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The closet creaked open, and Scarlet loudly hissed,“He’s taking his sweet time, that grandson of yours!”

“He’s not my grandson yet!” she hissed back.

And she was starting to wonder if Chase was really worth the aggravation. He was a great guy, sure, but there were lots of great guys in the world. And if Chase and Odelia couldn’t be trusted with an island full of seducers and seductresses maybe their bond wasn’t to be and she was simply wasting her time trying to protect him from making a mistake.

Suddenly she heard the sound of voices approaching.“Get back in your closet, you!” she loud-whispered, and Scarlett did as she was told and closed the door again, but not before emitting an excited giggle. Clearly she was loving every minute of this.

The door to the villa opened, and she heard the telltale sound of shuffling feet. They’d arrived. Now all she needed to do was wait until they were both in bed and then she was going to pop out from underneath and give Chase a good talking-to.

“Ooh, Chase, you’re so sweet!” a woman cooed, and Vesta pressed her lips together.

“It’s Donna!” Scarlett said, opening the closet a crack. “I knew it!”

“Get back in there!” Vesta returned.

“Can I offer you something?” Chase was saying. “Wine, beer… something stronger?”

The son of a gun! Shamelessly liquoring up his conquest!

She had half a mind to crawl from under the bed and leave them to it. He didn’t deserve Odelia, that much was obvious.

The sound of voices continued, and as Vesta tried to pick up words, she was also keenly aware of the passage of time, as it seemed to take Chase an awfully long time to make his move. Unless he planned to conclude his business on the living room couch. She didn’t think so. Chase had always struck her as an old-fashioned kind of guy, and old-fashioned kind of guys still preferred bedding their conquests in their actual beds.

She must have dozed off, then, for when she woke up, the room was awfully quiet, and she wondered if she’d missed her window of opportunity.

She directed a glance at the closet, but of course she couldn’t see if Scarlett was still in there or not.

“Harriet!” she whispered, but Harriet was a no-show. “Brutus!” she tried, but once again there was no response.

Dang it. What was going on? Had she slept through the whole thing?

She decided to find out the only way she knew how: by checking the bed for signs of Donnas.

So she crawled from under the bed with some effort, probably covered in dust bunnies from head to toe, and raised her head to check the bed. There clearly was someone asleep in there, and possibly two.

Her face set, she took executive action and jumped into bed, intent on catching the lovers in the act.

“Gotcha!” she yelled.

“Eek!” Chase screamed.

“Gotcha!” Scarlett cried as she hopped into the bed from the other side.

“Eeeek!” Chase yelped, and turned on the light.

Vesta, blinking against the sudden blaze, searched around for Donna.

“Where are you hiding, you trollop!” she said. “Come out now!”

“Yeah, come out now!” Scarlett echoed, clearly having a ball.

“What are you doing?!” Chase said, looking startled as he wrapped the sheet closer to his chest, staring at the two old ladies having hopped into bed with him out of the blue.

“Where is she?” asked Vesta, wagging a menacing finger in the cop’s face.

“Yeah, where is the floozie?” asked Scarlett.

“What floozie? What are you talking about?!”

“Donna. I know you’re hiding her somewhere,” said Vesta.

“Donna? There is no Donna. I sent her home after her third martini and after pumping her for information on the missing women. She was best friends with one of them so I figured she might know what happened to her friend.”

Vesta stared at the guy, a little dumbfounded.“You mean you weren’t planning on sleeping with the woman?”

“What?! Of course not! I’m in love with Odelia. Why would I want to sleep with Donna?”

“Oops,” said Scarlett, making herself comfortable on her side of the bed.

“Yeah, oops,” said Vesta, also settling back against the backboard.

Then, as they sat side by side, two seductresses and one contestant, suddenly a loud gong sounded. It was the third gong of the night, this time announcing that one of the men had been unfaithful.

“I think that was your gong, Chase,” said Vesta, a little sheepishly.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” said Scarlett.

Chase heaved a deep sigh.“Guess I’m not going home with that big prize after all.”

“At least you found out something about the missing women, right?” said Gran.

“No. Donna didn’t know anything about that.”

“Too bad,” muttered Vesta.

“We’re famous now,” said Scarlett. “Most famous trio in the history of Passion Island.”

Chase groaned and buried his head in his hands.

Chapter 32