The Jarrods: Temptation: Claiming Her Billion-Dollar Birthright / Falling For His Proper Mistress / Expecting the Rancher's Heir

She shook her head and thought about that for a moment before answering. When she did, her voice was soft and low. “I’ve just discovered that my entire life has been built on lies.” Her eyes met his and Christian felt the power of her stare slam into him. “I have to know the truth. I don’t expect you to understand this, but I feel as though I have to go. Not for the inheritance. I don’t need Don Jarrod’s money. I have to go for me. I have to find out who I really am.”

He had the oddest urge to reach across the table and cover her hand with his. His palm actually burned to touch her, but he resisted, somehow knowing that one touch would be both too much and not enough. Instead, he kept his voice deliberately businesslike as he said, “I do understand. You need to see both of your lives to be able to accept either one.”

She tipped her head to one side and studied him. “You do understand.” After a long moment, she turned her head to look out at the street pulsing with life behind them. “Until this morning, I thought my life was pretty dull. Routine. The biggest problem facing me this morning was getting through the morning meeting at the office. Now, I don’t know what to think.”

“Maybe you should give yourself a break. Don’t try to figure anything out yet.” He saw confusion and hurt in her eyes and he didn’t like the fact that it bothered him. “All I’m saying is, wait. Go to Aspen. Meet your other family. Take some time.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “Before I can do that, I have to go see my father,” she said. “I need to hear what he has to say about this.”

“Of course.” He stood up as she did and held out one hand toward her. When she slid her palm against his, heat skittered up the length of his arm to reverberate through his chest. Oh, yes, touching her was an invitation to disaster. Instantly, he released her hand again. “I’ll be flying back to Aspen tomorrow, so if you have any other questions, I’m at the Hyatt at the Embarcadero.”

She smiled. “I love that hotel. Good choice.”

“Nice view of the bay,” he admitted. As she picked up her purse and the manila envelopes he’d given her, Christian heard himself say, “Call me when you’re ready to come to Colorado. I’ll tell you what to expect when you arrive.”

“I will.” She swung her purse up onto her shoulder, held on to the manila envelopes he’d given her and said, “I guess I’ll be seeing you again soon, then.”

“Soon.” He nodded and stood there alone to watch her leave. Sunlight slanted through a bank of clouds and dazzled her hair with light. Her hips swayed and his gaze fixed on her behind so he could enjoy the view.

The next time he saw her, they would be in Aspen. Surrounded by the Jarrod family, he would be forced to keep his distance from her, and Christian didn’t like the thought of that at all. He had a feeling that cleaning up the mess Don had left behind was going to be a lot harder than he’d believed it would be.

Three (#ulink_f98b70d3-07d8-505d-9e5c-4627e17a4347)

Erica was always nervous when she walked into the headquarters of the Prentice Group. Of course, that was the impression her father wanted to make on prospective clients or competitors. Walter wanted people to be intimidated by their surroundings, because then he would always have the psychological advantage.

The building itself was massive, a glass-and-steel tower. Its tinted windows kept the sun at bay and prevented prying eyes in neighboring buildings from peeking in. As if that weren’t enough, the décor had all the warmth and comfort of the great man himself. Cold tile, white walls and stiff, modernistic furniture set the scene in the main lobby and that tone was echoed on every floor.

Walter Prentice was a firm believer in the saying “Perception is everything.” He showed the world what he wanted them to see and that picture became reality. Erica thought about her father—or the man she’d always considered her father—for a second and felt an old ripple of anger slide beneath the surface of the confusion and hurt rampaging through her.

She’d been raised to uphold the family name. To be a shining beacon of respectability and decorum. This building was the heartbeat of the Prentice family dynasty. Where her brothers worked with their father. Where family meetings she was never included in were held. Where the men of the family made plans that the women were expected to follow. This was the place she had never felt good enough to enter.

Her father hadn’t wanted her here. He’d made that clear enough. Wouldn’t even consider her working in the family business, no matter how she had tried to convince him. Erica had never understood why, but she had been on the outside looking in for most of her life. Today, she had discovered the reasons behind her sense of seclusion.

Did her older brothers know the truth? Was that why they’d never really been close? As a kid, she’d wondered why her big brothers weren’t like those of her friends. Sure, they were much older than she was, but still, they’d never paid attention to her. They’d never had the kind of relationship she had once wished for. Had they known the truth all along? Was she the only one who’d been in the dark?

It was time to find out.

She walked across the gleaming, cream-colored tile floor to the security desk. The general public could just walk up to the bank of elevators on the south wall and take them up to any number of floors. But to reach the top floor, where her father’s and brothers’ offices were, required a stop at security where you were given a badge that would get you onto the penthouse elevator. As a child, she’d always felt “special” going through these motions. Today, she only felt even less a part of the Prentice world.

“Good afternoon, Ms. Prentice.”

“Hi, Jerry,” she said. The older man had been working in her father’s lobby for twenty years. When she was a child, Erica remembered, Jerry had kept candy at his station so he always had some for her when she arrived. Now that she thought about it, she realized Jerry had always been happier to see her than Walter had. “I’m going up to see my father.”

“That’s good. Nice for a father and daughter to stay close,” he said as he made a notation in his log, then handed her a badge. “Now that my Karen’s moved out to college I don’t see her nearly enough.”

Erica smiled and hoped it looked more convincing than it felt. Fathers and daughters. She wondered wistfully if Don Jarrod had been a good father. Had her sister, Melissa, had the kind of connection with her father that Erica had always hungered for? Or had her biological father been cut from the same cloth as Walter? After all, they were both wealthy, important men. Maybe it was in their natures to be closed off and more concerned with business than with their children.

Some relationships were so much closer than others. And some, she mused, with a thought for the father she would never know, were never realized at all.

“You have a nice day now,” Jerry said as she took the badge and headed for the private elevator.

Nice day. Two words rattling around inside her mind as she pushed the call button. Confusing day. Terrifying day. Nice? Not so much. In seconds, the doors swished open, she stepped inside and listened to the muted music that drifted down around her.

Now that she was here, Erica’s stomach was churning. What was she going to say? What could she say? “Hello, Father, or should I call you Walter?”

Tears stung at her eyes, but she blinked them back. She hadn’t cried in front of Christian Hanford and she wouldn’t cry now. For one brief moment, the Colorado attorney’s gorgeous face rose up in her mind and Erica thought if only he hadn’t been there to tear down the foundations of her life, she would have been seriously attracted to him. But it was hard to notice a hum in your body when your heart was breaking.

Even now, her heart hurt and her knees were trembling. Music played on as the elevator silently streamed skyward. She should have thought this through more before coming to the office, Erica told herself. Figured out what she was going to say before coming here. But her feelings had pushed her here. That wild rush of anger and confusion and hurt was simmering inside her and waiting wouldn’t have made a difference. She wouldn’t have calmed down. If anything, the tension riding her would have only increased with a wait.

Besides, she thought as the elevator stopped and the doors slid open to reveal the rarefied air of the penthouse suite of offices, it was too late to back out now. She was here and it was past time for answers.

Thick, cream-colored carpet stretched on forever. Her father didn’t want to be bothered by the clipping sound of shoes on tile. And what Walter Prentice wanted, he got. So the carpet was thick and the music soft. It was like stepping into a cloud, she thought. The view out the glass walls was impressive, the city stretched out all around them and the bay just beyond.

Taking a deep breath, Erica walked down the long hall to the desk of her father’s assistant. Jewel Franks was fiftyish, no-nonsense and had her fingers on the pulse of the entire company. She had iron-gray hair neatly coiffed, cool blue eyes and the patience of a saint. She had to, to be able to work with Walter on a daily basis as she had for the last thirty years.

“Erica!” Jewel smiled at her. “What a lovely surprise. Your father isn’t expecting you, is he? I don’t have you on my list for the day….”

Erica felt a reluctant smile curve her mouth. Jewel’s lists were legendary. If it wasn’t written on her legal pad, it didn’t exist.

“No, I’m sorry,” she said. “This is a spur-of-the-moment thing, Jewel. Does he have a few minutes?”

The older woman gave her a wink. “You just managed to catch him between calls, honey. Why don’t you go on in?”

“Thanks.” Erica’s stomach spun and dipped, as if her insides were dizzy and looking for a way to sit down. Another deep breath to fortify already flagging nerves and she was walking to the double-door entrance to her father’s office. A soft knock, then she turned the brass knob and entered.

“What is it, Jewel?” Walter didn’t even look up from the sheaf of papers on his desk.

Erica took a second to study him as he sat there. All of her life, she’d looked up to this man, tried to please him and wondered why she continually failed. His hair was thick and cut short, white mingling with the black now, and his navy blue suit fit him like a uniform. Which it was, she supposed, since she had rarely seen her father in anything but a suit and tie. That tie was power-red today and as he lifted his gaze to look at her, she saw his eyes narrow in question.

“Erica? What are you doing here?”

Not exactly a warm greeting, but Walter never had cared for being interrupted at the office. “Hello, Father.”

Openly frowning now, he asked, “Is there something wrong? Shouldn’t you be at work?”

She watched his face, searching for some sign of warmth or pleasure, but there was nothing. So she walked across the floor, never taking her eyes from his. When she was standing opposite his desk, she said, “I had a visitor today. A lawyer from Colorado.”

Walter jerked as if he’d been shot. Then he stiffened in his chair and set his sterling silver pen onto the desk top. His features went deliberately blank.

“Colorado?” He repeated the word without the slightest inflection in his voice.

“Don’t,” Erica said, staring into those distant green eyes of his as she had her whole life, hoping to see love shining back at her. But again, she was disappointed. “Don’t pretend to not know what I’m talking about.”

His eyes narrowed as he sat back in his chair and gave an impatient tug to his suit vest. “Young lady, don’t take that tone with me.”

Erica almost laughed and would have if her heart wasn’t aching in her chest. She hadn’t heard that particular phrase from him since she was seventeen, and telling her father she was going to a concert with her friends. Of course, she hadn’t gone to the concert, since he’d refused permission and sent her to her room. She wasn’t a rebellious girl anymore though, fighting her own nerves and her father for the right to spread her wings. And she no longer needed his permission to do what she felt she had to do. She was all grown-up and she deserved some answers.

“Father,” she said quietly, “the attorney told me some things. Things I need to talk to you about.”