woman was holding a baby. A beautiful, healthy, bubbling baby. A “perfect” baby.
Grant Sheppard’s beautiful socialite wife had given him a perfect, healthy baby.
Whereas the daughter he shared with Meg had Down syndrome and an atrial septal defect in her heart.
Meg never, ever thought of Pearl as being lesser. Yes, the tiny hole in her heart meant she had health problems that sometimes terrified Meg. But Pearl was perfect in her own way.
But would Grant see that? Would he realize how amazing Pearl was? Would she be able to protect Pearl if he didn’t?
And beneath her basic mother’s need to protect her child lingered some other, more complicated emotion.
Just the slightest twinge of envy that had nothing to do with the baby or with Pearl, but with the woman who appeared to be Grant’s wife.
Meg didn’t want to be that perfect blonde woman. She didn’t want her wealth or her hair or her wardrobe or her baby—whose heart probably didn’t have a hole in it. She loved her own bank account, hair, clothes and baby. She didn’t want anything that other woman had. But for the first time, she realized that part of her might still want Grant. And that scared the piss out of her.
How could she go talk to Grant now?
The answer was, she couldn’t. Not while she still had any other options.
Instead, she would do the one thing she’d promised herself she’d never do. The thing she’d promised her mother and her grandfather she’d never do. She’d go see her father. She’d make a deal with the devil himself.
* * *
As luck would have it, the devil himself—aka Hollister Cain—lived a short drive from downtown in the prestigious River Oaks neighborhood. Nestled in among the homes of former presidents, deposed foreign princes and excessive country-music stars was her father’s massive antebellum mansion.
Thanks to Google Maps Street View, she knew the mansion by sight even though she’d never been there. For that matter, thanks to Google Images she knew her father by sight, too. She had never met him either.
No, she was Hollister’s illegitimate daughter. Twenty-six-odd years ago, he had seduced—and then abandoned—her mother, not only because he was a heartless bastard, but for calculated professional gain. Hollister’s treatment had led to her mother’s slow but steady emotional unraveling.
As a result, Meg had been raised by her grandfather. All her life, she’d known the truth about Hollister and her mother, so she’d naturally assumed that Hollister knew about her too and had just never bothered to claim his daughter. Which was fine by her. Just fine.
She certainly didn’t need them or their money or the misery it would bring to her life.
Except now she did need it.
Of course, there was a chance Hollister would flat out refuse to acknowledge her. After all, Hollister was too much of a bastard to open his wallet willingly. Then lawyers would have to get involved. There would be genetic testing and all kinds of nastiness. But in the end, she was Hollister’s daughter and there was nothing he could do about it.
But she didn’t think it would come to that, because she knew secrets about Hollister’s past that he wouldn’t want getting out. She had proof of illegal things he’d done that would destroy the Cain family name. In his dealings with her family, he’d broken the law, and she had no problem letting him be judged in the court of public opinion. If he proved difficult, she would make whatever threats she needed to make.
So in her fairy-tale version, her reunion with her father would go down like this: she’d walk in, she’d announce who she was, he’d write her a check for a couple hundred grand, she’d sign some papers promising never to ask for more and she’d be back home with Pearl by the end of the week. What could be simpler than a little blackmail among family?
Still, she wasn’t used to making threats like this. And two hundred thousand dollars was a lot of money. That was the number she’d ultimately decided she needed. Fifty grand to cover the surgery and another three times that much to cover anything else Pearl needed in the future. It was an arbitrary number and—hopefully—a little high. But this was a one-time thing. She had no intention of ever coming to Hollister for money again. This was her one chance to take the money and run.
Which probably explained the knots in her tummy as she stared out her grimy car windshield at the mansion across the street. Surely it had nothing to do with the memory, still so fresh in her mind, of Grant’s hand low on the waist of that lovely blonde goddess.
Her phone buzzed and vibrated on the passenger seat. She ignored it as she climbed from the car. Janine had been calling her approximately every fifteen minutes for the past hour. No doubt wanting an update on how her “meeting” with Grant had gone. Meg didn’t have the heart to tell her she’d chickened out. She would call Janine after she’d talked to her father.
She marched across the street and up the seemingly endless path, across a veritable sea of lush Saint Augustine grass, to the front porch. Before she could second-guess herself, she punched the doorbell. And then counted every second as it ticked by.
No one on the other side of that door mattered to her. Not at all.
Still, she’d been on her own a long time. And she was about to meet someone from her family. Maybe even her father.
Or maybe just someone who worked for her family.
Did the Cains have...servants?
Would there be a butler or something?
Or would—?
Then the door was opening and instead of her father, or even a servant, Meg was faced with a blonde woman with near-perfect features, a willowy athletic body and a faint bump at her belly. Portia Calahan. Dalton Cain’s ex-wife. So, Meg’s own ex-sister-in-law.
Meg would have recognized any of the Cains—thanks to their prominent position in Houston society and Google—but Portia she had actually met the first time she’d come to Houston, right after she’d learned Pearl would need surgery. She’d considered asking for financial help and then dismissed the idea just as quickly. She’d thought she’d slipped under everyone’s radar.
For a moment, they just stared at one another. Then Meg said, “What are you doing here?” at the same time Portia said, “It’s you!”
Portia seemed to sway on her feet and her eyes rolled back. Her legs went out from under her. Meg lurched forward, dropping her purse, and caught Portia just as she crumpled to the ground.
Though Portia was thin, she was a lot taller than Meg. Meg, too, collapsed under Portia’s weight and they both went down.
“Help!” Meg tried to control their fall, but she simply couldn’t support Portia’s weight. All she could do was try to lower Portia slowly as she muttered, “Shit, shit, shit, shit.”
Not just because Portia had fainted, nearly hurting herself and crushing Meg, but because Portia was not supposed to be here! Portia wasn’t part of the Cain family anymore. And Portia had obviously remembered meeting her.
For
