Chapter 15
From the text messages of Flint Mendota: Hey Wysdom, I found your spirit animal.
Our search of the main house turned up nothing but a messed-up office. The current Mrs. Cruz had no reason to go into her husband’s office, which seemed weird. When my father died, the first thing my mom had to do was find his life insurance and prepaid funeral paperwork.
“You’ve been quiet for the last hour,” Celia poked me in the ribs.
I startled. “I’m sorry.”
“You were acting strange around Echo,” Celia prompted.
I grinned. I caught Celia checking out my package when Echo entered the sitting room. The thought warmed me from the inside out, which also sent a few stray thoughts to my cock that weren’t welcome at this precise moment.
“You didn’t seem to notice the resemblance,” I cleared my throat.
“The resemblance?”
I stopped and stared at her. “You truly didn’t see it?”
She gave me a “what the hell are you talking about” look.
“Ceel,” I grabbed her arms in my hands. “Echo is a poor-man’s version of you.”
“Yeah, right,” she scoffed and stepped out of my grasp.
“Yeah.Right. Period,” I bent down to look her in the eye. “She’s the same height, has the same hair color, same curves.”
“Her curves are store-bought. Mine are from twins,” Celia snorted. She turned to walk towards the car.
I stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “Exactly, my point. You’re a natural beauty. She’s a wanna-be.”
Her eyes went wide. “You can’t believe that, can you?”
Now it was my turn to be clueless. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“She is 15 years younger than me. She’s been surgically altered to be Octavio’s dream woman,” Celia snorted. “She’s like… Celia 2.0. And I saw you checking her out.”
“Okaaaaayyy,” I said slowly.
“She’s a beautiful woman,” Celia shrugged. “Hell, even I caught myself checking out her backside.”
I rolled my eyes. “Woman, you make me crazy.”
“What?”
“Again, she’s apoor-man’sCelia. You’re the original. The classic. And yes, I was checking her out - because she’s a murder suspect,” I blew out a breath.
“Whatever you need to tell yourself,” she flopped into the car with a huff.
What the hell just happened? How did we go from friendly to frostbite in one conversation?
I hustled into the car and cranked up the engine. “Riddle me this, Ceel. You were checking me out while I was checking her out. Did you see any physical response to this store-bought beauty?”
Celia’s cheeks flushed. She wouldn’t meet my eye.
“Exactly. Nothing. That should tell you everything about how I saw Echo,” I eased the car down the driveway. “But shit, even arguing with you turns me on. So, maybe you should checkthatout.”
I caught her sneaking another peek at my caged tower of power and laughed when she turned redder.That’s right, babe, hard as fuck right now for you.
