job at Harrison, Inc. had involved testing site security at major corporations. She’d showed up in various disguises at supposedly secure buildings and talked her way past the front desk receptionists, past security guards, past janitors. She’d been part of a cleaning crew, or with a catering company, delivering flowers or birthday cakes or pizza…and nine times out of ten, she’d waltzed right in.

To get into Mystic Lodge, she’d dressed up as a fire inspector. She had an excellent fake ID printed up. When the guard at the gate had informed her that the event had been booked for a private group and she’d have to come back next month, she’d threatened to contact the County and get the lodge shut down for non-compliance. She’d also promised that she’d make the inspection quick and it was really just a formality, so he’d reluctantly let her in – after retreating to his booth, calling up to the lodge, and making her wait for a good twenty minutes. It was like he was warning them that she was coming, giving them time to hide and cover up…what?

She’d figure it out one way or another.

And now she was being followed around by the woman who’d apparently been assigned as her babysitter. Yasmine. A very pretty woman with long, shiny, blue-black hair, perfectly penciled eyebrows, and an annoyed expression. She was practically stalking her – literally, like a cat would stalk a mouse.

“Excuse me. Will you be much longer?” Yasmine snapped at her.

“It will take as long as it takes,” Celeste said coolly.

“Which is how long, exactly?” Yasmine stepped much too close to her, trying to intimidate her. Good luck with that. Celeste had spent her entire childhood and adolescence not only being the new kid at school every few months, but being the new foster kid with the mismatched, patched-up clothing. She’d had her share of beatings, until she’d learned how to defend herself and Jennifer from the kids at school, from the kids in their group homes, and from their own foster parents.

Instead of backing up, Celeste took a step towards Yasmine and bumped into her. Yasmine made a weird snarling noise, almost like an animal, then glanced around self-consciously. “What the hell are you doing?” she bleated.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I thought this was National Don’t Respect Anybody’s Personal Space Day. I was just joining in.”

Yasmine’s lip curled in contempt. “You haven’t told me when you’re leaving.”

“No, I haven’t. Oh, crud!” Celeste glanced down at her clipboard.

“Now what?” Yasmine said with irritation.

“I totally lost count of how many exits I’ve inspected. Now I have to start all over again from the beginning.”

Yasmine arched a perfectly penciled eyebrow. “Shouldn’t you be writing it down?”

“Under normal circumstances, yes, I would, but somebody keeps hovering directly over me, bumping into me so I can’t write and getting in my way. It’s starting to make me think you all have something to hide. Do you have something to hide?” She raised her voice very, very loud as she said that, drawing disapproving glances from several people who were walking by. One of them, an older man who’d been hovering in the background, hurried over.

“Yasmine. Back off and let her do her work so she can leave. You were asked to show her around, not get in her way. If you can’t do your job, let me know. We can always send you home.” The man gave her a look of contempt that showed that Celeste wasn’t the only person annoyed by Yasmine’s behavior.

“First I’m going to go use the ladies room,” Celeste said. “I assume you’re not going to follow me in there,” she added to Yasmine. Before Yasmine or the older man could answer, she hurried off to use the bathroom.

Once she was in a stall, she shut the door, sat down on the toilet seat, and set her clipboard down, massaging her temples. What was going on here? What was Grant doing here, and what were these people up to? The air was bristling with tension, and everywhere she went, conversations stopped mid-sentence and people watched her with wary, suspicious eyes.

She wondered if it had something to do with Jeffrey’s odd…condition. She’d asked Jeffrey about the pointy teeth and pointy ears – which had vanished almost as soon as they’d appeared – and he’d muttered, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” When she’d tried to push the issue, he’d said, “I need to go pee. Right now,” and hurried off to the bathroom.

That was one of the things she’d planned on asking Grant Bronson about. That was until she’d repeatedly left messages for him at the Mystic Lodge over the past few days – and he’d ignored every one. Messages telling him that he had a son.

Was he really that hard-hearted? Could there have been some mistake? Maybe he wasn’t getting the messages?

She needed to know what kind of man Grant really was before she decided whether she should tell him about Jeffrey. If he was a drunk or a drug addict or if he beat up his girlfriends – she wouldn’t subject Jeffrey to that.

So she’d spent the last ten days stalking Grant, both online and in real life, while she and Jeffrey lived in motel rooms.

What she’d found out wasn’t exactly reassuring. He was a total Casanova, always being photographed with beautiful women on his arm. She could see why. Even caught in the harsh flashes of the paparazzi’s cameras, he was heart-stoppingly gorgeous. Chiseled features, dark hair worn just a little too long so that it was allowed to curl, and a sly curve to his full pink lips that matched the wicked glint in his narrow, dark-lashed eyes. Eyes the color of whiskey. He was obviously used to breaking hearts, and she had no intention of letting him break Jeffrey’s.

He traveled all the time, too. How could he possibly be a good father for a little boy?

If his public persona was to be believed, he was a smug, entitled, obscenely wealthy ass.

But on the bright side, she hadn’t seen any indication that he’d ever hit a woman. Jennifer had claimed that Grant beat her, but then, Jennifer had lied about everyone and everything.

It was unlikely that someone as famous as him had been physically abusive and managed to sweep it under the rug.

But what would she do if Grant refused to step up to the plate? Then Jeffrey’s choices were the foster system – never in hell – or her.

What could she offer him? She had been on the run from her past since she was sixteen. She was a ghost. She literally lived out of her suitcase. She had no home address; she traveled around the country from job to job. She didn’t have a single friend.

Yeah, she was only twenty-five. In theory, maybe she could learn how to live like a normal human being. But she wasn’t going to practice on Jeffrey. He needed a home. Stability.

Her heart broke for him, and she had no idea what she was going to do now. CPS was probably looking for them.

So Grant might not be an abuser. But just as bad, she was afraid that he was indifferent. How could he not have responded to her messages telling him that he was a father? What man wouldn’t want to meet his son?

She left the restroom – which had two entrances. She deliberately went out the door in the back, because she was going to have to go hunt Grant down soon.

She made her way into a lounge, which was near the hallway she would need to use to get to his room. A crowd of people was there milling around. The mention of Grant’s name caught her attention.

A pretty, plump girl with brown hair was sipping a bottled water and talking to a skinny woman with blonde, spiky hair. They wore name-tags identifying them as Taylor, who was the brown-haired girl, and Chantelle.

Yasmine came hurrying into the room, scanning the crowd looking for Celeste. Fortunately there was a group of men between her and Yasmine, and they were all surprisingly large and burly. All the men here were unusually big and rugged.

“So apparently Mandy really is back with Grant,” Taylor said. “Can you believe it?”

Yasmine, who was walking by them, shot an angry glance at Taylor. Apparently this was bad news for her.

Celeste wasn’t surprised that Grant attracted that kind of attention. He might be a first-class jerk, but he was stunningly handsome. He towered over the dates she’d seen him photographed with, even the catwalk model types in Louboutin heels, and the exquisite, expensive-looking cut of the designer suits he wore couldn’t hide the swell and flex of the muscles in his arms and chest. A little shiver ran through her as she thought about those bedroom eyes, the color of top-shelf scotch, and that feral smile. She wondered if he’d be a good kisser…

She shook herself. What the hell was she thinking? He’d left Jeffrey to be raised by her flake of a sister, who shouldn’t have been allowed to look after a goldfish. Then he’d gone on with his flashy, love ’em and leave ’em lifestyle and never given Jeffrey another thought. Call Copernicus, because apparently the Solar System doesn’t revolve around the Sun, it revolves around Grant Bronson.

Chantelle shook her head. “I thought she’d given up on that stupid man-whore. Tell me, why do smart women date dumb werewolves?”

Wait, what?

Taylor sighed. “Honestly, I was starting to wonder if they were faking the relationship, but they broke the bed in his room last night. And they’re getting noise complaints because of their loud sex.”

“Noise complaints about sex? At a werewolf convention?” Chantelle squawked in amusement. “For God’s sake, this is boink city, here. I’ve never seen a bunch of hornier mofos. All these Alphas in one place, all these Alpha groupies who think they’re going to be an Alpha’s mate…”

Okay. Celeste needed to leave this room immediately.

She turned and walked away, making sure to stroll casually rather than run like hell for the door like she wanted to.

Werewolves.

All those weird headlines all over the country about werewolves. Jeffrey’s sharp, pointy teeth and his pointy ears. She could only pray he hadn’t left sharp wolfy tooth-marks in that CPS woman’s arm. He must not have, or she would have said something.

And now – she was listening to two women talk about werewolves as if it were a normal thing. That would explain why this meeting was happening in a private lodge deep in the woods.

If this was true, Jeffrey needed Grant more than ever. How could Celeste keep a werewolf cub safe?

She pushed her way through the crowd and stomped down the hallway, fingering the square of plastic she had in her pocket. It was a universal key card for hotel rooms. Highly illegal for her to own it – oops. It had also been illegal for her to hack into the lodge’s guest registry and find out what room Grant was in.

As she approached the door, she hesitated. There were the loud sounds of sex, screams of pleasure, and a bed thumping against the wall.

The hell with it. At least she knew Grant was there. He couldn’t exactly avoid talking to her now, could he?

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 like Little 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—”

But he was speaking to her back. She’d walked out of the room, leaving the money lying on the floor.