LITMIR.BIZ

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know,” she said again. Except there was no other way. Her daughter needed heart surgery. Meg just couldn’t afford to pay the insurance deductible and keep the bakery open. And if the bakery closed, then she’d be out of a job and really wouldn’t be able to meet the deductible. The good people of Victoria had all banded together to do a fund-raiser for Pearl. The whole town had come together. It had been the most heartwarming, amazing day.

      But they’d only raised nine thousand dollars. She needed almost fifty thousand for the surgery alone. Everyone she knew, everyone who loved and cared for Pearl, had banded together and dug as deep as they could. And it would only cover a fifth of the cost.

      And even if she could somehow scrape together the money for this deductible, there was physical therapy. And more appointments down the road. And more specialists. More, more and more things to spend money on. Money she just didn’t have. But Pearl’s father had the money. Hell, money was his business.

      Wasn’t it only fair that he paid?

      He was Pearl’s father.

      Going to him wasn’t begging. It was only right.

      But it would be so much easier if he already knew he had a daughter.

      “Honey,” Janine said, finally breaking the long silence. “Stop rubbing that spot above your eye. You know how sensitive your skin is and if you’re going to see Grant Sheppard after all these years, you don’t want to look all splotchy.”

      Meg jerked her hand away from her face and quickly flipped down the mirror. Crap. She did look all splotchy.

      Then she snapped it closed. No, this was good. Splotchy was just fine. Humbling, even. A nice reminder that their relationship was never going to be sexual again. Never.

      “Now, go get ’em, tiger. You can do this!”

      Janine hung up then, not waiting for Meg to voice the doubts roiling in her gut.

      “Right,” Meg muttered. “Go get ’em.”

      She clambered out of the car and started crossing the street. Sheppard Bank and Trust opened up to a plaza with sprawling oaks, a trio of fountains and plenty of outdoor seating. The last of the lunch crowd was still enjoying the nice weather and even though Houston wasn’t a town that got a lot of foot traffic, Meg had to weave around people as she reached the sidewalk.

      She was still on the other side of the plaza when the big glass doors of the Sheppard Bank and Trust building opened and Grant Sheppard stepped out into the midafternoon sun. Her steps automatically slowed. A car honked somewhere, prompting her to dash the rest of the way across the street.

      Suddenly she had tunnel vision. It was as if she could see only him and no one else. It had been over two years since she’d seen him. He looked good. Just as tall and fit as ever. His sandy hair was a little long. A little disheveled. A little renegade for this conservative town. But his suit was strictly business. It toed the line. His mouth still curled in that half smile. The smile that made a woman want to do naughty things to his lips.

      The smile that made women stupid.

      She gave her head a little shake and reminded herself—it wasn’t just that it had been more than two years since she’d seen him, it was more than two years since he’d sneaked out of her bed in the middle of the night and disappeared without a trace.

      Yeah, there was a difference, and she’d do well to remember it.

      She hardened her heart and put a damper on her hormones before she took a step toward him. But as her tunnel vision eased up, she saw the woman standing beside him—a willowy blonde, almost as tall as he was. Even though she was thin, there was a softness to her body that was only emphasized by the protective hand he held at the woman’s back. There was an intimacy to their posture that spoke of affection and familiarity. A warning bell went off in Meg’s head.

      She had stopped in her tracks, almost unaware of the other people filtering past her. She knew—even before the other woman turned around—what she was going to see. The woman would be beautiful and sophisticated and classy. Everything Meg was not.

      She would also be pregnant.

      Meg was so sure that when the woman actually turned so Meg could see her, Meg didn’t comprehend what she was seeing.

      Beauty—check. Sophisticated—check. But not pregnant. No. Worse.

      The 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

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