LITMIR.BIZ

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was looking at her as if she were some interesting specimen under a microscope. A specimen he couldn’t quite figure out. So she returned her attention to her glass.

      “That was the worst part, you know?” she continued. “Never feeling like I belonged anywhere. Never feeling like I had a real home or a real family. Now I know that I could have and should have—that I actually did have—both. The irony is that if I’d grown up as Amanda Linden, with all her wealth and privilege, I would have had a terrifying father who beat up my mother and very well could have come after me. Foster care was no picnic, but I was never physically abused. Dismissed and belittled, yeah. Neglected, sure. But never harmed. As Amanda, though...”

      She didn’t finish the statement. She didn’t dare. She didn’t even want to think about what kind of life she might have lived if her mother hadn’t rescued her from it. What kind of life her mother had endured for years before her daughter’s safety had compelled her to run.

      “Some people would argue that neglect and belittlement are harm,” Yeager said softly.

      “Maybe,” she conceded. “But I’d rather be neglected and belittled and shuffled around and have nothing to my name than live in the lap of luxury and go through what my mother must have gone through to make her escape the way she did. I just wish she’d had more time to enjoy her life once she got it back.”

      And Hannah wished she’d had more time herself to get to know her mother. Mary Robinson, formerly Alicia Linden, might very well have saved her daughter’s life—both figuratively and literally. Yet Hannah had no way to thank her.

      “Your grandfather, Chandler Linden, was a billionaire,” Yeager said in the same matter-of-fact tone he’d been using all night.

      Hannah’s stomach pitched to have the knowledge she’d been carrying around in her head all evening spoken aloud. Somehow, having it out in the open like that made it so much more real. Her heart began to thunder again and her vision began to swim. Hyperventilation would come next, so she enjoyed another, larger, taste of her drink in an effort to stave it off.

      “Yeah,” she said quietly when she set her glass on the table. “He was.”

      “Which means that now you’re a billionaire,” Yeager said in the same casual tone.

      Oh, boy. There went her stomach again. “Well, I could be a billionaire,” she told him.

      “Could be?” he echoed. “You said your grandfather bequeathed his entire estate to you. What are they waiting on? A DNA test?”

      “Mr. Fiver took a sample of my saliva while we were talking,” she said. “But that’s just a formality for the courts. There’s no question I’m Amanda. I didn’t just inherit my father’s unique eye color. I also have a crescent-shaped birthmark on my right shoulder blade that shows up with some regularity in the Linden line. And, yes, my grandfather wants his entire estate to go to me. But there are certain...terms...of his will that need to be met before I can inherit.”

      “What kind of terms?”

      Hannah threw back the rest of her drink in one long gulp. Before her glass even hit the table, Yeager was lifting a hand to alert the bartender that they wanted another round. He even pointed at Hannah and added, “Make hers a double.”

      Hannah started to tell him that wouldn’t be necessary. Then she remembered her grandfather’s demands again and grabbed Yeager’s drink, downing what was left of it, too. She would need all the false courage she could get if she was going to actually talk about this. Especially with someone like Yeager.

      Once the whiskey settled in her stomach—woo, that warmth was starting to feel really good—she did her best to gather her thoughts, even though they all suddenly wanted to go wandering off in different directions. And she did her best to explain.

      “Okay, so, as rich as the Lindens have always been,” she said, “they weren’t particularly, um, fruitful. I’m the last of the line. My father was an only child, and he didn’t remarry before his death. My grandfather’s sister never married or had children. Their father had twin brothers, but they both died from influenza before they were even teenagers. The Linden family tree prior to that had been growing sparser and sparser with each ensuing generation, so I’m all that’s left of them.”

      Her thoughts were starting to get a little fuzzy, so Hannah drew in another long breath and let it go. There. That was better. Kind of. Where was she? Besides about to have a panic attack? Oh, right. The dried-up Linden family tree.

      “Anyway...” She started again. “I guess my grandfather was sort of horrified by the idea that the world would no longer be graced with the Linden family presence—we were, I have learned, some of the best fat cats and exploiters of the proletariat out there—so he tied some strings to my inheritance.”

      “What kind of strings?” Yeager asked.

      “Well, actually it’s only one string,” she told him. “A string that’s more like a rope. A rope that’s tied into a noose.”

      He was starting to look confused. She felt his pain.

      “Hannah, I think I can safely say that I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

      She tried again. “My grandfather included a condition I’ll have to meet before I can inherit the family fortune. He wanted to make sure that I, um, further the Linden line.”

      “Further the line?”

      She nodded. Then nodded some more. And then some more. Why couldn’t she stop nodding? And why did her head feel like it was beginning to disconnect from her body? With great effort, she stilled and tried to think of the most tactful way to tell Yeager how her grandfather had stipulated that, before she could inherit the piles and piles and piles of Linden moolah, she’d have to become a Linden baby factory.

      Finally she decided on, “My grandfather has stipulated that, before I can inherit the piles and piles and piles of Linden moolah, I have to become a Linden baby factory.”

      Yeager’s eyebrows shot up to nearly his hairline. “He wants you to procreate in order to inherit?”

      Yeah, that would have been a much more tactful way to say it. Oh, well. “That’s exactly what he wants,” she said. “It’s what he demands. In order to inherit the family fortune, I have to either already be a mother or on my way to becoming one.”

      “Can he do that?”

      “Apparently so. The wording of his will was something along the lines of, if, when I was located after his death, I had a child or children, then no problem, here’s more money than you could have ever imagined having, don’t spend it all in one place.”

      “But you don’t have a child or children,” Yeager pointed out.

      “Nope.”

      “So what happens in that case?”

      “In that case, I have six months to get pregnant.”

      Yeager’s eyebrows shot back up. “And what happens if you don’t get pregnant in six months?”

      “Then aaaallllll the Linden money will go to charity and I’ll get a small severance package of fifty grand for my troubles, thanks so much for playing. Which, don’t get me wrong, would be great, and I’d be most appreciative, but...”

      “It’s not billions.”

      “Right.”

      He opened his mouth to say something then closed it again. For another moment he studied her in silence. Then he said, “Well, that sucks.”

      “Yeah.”

      The bartender arrived with their drinks and Hannah immediately enjoyed a healthy swallow of hers.

      “See, though,” she said afterward, “the problem isn’t with me having children. I’ve always planned on having kids someday. I want to have kids. I love kids. I wouldn’t even

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