numb. Overwhelmed. Lost.
Tossing the offending document onto the coffee table, she pushed to her feet and stood in front of the fireplace. Stirring up the flames helped melt away a layer of disbelief. As did imagining feeding the annoying papers to the hungry fire.
When she’d first seen that check, she’d been terrified. What would a man like Walker demand in exchange for such an obscene amount of money? Turned out the quarter mil was only a down payment. The full agreement, which turned out to be little more than an appalling, drawn-out employment contract, promised her a million dollars if she cooperated.
Wanted: one formerly mistreated and unwanted child to play the part of Dr. Steven Walker’s long-lost, much-loved and stupidly forgiving daughter. Experience as Patty Hoyt’s stooge preferable. Ethics: optional. Pay: one million dollars. Office hours: one hour on live television—as the surprise guest for the debut episode of Dr. Walker’s new talk show.
She could practically see the tagline: Benevolent father and prominent family therapist welcomes daughter he never knew into his happy family, saving her from a lonely life of poverty and despair.
What a load of malarkey. Or was it? All Shayna had to go on was Patty’s word that Walker had paid her off when he’d learned she was pregnant. Hell, even that much of her backstory could be a lie.
Sagging against the arm of the couch, she rested her sock-covered feet on the hearth. Walker’s offer did come with one very appealing caveat. In return for Shayna’s cooperation, he would pay Patty fifty grand a year for life, providing mommy dearest didn’t so much as blink in Shayna’s direction.
That kind of peace held way more appeal than a million-dollar bribe. Not that any prize could ever tempt her to agree to such a ludicrous plan.
She couldn’t believe that pompous jerk actually thought she’d go on national television and tell the world her daddy hadn’t taken good care of her. Sure, money had been tight in the Miller household, but they’d always had everything they needed. She’d had a far better life than a lot of kids. A hell of a lot better than the life she’d been living before James Miller became her daddy.
Letting her body fall backward, Shayna lay across the couch, staring up at the portrait over the mantel. It had been taken at the annual Moonlight and Mistletoe Ball. She’d been ten, with Bugs Bunny teeth and her first pair of high-heeled shoes. Daddy had looked handsome despite the four-inch-wide red-and-gold tie she’d insisted he wear, because it matched her new dress.
Even now she still considered it one of the happiest nights of her life. Despite the complete lack of physical similarities, the picture screamed family.
And now Kyle Anderson, her personal messenger of doom, had delivered a bizarre request that threatened everything she’d ever cherished. Dredging up her and James Miller’s past on national television would stir up entirely too many questions. With answers that could very well mean the end of her life as Shayna Miller.
Chapter Three
Kyle had managed to talk himself out of his unjustified anger with Shayna during the forty-minute hike back up the slick, icy mountain. He’d decided to withhold judgment on whether or not she was playing him until he’d had a second chance to thoroughly outline Walker’s plan. But after standing in the freezing rain, banging on her blasted door for five minutes, his good intentions had vanished. His fury rocketed back to full force.
She had to be in there. The damned weather had them both trapped on this mountain. No way he was going to freeze to death while she sat in her toasty cabin and ignored him.
The door finally swung open. Warm air brushed against his face but didn’t do a damn thing to thaw his temper. “What the hell took you so long? It’s damn cold out here!”
“Ex-cuse me?” Shayna tossed a mass of wet hair over her shoulder.
The apology he knew he owed her froze in his throat. Damn, but she was beautiful. Freshly showered, smelling like vanilla, her sensuous hair hanging loose to her waist, her curvy body wrapped in the most atrocious robe he’d ever seen.
Desire scorched through him. He barged inside, no longer aware of the cold that seconds before had nearly turned him into a block of ice. His briefcase slid from his grip and landed on the floor, unheeded by them both. Standing this close, her intoxicating aroma made him lightheaded. He swayed forward, his hands intent on touching her skin, but his aim was thwarted when she rushed him, grasping his biceps, her face scrunched in concern.
“Kyle?” The urgency in her voice cracked through the fog in his brain. “Are you all right?”
Hell no, he wasn’t all right.
Pulling himself together, he stepped away. As soon as he’d cleared the way, she shut the door behind him. Without the benefit of the mountain’s wide-open spaces, the lamp-lit cabin felt too small, too intimate.
The concern in her amber eyes intensified. Again, she moved closer, this time with her hands aimed for his face. “You’re bleeding.”
At the touch of her warm fingertips against his freezing forehead, his icy blood melted, ratcheting his temperature to a dangerous degree. What the hell was wrong with him? The blow to his head must have knocked all his brain cells below his belt.
Desperate to restore his equilibrium, he swatted her hand away. Hurt washed over her expression, but of course, stubborn woman, she didn’t back down. Instead, she snagged a box of tissues off the entry table and, after gesturing at his forehead, shoved them against his chest. “Care to tell me what happened?”
The terrifying experience replayed in his memory, reigniting his earlier fear and anger. “You nearly got me killed, that’s what.”
Her face paled. “Killed?”
“Yeah.” He flung out his right arm, gesturing toward the closed door. “You threw me out in a damned ice storm, and my car almost skidded off this godforsaken mountain.”
Kyle had forgotten about Shayna’s giant dog until the beast charged him, his enormous front paws pinning Kyle’s shoulders to the door. Keeping one eye glued to the dog’s bared teeth, he glanced at Shayna. The color had returned to her face with a vengeance.
To his surprise, she ignored her dog’s threatening behavior. “First of all—” she ticked her point off with her index finger, as if preparing to recite a long list of his sins “—I didn’t throw you out into anything. You showed up uninvited. Not my fault you chose to tackle the mountain in bad weather. Secondly,” she said with another ticked finger, “you can hardly blame me if you aren’t smart enough to slow down and take care on a dark, rainy night.”
Her logical response angered him further. He hated stupid mistakes. Especially his own. “Who expects ice in November?”
The dog took exception to the vehemence in Kyle’s voice. Brinks’s weight pressed against him even more forcefully. Fist-sized paws branded his chest, restricting his airflow and threatening permanent damage to his ego.
“Think you can call your dog off?” he asked through gritted teeth.
“Not until we get a few things straight.” She planted her hands on her hips, drawing the butt-ugly robe even tighter against her lush figure. “Obviously, if you drove your car into a ditch—”
He
