Secret Heiress, Secret Baby

“Which I’ve known for years.”

“But that may change, and soon.” She leaned forward and whispered. “If you’re going to make your move against Cain Enterprises, you need to do it now.”

“Why?” The longer rumors circulated about Hollister’s poor health and poorer business decisions, the better it would be for Grant.

“Because they found the missing Cain heiress.”

For an instant, his heart froze in his chest. Then it started thudding again, slowly. “No. They didn’t.”

He was sure they hadn’t found her. There was no way they could have found her without his hearing about it first.

Those rumors about Hollister having a daughter had spurred his own search for her. Because he had access to his own father’s business and personal records from about the time the heiress would have been born, Grant had managed to track Meg down early in the game. He may have initially planned to use her against the Cains, but all that had changed when he’d started to fall for her.

Even though he’d walked away, he felt... proprietary. He’d kept an eye on her. After all, Sheppard Bank and Trust had two locations in Victoria, one of them right across the square from her pie shop. Both the bank manager and the security guards had been told to keep an eye out for anyone from the Cain family—ostensibly because of fears about corporate espionage. Surely he would have heard if the Cain family had been within a hundred yards of Meg and her little pie shop.

He knew the Cains and he knew Meg. Was it really so bad that he wanted to protect her from them?

“Yes, they did.” Becca grinned, her gaze lit with malicious glee. “In fact, she’s here tonight.” Becca nodded in the direction of the dance floor. “Right over there. She was dancing with Dalton the last time I saw her. See for yourself.”

“She’s here tonight?”

“The whole family is here for her introduction to society.” Becca flicked her hair over her shoulder, feigning disinterest. “A little premature, I think. Apparently they just found her this week. And I’d swear that dress she has on is one Portia wore two years ago.”

Becca kept talking, but Grant stopped listening. Instead, he gazed over the heads of the crowd, trying to get a look at the woman Becca was talking about.

It wasn’t Meg. He knew that much. It just couldn’t be.

But—it occurred to him for the first time since he’d left Victoria over two years ago—there might be another heiress somewhere. It was entirely possible that Hollister had fathered more than one bastard daughter he didn’t know about. It was possible the Cains had found some other girl who was still Hollister’s.

They weren’t stupid enough to try to pass off some random woman as his daughter. Not when genetic testing was affordable and the results could be had practically overnight. But there might actually be more than one daughter.

He took a long sip of his tequila and considered. For the past two years, he’d played the long game. He’d planned on the Cains being so involved in this search that he could quietly buy up stock and wait for the company to be rocky enough that he could step in and simply take over. If Hollister died first and disinherited his sons, so much the better.

It had not played out as he’d planned. Hollister was too stubborn to die and Griffin too competent to run Cain Enterprises into the ground.

Still, Grant now owned a healthy chunk of the company. He’d swayed at least three of the seven board members to his side. He almost had it.

And now this.

Some mystery woman messing up his plans.

He excused himself from Becca and started making his way across the room, determined to see just who the Cains had dug up, consoling himself with this one thought: whoever she was, at least their machinations wouldn’t hurt Meg.

No matter what happened, no matter how this went down—no matter how he took down Cain Enterprises—at least Meg wouldn’t be caught in the cross fire.

Then the crowd parted and he could see the dance floor. He spotted Dalton moving across the floor with a tiny woman in his arms. Her hair, swept up into an elaborate topknot, was dyed a shade of auburn just a little too brassy to be natural. It had one streak of black running through it.

Then Dalton twirled the woman around and Grant got a look at her face.

Shit.

They’d found his Meg.

* * *

Meg was stuck at this interminable party for at least another hour. That’s what Portia had told her when Meg demanded to know how much longer she had to stand around like some sort of trophy waiting to be handed off to the winner.

“At ten o’clock the silent auction ends and the live auction begins. That will wrap up by eleven and then there’s another two hours of music. You can slip out maybe by 10:10 or so, if Griffin and Sydney are ready to go.”

She had begged. They would be ready. But first she had to get through the next hour without catching Grant’s eye. She didn’t know how exactly she was supposed to do that, when the Cains had orchestrated this entire evening so that everyone in the room would be talking about her.

And no matter where she stood or whom she talked to, she couldn’t shut off her awareness that Grant was in the same room. She tried not to look for him, but every time she glanced around the room, there he was. With a series of women, each more beautiful than the next, it seemed. She kept an eye out for lovely blonde mother of his child but didn’t see that woman anywhere. Maybe he’d come without her. Which seemed like a real asshole move. Right up his alley then.

There was one woman in particular with whom he spent the most time talking. She had long brown hair and the body of a model.

When Meg couldn’t take another moment of talking to strangers, she practically begged Dalton to dance with her.

“Dalton? Dance?” Griffin had scoffed. “If you want to dance, I’ll dance with you.”

Before she could shoot a pleading look at Dalton, he held out his hand. “No. I’ll do it.”

A moment later, they were dancing to some staid waltz she didn’t recognize. She breathed deeply, letting go of some of the tension in her shoulders.

After a moment, Dalton asked, “Why didn’t you want to dance with Griffin? He is the better dancer.”

“He would have wanted to talk,” she admitted.

“I take it you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed.”

“Wouldn’t you be?”

Dalton nodded briefly and then said nothing for a while, either because he knew she wanted silence or because he did, she couldn’t quite tell. Either way, she was grateful for it. And for the illusion of invisibility that dancing with him gave her. All three of her brothers were tall; surely no one could see her at all when she was hiding behind Dalton.

But then, after what felt like only a few minutes, someone tapped him on the shoulder. “Mind if I cut in?”

At the sound of the man’s voice, everything inside her shuddered to a halt. For an instant, she let her eyes drift closed, pretending that she really could disappear. Even when she opened them, she couldn’t force herself to look at him.

Dalton guided her just to the edge of the dance floor. “Actually, I do mind,” he said to Grant. But he’d stopped dancing and had turned to face the interloper.

“I hear congratulations are in order,” Grant said smoothly, ignoring Dalton’s rudeness. “You’ve found your missing sister.”

Finally, she made herself meet his gaze. And he was looking directly at her, despite the pretense he made of talking to Dalton. But there was no recognition in his eyes. No surprise or question. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he didn’t recognize her. But there was no way in hell that could be true.

“We have,” Dalton said. He increased the pressure at her back. “Meg Lathem, this is Grant Sheppard, CEO of Sheppard Bank and Trust.”

“Pleased to meet you.” He held out his hand to shake hers.

Anger kindled inside her at the sight of his hand extended like that. As if they didn’t know one another at all. As if he hadn’t spent countless nights in her bed. As if he hadn’t been deep inside her.