LITMIR.BIZ

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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 a moment, Meg considered bolting, trying to contact her father another day. Trying to get the money some other way. But she was out of time and she had no other way to get the money. And already footsteps were pounding across the tile floor toward them.

      She looked up to see five more people crossing the foyer: two women and three men.

      The men she all recognized. Her brothers. Dalton and Griffin Cain and Cooper Larson. If she had to guess, she’d say the two women were Laney and Sydney, her sisters-in-law.

      To Meg’s surprise, it was Cooper who quickened his pace and crouched down beside Portia. He gently cradled her head and shoulders, and Meg wiggled out from underneath her.

      “She fainted,” she said quickly. “I tried to catch her.”

      “Thanks,” Cooper said, before muttering a curse under his breath. “She’s going to be pissed.”

      “I tried to catch her!” Meg insisted again, scrambling back.

      “Not at you,” he said gently. “About fainting. It’s the second time this week. She hates when it happens.”

      The red-haired woman—Sydney, if Meg remembered correctly from the pictures she’d seen in the society column of the Houston Chronicle—knelt beside Cooper and rested her hand on his arm. “Is she going to be okay?”

      He nodded, but his smile didn’t hide his concern. “The doctor says it happens to a lot of women in the first trimester.”

      Sydney looked up at Meg. “Thanks for catching— oh my gosh.”

      “Wait. What?” Meg asked, scooting farther away. Her gaze darted from Sydney to Cooper and then to the three people still standing. “I didn’t—”

      But when her gaze met Dalton’s, he muttered a low “damn.”

      Now they were all staring at her. As in, she’d-grown-an-extra-head-or-two staring at her. Or, they-somehow-knew-she-was-here-to-blackmail-their-father staring at her.

      Meg automatically got to her feet and held out her hands, palms out. “I haven’t done anything wrong.” Yet.

      The other woman, Laney—who had long dark hair and resembled a modern-day Snow White—sent a chiding look at the others. “For goodness’ sake, you’re scaring her.” Then she stepped forward, smiling. “No one thinks you did anything to hurt Portia. We’re glad you were here to catch her. Aren’t we?” She gave Dalton’s elbow a little nudge.

      He stepped forward too. “Yes, absolutely.”

      Meg looked warily from one sibling to the next. Gratitude for stopping Portia’s fall did not explain their behavior. Panic edged in under her confusion. She took a step back toward the door. “You know, I think I’m going to go.”

      As one, Dalton, Laney, Griffin and Sydney took steps toward her as a chorus of protests echoed through the room.

      Okay. This was getting weird.

      She took a few more steps back toward the door. “I...um...”

      “You can’t leave,” pleaded Laney. The rest of them stopped still in their tracks, as if Meg was some sort of spooked deer.

      Great. She couldn’t leave. She had unwittingly made some rich pregnant woman faint and now they were trying to keep her contained so they could call the

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