Page 84 of The Billionaire's Fake Fiancée

I twist up a lock of hair with my finger. “You never answered my question about Stefano DiMera.”

“And I won’t.”

I tug a bit on the hair. “Tell me what Stefano DiMera would do.”

She slides her glare to me. Heat kicks up between us. She likes the tug.

I go a little harder. “Tell me, kitten.”

A vague smile plays upon her lips. “Nowyou call me kitten.”

“Would he try to prove Marvin’s an imposter?” I ask playfully. “Is that it? Would he sneak up and cut some of Marvin’s hair?”

“I thought the great Rex O’Rourke decided the fake nephew angle is ridiculous,” she says.

I shrug. Tabitha enjoys soap-opera-style intrigue, so I’m officially enthusiastic about it now. Me and my caveman lizard brain are both very enthusiastic. My lips hover over her ear. “Tell me.”

“Shut it. The children are singing.” There’s that edge again, and something in me heats. She cares about the job; she’ll do the job, but she doesn’t care about being agreeable to me. It’s intoxicating. This is the real Tabitha, giving as good as she gets.

The children have broken into some sort of dance and they’re making people join. We back up, as if guided by a single survival impulse. We end up in a shady nook near a service stairway. Hopefully out of the view of the children.

“Come on, tell me,” I say. “That’s what he’d do, right? He’d sneak up and cut off a bit of Marvin’s hair for testing?”

Tabitha shakes her head, disgusted. But I know she wants to tell—I can see it all over her face, and it makes me want her even more.

“He wouldn’t get his hair tested?” I continue. “Secretly snip some off and send it to a lab?”

“Uh! Stop, please!”

“What?”

She lets out an exasperated huff. “Snip his hair.” This like it’s the stupidest thing ever.

“Why not?”

“Fine! Yes! He’d be all over the testing,” she says. “But unlike you, Stefano DiMera would know that you can’t do a DNA test on cut hair. He would know that you need five to ten full hairs with the bulbs intact for a maternity DNA test.”

I lean in close enough to nuzzle her hair. “How would Stefano get those hairs?”

She bites her lower lip. She doesn’t want to answer, yet she really, really does, because she loves the soap opera shit. This shouldn’t be hot. But it is. “He’d find a way to get back into that salon spa area,” she finally says.

“I thought cut hair doesn’t work.”

“It doesn’t, but I combed Marvin’s hair out, and a lot of hairs fall from simple combing. You lose up to a hundred hairs a day, and a comb tends to collect the ones that you’ve lost naturally but are still clinging on to your hair. Stefano would look for that comb.” She’s energized. Coming alive. “He’d hope the room and the styling tools haven’t been cleaned.”

“Let’s do it,” I say.

She turns to me now, gaze sharp. “You think the theory is bullshit.”

I shrug. “What do I know? Let’s get the hairs.”

“Why the sudden change of heart?”

“Why not cover our bases?” I say. But really, I want more of her, any way I can get her.

“You need to send them to a lab,” she says. “Gail has a lot of bells and whistles on this yacht, but I doubt she has a DNA testing lab onboard. And how awkward would it be to ask?”

“We’re docking at St. Herve soon. All of these little islands have FedEx outposts.”

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