Emily McKay: Secret Heiress, Secret Baby

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 police or something. Okay, that was probably a bit paranoid.

Portia must have been slowly coming to, because she made a groaning noise and pushed herself up onto her elbows.

“Why can’t I leave?” Meg asked hesitantly.

“Not again.” Portia looked around the room, blinking. “Did I miss anything?”

Cooper cradled her shoulders, gently brushing her hair out of her eyes. “You weren’t out that long.”

Laney took advantage of the distraction by stepping forward to clutch Meg’s hand. “You can’t leave because you’re Hollister’s missing daughter. You’re their sister!”

“I know I’m their sister. How do they know it?”

Again, everyone turned to look at her and said, “ You know?”

Two

Thirty minutes later—after Meg had nearly fainted, herself—the Cains finally lured her from the foyer into an elegant office in one of the front rooms. Dalton had poured drinks all around. Everyone else he knew well enough that he hadn’t needed to ask what they wanted, but when he got to her, he shot her a look, his eyebrows raised in silent question.

“Just water, please.” She needed to keep her wits about her. If there was one thing her mother had taught her, it was that rich people were all venomous snakes and the Cains were the worst. Like coral snakes. More deadly than rattlesnakes and twice as aggressive.

Once Dalton handed her the glass of water, he gestured toward a wingback chair, but she didn’t sit down. Portia and Sydney were seated on the sofa opposite the chair. Laney was in another wingback chair beside it with Dalton standing behind her. The other two men were scattered around the room. The last thing she wanted was to be sitting in the hot spot.

“Okay, tell me again why you think I’m your sister.”

Again it was Portia who answered. “Your eyes, obviously.”

“My eyes?”

“You have the Cain blue eyes.” Griffin pointed to one of his own eyes. Then he winked at her. “Very unique. All the Cains have them.”

“You assume I’m your sister just because my eyes are blue? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard! There have to be millions of people with blue eyes.”