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I rolled my eyes. The guy was such a fraud. I flexed my fingers, reminding myself not to make him suspicious. “Just a fan of Get Ripped with Skip,” I said like a proper Valley girl. I was totally tubular, if I said so myself.
I caught a glimpse of Tristan’s grin before I heard Skip undo the locks on the door. From the sound of it, there were several of them. It only proved how sketchy this place was.
As soon as Skip opened the door, he eyed me salaciously, like I was candy and he wanted a taste. I almost decked him right then. How could Stella get involved with such a loser? If she ever brought home a guy like this, Quinn was going to live with me.
“Hey there.” He wagged his bushy brows. His Australian accent had magically returned. He looked ridiculous wearing a teal jogging suit reminiscent of the nineties.
“Oh. My. Gosh. It’s totally you. I can’t believe it. Because of your workouts, I’ve lost two pounds.”
He blinked for a moment, my ridiculous statement throwing him off, but he couldn’t resist the faux compliment. “Really? That’s great. What’s your name, sugar?”
I threw up a little in my mouth but swallowed it back down, knowing I had to get this loser as far away from my family as possible. My only hope was that Stella had used lots of contraception. This man did not need to procreate. I didn’t want to think about how many STIs he had. “If you let me come in, I’ll tell you.” I took a step toward him.
He reeked of BO and stale beer. He obviously lied about being health conscious in his videos.
I had to breathe through my mouth.
Skip couldn’t resist and opened the door wide.
As soon as he did, Tristan zoomed past me and pushed Skippy inside before he even knew what had hit him. It was almost like he was enacting my FBI-agent plan. Did it turn me on? Absolutely. All I could think was, Look at my man go. But I needed to keep my head in the game. I followed and shut the door behind me, doing my best not to touch a thing in the dingy and cluttered room.
“What the hell is this?” Skippy yelled in his American accent while he pushed Tristan back.
Tristan’s face burned bright red; he was ready to throw a punch.
I didn’t really want it to come to that, even though I was digging Tristan’s tough-guy act. I held up my phone with a picture of the newspaper article I’d shown Tristan the night before. “The jig is up, Skippy. Or should I say, Skip Larson?”
The orange man turned white. He backed away from Tristan, running a hand through his hair. “Who are you two?”
“I’ll tell you who we are. We’re Stella’s family.”
At first, his eyes widened, but then he shrugged and laughed.
Oh, that did it. “Listen, Skippy, this is no joke. You better stay away from my sister.”
A sinister smile grew upon his glowing face. “But she doesn’t want me to. You see, we’re in love.”
I spat out a sardonic laugh. “Oh, please. You only love yourself.”
“We’re the real deal, baby,” he said with a mocking air.
Tristan grabbed him by his teal jacket. “Don’t ever call her baby again.”
Well, hello, Tristan. Ooh la la. His tough-guy side was making me want to fan myself.
“What are you going to do about it?” Skippy challenged him.
Tristan pushed him up against the wall with a thud. “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to call our family attorney and have him freeze access to all of Stella’s accounts. After that, I’m calling the authorities.”
Skippy swallowed hard and stammered, “Listen, man, I’m only here because Stella asked me to come.”
“Right,” I scoffed. “And I’m sure you had no idea her husband just died and she’s worth millions. Just like all the other widows you’ve swindled over the years. I’m sure you just magically appeared in their lives at the right moment. What fake accent did you use for them? By the way, you do a horrible impression of an Aussie, mate. Does my sister know you’re really from North Dakota?”
His orange face turned red.
“That’s what I thought. So, this is what you’re going to do. You’re going to text my sister and tell her you don’t want to see her anymore. Then we’re going to give you a thirty-minute head start to get your lying orange butt out of this town before we alert the authorities.”
“And what if I don’t?” Skippy sneered.
