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She cocked her head. “Did I ever tell you that I was adopted?”
This was the first time I was hearing this. Natalie had never told me. Maybe she didn’t know.
“No.” I could hear the edge in my voice. My skin prickled with apprehension.
“Well, I was. Some American girl gave me up…”
Where was she going with this?
“All I know is she was an exchange student, like me… spending a college year abroad in London.”
The wildest thought leaped into my head. I’d screwed a lot of women, but only one stood out.
Alexa Roth.
I’d unexpectedly bumped into her in the lobby yesterday. We’d exchanged a cold, cordial hello and each walked the other way. It couldn’t be. She would have told me. Or would she have? I tried to envision Alexa and Tanya side by side in my mind. Both were blondes with high cheekbones, almond-shaped eyes, and mile-high legs.
And big tits.
Oh God. It was possible. But wait! If I had a kid with Alexa, she’d be twenty-one. Tanya was only eighteen…at least that’s what she said she was. Was she lying? Had she tracked me down using one of those popular online DNA ancestry sites?
“What are you thinking, Matt?” she asked coyly while I tugged at my bottom lip.
“Nothing.” I needed to get off this unnerving subject and return to the far more pressing one. “Tanya, I need to know—”
“What?” She flung the word at me like a grenade.
“That I have your word you won’t tell Paige or Will about my indiscretion.”
Keeping her eyes on me, she folded her hands on her lap and twiddled her thumbs. “What’s it worth to you, Matt?”
Christ. This girl was blackmailing me. I should have listened to my mother and gotten rid of her right after Thanksgiving. Sent her back to London.
“Well?” I heard her say as I squeezed my temples with my fingers.
I threw out a number. “A hundred grand to keep your mouth shut.”
She rolled her eyes with exasperation. “That’s not what I’m looking for.”
“Okay. Two hundred.”
She tsked. “You are so far off.”
Rage was bubbling inside me. I could feel my blood pressure spiking. “Dammit! Stop playing games and tell me what you want!”
“I want you to reconcile with Natalie and pay my Coldwater tuition. Let me stay in your house until I start Stanford.”
“I don’t know if that’s possible.”
Glaring at me, she snarled. “Make it possible.”
With that, she stood. Her expression softened. “Oh, and Daddy dearest? I hope we’re still going to that new gun range later.”
There was only one target I had in mind. One person I wanted to shoot.
* * *
The normal high I got from whipping down the challenging slopes was overpowered by everything I had on my mind. Most of all by the possibility that my kids would find out I had cheated on their mother. Who knew how far Tanya, my bat-crazy maybe daughter, would go? One thing for sure, neither Will nor Paige would want to live with me after knowing what I’d done. Let alone visit me. They would hate me for life.
