Dangerous Games Read Free Page A

publicist, though she was actually forty-eight since her birthday the previous month—and still looked great for her age.
    She’d dyed her hair blonde most of her career though she was a naturally a brunette but now it was a pretty chestnut brown with blonde highlights. Not that I could do much complaining because I also dyed my hair. My natural color was dishwater blonde but I dyed it flaxen blonde with platinum highlights.
    Though she had aged beautifully and looked great, there was an obvious age difference between this guy, Etienne Fournier, and her. He was youth personified and she was…well, older. It wasn’t as obvious as Madonna and her boyfriend or Jennifer Lopez and her boy-toy but no one would think my mother and her lover were in the same decade let alone the same generation.
    I read the article with increasing interest though it was obviously quite exaggerated and played up to sell more copies. I grabbed my Ulysse Nardin phone and walked out of my dorm. I voice-dialed my best friend, Monika Dahlin Carter-Goldsmith, and she picked up on the second ring.
    “Hey, sweetie. How’s Seattle?” she wondered in her usual cynical tone.
    “Cold and rainy—what the fuck is new? Listen, how serious are my mom and this model she’s dating?”
    If anyone had the lowdown on the celebrity scene in L.A. then it would be Monika. The daughter of one of the top agents’ in the business plus the step-daughter of the most famous agent in the City of Angels, she knew everything about everyone.
    Her real father was Swedish, like my own, but she’d been raised in L.A. since childhood and had two famous step-fathers and two half-siblings on her mother’s side of the family. Her first famous step-father, Bret Carter, had died in a horrific car crash in 2006 and shortly afterwards, her mother had married Markus Goldsmith II; her rumored half-uncle but since no one could prove it, the marriage had gone through without a hitch. She had an eleven-year-old brother from her mother’s marriage to Bret Carter and a five-year-old sister from her marriage with Markus.
    “It’s pretty serious,” Monika finally replied after an interminable silence. “I mean, Athena isn’t bragging about her boyfriend which is always a bad thing. Usually, the man she’s dating is the best thing since sliced bread but with Etienne, mum’s the word.”
    “Fuck.” I had finally reached the outside campus and lit a Camel though I’d promised I would quit. “What do you know about him? Is he just after my mom’s money or something?”
    “I don’t think so. You know your mother can’t keep her damn trap shut but she really appears to be very happy with this guy. My mom says they seem like a genuine couple and he is a complete gentleman despite his profession.”
    “Yeah, that’s what everyone said about Gabriel Aubrey until he turned into a complete and utter psycho,” I murmured under my breath.
    “You are so judgmental.” Monika laughed on the other end. “Seriously, I have met Etienne and he’s really cool. I mean the guy is hot as hell and sex on a freakin’ stick but he isn’t interested in jailbait. I tried to flirt with him at a party I attended last weekend and he blew me off so fast, he made the Airbus seem slow. I am tellin’ you the guy is genuine and seems really interested in your mother, not her money.”
    “Fine.” I dragged from my cigarette and exhaled slowly.
    “Are you smoking again? Gross! That is such an incredibly nasty habit. You have to quit as soon as possible. By the way, your future step-dad  doesn’t  smoke so he is so not the stereotypical Frenchman. All I am sayin’ is when you finish up and come home for the summer, give the guy a chance, okay?”
    “Look, I gotta go. I wanna call my mom.”
    “Laters!” Monika exclaimed before I ended the call.
    I didn’t know if I was ready to talk to my mom yet. If she was happy then who was I to interfere? I would only be meddling because my own life was