Millionaire in Command / The Bride Hunter: Millionaire in Command / The Bride Hunter

Kyle braced a hand across the door. “If there’s even a chance that’s my daughter, I’m not letting you just walk out of here with her.”

Phoebe looked around nervously, then bolstered, her arms locked around Nina. “I’m not leaving her behind.”

“I don’t expect you to.” Nobody was going anywhere until he had answers. “You’ll both be staying with me at the family compound.”

Three

She didn’t have a choice but to go with him, and she knew it. Sitting in the back of Kyle’s Mercedes sedan beside Nina in her car seat, Phoebe just wished she’d foreseen this twist in the plans.

His broad shoulders, encased in the uniform jacket, spread in front of her in the driver’s seat. He guided the luxury car through the security gate into the Landis family beach compound. As the gates swung closed behind them, she shifted closer to Nina, the infant asleep and drooling in her rearfacing car seat. Morning was going to come early after this late night and she needed any edge she could scavenge to soothe her already frazzled nerves.

By appealing to Kyle for help, she’d also made herself vulnerable. One call from him to child services could steal her few days’ window to secure Nina’s future. She hadn’t felt so powerless since she’d watched helplessly while her husband had drowned.

Her gaze skimmed nervously ahead to the beachside Hilton Head mansion owned by the Landis family. Kyle had told her that his lawyer-brother and wife had a home a few miles away, and the oldest brother, a senator, and his wife had an antebellum mansion in downtown Charleston. Kyle had kept his gear in the third-floor quarters of the mansion since he’d deployed so often.

She’d rubbed elbows with plenty of affluent families at the college fund-raisers, but she’d never visited anywhere nearly this opulent. In spite of insisting she didn’t need money, a hotel over the weekend would have taken a chunk out of her account. She had to keep her savings intact for any legal fees she might need in adopting Nina. Staying here was the fiscally smart thing to do.

She’d seen photos from a Good Housekeeping spread when she’d looked up the Landis family on Google for more details, and she’d read about their diversified fortune that increased under the savvy care of each generation. But no picture could have prepared her for the breathtaking view. On prime oceanfront property, they’d built a sprawling white three-story house with Victorian peaks overlooking the Atlantic. A lengthy set of stairs stretched upward to the second-story wraparound porch that housed the main entrance.

Latticework shielded most of the first floor, which appeared to be a large entertainment area. Just as in Charleston, many homes so close to the water were built up as a safeguard against tidal floods from hurricanes.

The attached garage had so many doors she stopped counting. His sedan rolled to a stop beside the house, providing a view of the dense green bushes behind them and the Atlantic shore in front of them. An organic-shaped pool was situated between the house and beach, the chlorinated waters of the hot tub at the base churning a glistening swirl in the moonlight.

He put the car in Park and reached for the door. “I’ll get your things from the trunk while you unload the munchkin.”

Kyle stepped out before she could even answer. Apparently he’d inherited his mother’s take-charge attitude. Phoebe walked around to the other side of the Mercedes, security lights activating like sunrise coming early, and unhooked the carrier from the carseat base so as not to wake Nina.

He lifted her small suitcase and duffel with a porta-crib out of the trunk. “You sure do travel light compared to most women I’ve met.”

“I had only planned to stay overnight.” She’d pretty much counted on getting his support and then heading home in the morning, a naïve fantasy now that she saw how complicated things were becoming as reality played out. “I have a job to get back to in Columbia.”

He gestured toward the sprawling staircase. “Then you can leave Nina here.”

She hesitated at the bottom step, suddenly claus-trophobic about entering his house. Sheesh, it wasn’t like he could lock them away in the attic. “I won’t abandon her.”

“And neither will I,” he said with unmistakable determination, which made her glad for Nina.

If she could trust him.

She looked away from his persuasive blue eyes and back up the length of stairs. This would be temporary, until he left on his next assignment, then she could resume her life. “It seems we’re at an impasse.”

“What about your job?” His intoxicating bass drifted after her shoulder as he followed her up the outside wooden steps.

“I’m teaching all my classes online this semester anyway.” She’d adjusted her schedule to be with Nina, seeing this as her once-in-a-lifetime chance to take care of a baby. Little had she known when Bianca dropped off her daughter…“I can work from here until we have things settled.”

Until he left.

She would have her life back on track shortly. His job, along with his track record for short relationships, would have him out of her life soon. And she really didn’t have any other options if she wanted to keep Nina.

She pointed to the cluster of live oaks and palmettos framing a two-story carriage house. “Who lives there?”

“My youngest brother, Jonah. He’s finishing up his graduate studies in architecture. He stays here between internship trips to Europe.”

White with slate-blue shutters, the carriage house was larger than most family homes, certainly bigger than her little apartment in downtown Columbia.

“It’s lovely.”

She understood he came from money, but seeing Kyle’s lifestyle laid out so grandly only emphasized their different roots. Phoebe gripped the increasingly heavy car seat with both hands as she reached the top of the stairs. The tall double doors opened before Kyle could even reach forward.

His lawyer brother, Sebastian, filled the entrance, their appearances close enough to be mistaken for twins. Except the lawyer didn’t have Kyle’s laugh lines. “You finally made it.”

Kyle deposited her bags on the polished wood floor. “I drove slower because of the kid. Where’s Mom?”

“Still at the club with the general closing out the party so it’s not as obvious we’re gone.” Sebastian eyed Phoebe and Nina briefly then looked back at his brother. “We need to talk.”

Kyle ushered her into the cavernous foyer. “As soon as I get them settled.”

A woman, the wife of the lawyer brother, stood waiting in the archway leading to a mammoth living room with a wall of windows overlooking the ocean. “I can show her around.” The woman—Marianna, she’d been called back at the country club—swept a loose dark curl from her face. “You’ll want to put the baby to bed. I’ll take you to your rooms.”

Phoebe glanced into the hall where Kyle had deposited her bag. “Did the porta-crib make it inside?”

“Don’t worry,” Marianna reassured her. “Everything’s taken care of.”

Still, Phoebe hesitated. What did the brothers need to speak about that she couldn’t hear? Suspicion nipped her ragged nerves, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it, especially in her exhausted state. Maybe she could ferret some information of her own from this woman while Kyle was out of the room.

She smiled back at Marianna. “Thank you, I appreciate your help.”

Marianna extended her hand for the diaper bag. “Let me. Those things weigh a ton. Come on and I’ll show you to the nursery.”

“There’s a nursery here?”

“My husband and I live a few miles away, but Grandma Ginger keeps everything we need here if our little guy needs to nap. Ginger’s second husband, Hank Renshaw, also has grandchildren from his daughters. Between us all, we make good use of that room. You’ll find everything you could possibly need in there.”

Still, Phoebe hesitated. Giving Nina a room here, even a temporary one, seemed such a huge step. One she should have been happy about.

Marianna hitched the pink-flowered diaper bag over her shoulder. “There’s a nursery monitor so you can hear the least little peep if she needs you.”

Even swaying with exhaustion, Phoebe hesitated. “I don’t think I could leave her to wake up alone in a strange place.”

Marianna’s face softened with understanding. “There’s also a daybed in the nursery if you would rather sleep in there with her.”

“Show me the way.”

Marianna started the winding walk through pale-yellow halls until Phoebe wondered if she would be able to find her way back out of the Landis world again. Beach landscapes mingled with framed family candids that added a surprise touch of hominess to the designer decor. A grandfather clock ticked, their footsteps muffled by the light patterned Oriental rugs.

Phoebe couldn’t take the silence any longer. Besides, she would never learn anything from the woman this way. “Aren’t you going to ask me if I’m lying? Everyone else doubts me.”

Marianna glanced back with a reassuring smile, her thick dark hair swishing like the clock’s pendulum. “I believe you’re telling us the truth about Nina being Kyle’s daughter.”