Page 3 of Skin Game

“I really doubt that.” Sure, he’d had sex with women, but condom was practically his middle name. He decided to play along for a bit and see where she was heading with this. He also had many, many questions, the first of which was, “Who’s your mother?”

Shit, would he recognize her mother’s name? There was a time when he pretty much slept with anyone who looked sideways at him. But never without a condom. Just call him Gabe “Condom” Karne.

The banana and condom demo when you were fourteen served its purpose, Chance. Along with the lectures about parental responsibility.

“She’s dead now, but her name was, ah, Laurel. Laurel Carter.”

Gabe didn’t even have to think hard. He had zero recollection of a Laurel Carter. Plus, the way she said it, with a slight upward inflection at the end of each name, gave him more reason to be suspicious. “Mind if I take a look at the papers you’ve got there?”

“I want them back,” Juliet said, holding them out.

“Sure,” Gabe agreed, taking the sheaf from her. “I just want to see what you have here. It’s a pretty big deal to be accused of being a father at this stage in my life.”

Juliet remained silent and clutched her bag tight enough that her knuckles went white. Gabe sighed and looked down at the pages.

At a glance, the paperwork looked to have been printed off some internet site—there was even a dot-com address at the bottom of each of the three pages. Which, he supposed, could be how these things were done, but he’d never visited one of those sites himself, so he didn’t know. Gabe took few minutes to scan over the pages more carefully while “Juliet” rustled nervously in place.

He was looking at a jumble of meaningless numbers and a bunch of names he didn’t recognize, up until he reached the bottom of the page. A graphic of a family tree had Gabe’s name with Juliet Carter listed below it. He did note that the name above his own wasH. Pritchard—that information he set aside for later consideration. Pritchard was not a name he was familiar with.

H could stand for anything. Harriet, Hattie, Hortense. Not necessarily Heidi.

Regardless, his initial impression didn’t change. These records had to have been faked or altered to make it look like Gabe was a father, but some of the information seemed legitimate. And wasn’t that interesting.

But no way was he a father. A snort escaped Gabe, causing the girl to glance sharply at him.

Not only had he never forgotten to glove up, but he had never spit in a tube and sent his DNA in for testing. And he knew for an absolute fact that there was no way in hell Heidi would have. She’d had strong feelings about sharing personal information, and DNA was about as personal as it could get.

What game was this girl playing at? And did he want to find out? Dammit, he did. The curse of curiosity.

“I’m sorry, I don’t recall a Laurel Carter,” he finally said, sliding the papers across the counter in Juliet’s direction. “What’s the motivation for coming here to my home and telling me this? You’re what, eighteen? It’s not as if there’s gonna be a happy family reunion.”

“I’m twenty-two,” Juliet shot back. “We could still build a relationship, maybe be a family.”

Gabe looked carefully at Juliet. Try as he might, he didn’t see any sort of family resemblance. Maybe she took after this Laurel person. Gabe certainly didn’t look much like Heidi. But no, he just couldn’t believe it.

“I would’ve been around twenty-four.” He shook his head,ignoring the mention of a relationship. “Yeah, still don’t believe it. Why don’t you tell me why you’re really here and how you found me? And I don’t suppose you remembered to bring along a picture of your dear mother?”

Various emotions flitted across her face. Panic was the most predominant, but he also saw fear as she tried to come up with something he might fall for. Juliet had hoped he would swallow her story hook, line, and sinker.

I raised you smarter than that, Chance.

Indeed, Heidi had.

“Look, if you insist, we’ll go to a clinic or someplace and have a real test done. But I think we both know what the outcome will be.”

A lone tear escaped from the corner of Juliet’s right eye, and her bottom lip trembled. It was very convincing, but Gabriel Karne wasn’t born yesterday.

“I don’t have any pictures. She died in a house fire. Everything was destroyed.”

Gabe sighed. “House fire, that’s original. But also, no. How about if you take yourself back to wherever you came from and concoct another story, then come back. Or better yet, tell me the truth about why you’re here. If I don’t know the truth, I can’t help you.” He couldn’t put his finger on why he thought Juliet was in a jam of some kind, other than the fear he’d seen. Why else would she have come knocking before nine a.m.? Why his door? Why the fake papers? It wasn’t as if he had anything. All she needed to do was take a look around.

Swiping the fake tears away, Juliet glared at him and jammed the sheaf of papers back into her purse. “Men. They’re all fucking assholes.”

She’s got something right, Chance.

“Can’t deny that. I’m serious about helping you out of whatever jam you’re in, but I need the truth.”

On the other hand.