A One Night Affair

Chapter 16

"You and Alex are like a friggin' seesaw. Or a light switch...up, down, on, off."

Stephanie lounged on the sofa in front of floor-to-ceiling mirrors, her attention divided between her phone and her sister, Delilah, dressed in a black satin and lace negligee.

Delilah ran her hands over her hips and shook her head at the store's personal shopper. "I'm not sure this is me, Callie."

Of course it wasn't. It was sexy and sinful, not words that would describe her sweet and charming big sister. Sexy, sinful and seductive were words that had often been tossed at Stephanie's head, though. Usually by older men who wanted to get in her pants.

And more often than not, Stephanie had let them.

"We are definitely getting married on Saturday. Alex just gets..." Delilah hesitated. "... frustrated by the constant drama that follows us around."

Delilah was being kind. Drama didn't follow her around. It followed Rebecca and, to an extent, it followed her, as well. Stephanie shrugged. She didn't have an excuse to offer; she liked attention. In that regard she was very much her mother's daughter.

"The disastrous party didn't earn as much media attention as we feared," Delilah mused, standing in her underwear and taking a beach dress from Callie.

"And that's surprising. I would've thought it would've been a bigger scandal. The evening was rich with material any paparazzo would've loved to report on. Ana Santiago rocking up, her and our mother's fight, the destroyed wedding cake and Alex flouncing off—"

"Alex does not flounce!" Delilah protested.

Stephanie put her phone down on the seat next to her. "But after one or two initial reports, the story died. Why?"

"I for one am grateful," Delilah said, preening in front of the mirror. Her eyes met Stephanie's. "And you should be glad, too. If Dad saw the pictures of you with your tongue down Daxton Hayes's throat, he would've hit the roof."

No, he wouldn't have. Jed tended not to see anything beyond his oldest, beautiful, blond, sweet daughter. He didn't know how to handle Stephanie, who was willful and stubborn—and he preferred not to have to deal with her at all. And, of course, that just made Stephanie act more outrageous in an effort to make him see her. Yeah, bad attention was still attention and she never got any from her father.

She was, Stephanie admitted, messed up.

But behaving badly was always more fun than being a Goody Two-shoes.

"Your behavior was wildly inappropriate, Steph," Delilah gently chided her. "You do know he's gay, don't you? And married."

Duh. She wasn't fifteen. "I was a little drunk and in the mood to cause trouble."

"You're always in the mood to cause trouble," Del said, with asperity.

Stephanie ignored her sister and checked her phone as Delilah changed back into the clothes she'd arrived in. The pile she was intending to purchase would make a sizable dent in Daddy's credit card. Good. It wasn't like the man couldn't afford it.

"Daxton's cute but I have my eye on Hunter Price."

Delilah whipped around, her expression horrified. "Stephanie, he's old enough to be your father!'

Stephanie snorted. "If he had me at seventeen. He's super sexy. And he thought I was, too, until that stupid baker stepped in."

Delilah stared at her for a moment, looking like she was deciding whether Stephanie was being serious or not. "Steph, you're projecting. You have a very healthy ego but you're nuts if you think he's going to look at you twice. Hunter Price is way, way out of your league."

Nobody was out of her league. She'd make damn sure that Hunter Price knew that, and the world, too.

"Find someone your own age to date, Steph. Save yourself the humiliation." Delilah stepped into her Jimmy Choos. Picking up the black peignoir from the pile of clothes, she held it up to the light. "I'm still not sure about this. I'm not sure if Alex will like it."

Swallowing down her fury at Delilah's comments about her being not good enough for Hunter—she'd make her sister swallow her words—Stephanie pulled up a grin. "If Alex doesn't like it you might have to consider whether he's batting for Daxton's team."

"Stephanie Rhodes!"

Stephanie rolled her eyes at Delilah's scandalized expression. Wanting to get under her skin, Stephanie smirked. "I'll wager that once Alex sees you in it, it'll take him two seconds to get you out of it and he'll take you up against the nearest wall."

"God, Steph, you are only eighteen. What do you know about wall sex?"

"Probably a lot more than you do, big sister." She also had intimate knowledge of car sex, shower sex and oral sex but she figured she'd give her sister a heart attack if she disclosed that.

Stephanie shook her head at Delilah's horrified expression and changed the subject. "You're lucky to have Alex in your life, to give you attention and buy you stuff. He loves you, any sap can see that." She heard the wistfulness in her voice and cursed.

"Your day will come, Steph. Just be patient."

She didn't need Delilah, or anyone else, feeling sorry for her or, worse, pitying her. As for waiting, screw that! "Yeah, I'm not the type to wait around, Del, as you should know."

Delilah bit her bottom lip, instantly worried. "Whatever you are planning, Steph, please don't. Please don't create havoc just before my wedding day."

As they left the store, Callie carrying their bags behind them, Jed's limo pulled up beside them. Stephanie followed Delilah into the car as Callie and the driver handled the bags. She considered Delilah's request: she didn't want to ruin Del's day but she didn't like Del saying Hunter Price was out of her league. That stung. She would not be stopped from getting what she wanted by an insignificant baker who had neither the wealth, the beauty, the youth nor the connections she did. She simply would not tolerate it.

Stephanie accessed the internet on her phone, logged into her email account, the one that had no connection to her or the Rhodes family, and typed in the saved email address for one of the chief correspondents at CelebGossCentral. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, looking for words that would make the most impact.

Or the most trouble.

The youngest daughter of one of the richest, and most prominent, families in Newport Beach is pregnant. The father is a very successful restaurateur who is denying his involvement with her because she was underage when they started dating. The family is concerned because this could spin out of control, something they don't want to happen days before the most expensive wedding of the decade.

Yeah, that should do the trick.