Page 9 of The Stipulation
It wants him.
I murmur a cautious ‘hi’ just so I don’t come across as ruder than him. As I expected, he doesn’t return my greeting. My throat tightens. Asshole. He walks away without a word to either me or Betty.
“Wow, is he always that friendly?” I say, walking away, silently hoping I won’t see him again.
“He’s not so bad once you get used to him,” Betty says in a conciliatory tone.
Half of me doesn’t want to have to get used to him, but the other half of me very much wouldn’t mind seeing more of him. I push those thoughts aside. I am here for … well, I’m not entirely sure why I’m here, but it’s to do with my father and not the very rude Axel Rhodes.
Betty stops at a door and opens it.
“I’ll come back in an hour or so to give you the tour,” she says. “If you need anything in the meantime, just press nine on the house phone in your room. If you want to call out, press one for an outside line.”
“Thank you,” I say.
She smiles at me and starts to walk away as I close the door. The suite is stunning. To one side is a bedroom area with a king-sized bed made up with silk sheets and a thick duvet with a plush Oriental rug underfoot. On the other side of the huge room is a lounge area with a sofa and coffee table that is bathed in soft lighting that feels inviting. A large bathroom opens off the bedroom, and even from here, I can see it has a free-standing tub, plus a large walk-in shower, marble counters, and a hardwood floor.
I move into the room, sit on the edge of the bed, and experience a strange sense of deflation washing over me. He’s dead, the mysterious father I never knew, and now this mansion, this life, stretches out before me, alien and imposing. I pick up my cell phone and call my mother. She answers immediately, her voice sharp and agitated.
“Please tell me you’re not still considering going to New York,” she says.
“Umm, not exactly. I’m already here,” I say quietly.
“What? Why? I’ve told you. This is a scam. The man who called you is lying about it all.”
“Well, we’ll soon find out for sure whether Joseph Manswell is my father or not,” I say.
She inhales sharply when I say the name, and I no longer need the results of the DNA test to know that he is indeed my father. Her reaction says it all.
“A DNA sample will prove it for sure.”
“What? You can’t just hand over a DNA sample, Jo,” she cries hotly. “You don’t even know these people. Billionaires are not people you trust blindly.”
“I’ve already done it, Mum.”
Her breath catches audibly in her throat, and when she talks again, her voice is barely above a whisper.
“You shouldn’t be there. You shouldn’t be doing this.”
“If you’d been honest with me sooner, then I wouldn’t need to be here looking for answers,” I say gently. “But now that I am here, I need to see it through.”
She goes dead quiet. I can almost feel the fear coming off her now that I am about to discover everything that she’s been hiding from me for all of my life.
“Jo … I’m sorry. I … I ” she whispers, then trails off.
“I know, Mum. I know,” I say sadly.
There’s nothing much left to say, and I end the call and set my cell phone down on the bed beside me. The weight of the journey, the revelations, my mother’s betrayal press down on me. Closing my eyes, I force myself to breathe deeply and evenly.
I open my eyes and look around. The enormity of the Manswell fortune looms over me. Squaring my shoulders, I get up and start unpacking, arranging my clothes and toiletries, taking small ownership of the vast luxurious space.
Somehow, even with my mum’s obvious discomfort at me being here, even with the strange grief of losing the father I almost got to know, I feel the tiniest spark of sexual electricity when a pair of disdainful emerald-green eyes flashes into my mind.
Very inconvenient, and yet…
Chapter
Five
