Caroline Anderson - Escape for Valentine's - Beauty and the Billionaire / Her One and Only Valentine / The Girl Next Door

Hunter accepted the flower and nodded.

The old woman clasped Sinclair’s hands, her jet-black eyes searching Sinclair’s face. Then she smiled. “Ahhh. Fertility.”

“I’m going to be a farmer?”

The woman revealed a snaggle-toothed smile, her gaze going to Sinclair’s stomach.

Sinclair sure didn’t like the implication of that.

“Trust your heart,” said the old woman.

“I’m not pregnant,” Sinclair pointed out.

The old woman released Sinclair’s hands and touched her chin. “I see wealth and beauty.”

“That’s a whole lot better than fertility,” Sinclair muttered.

Hunter laughed and reached for his wallet.

Sinclair caught the numbers on the bills he passed to the woman. Both hers and the old woman’s eyes went wide.

The woman quickly hustled away.

“Did you know her or something?” Sinclair asked.

“I once knew somebody like her.” Hunter tucked his wallet into his pocket and handed Sinclair the rose.

She held it to her nose and inhaled the sweet fragrance. Hunter wanted her to stay. The relief nearly brought tears to her eyes.

“Somebody like her?” she asked Hunter, inhaling one more time. “I once burned down a gypsy’s tent.” Then he smiled gently at Sinclair.

He swiveled his coffee mug so the handle was facing him. “When I was a teenager, a gypsy at the local circus told my fortune. She said I’d fall for a redheaded girl and have twins.”

Sinclair reflexively touched her hair.

“The thought of twins freaked me out, too. I wanted to be a rock star.”

“So, you burned down her tent?”

“She also said Jack would marry a woman he didn’t trust, and we’d buy a golf course.”

“But, you burned down her tent?” Sinclair repeated.

“It was an accident.”

“You sure?”

He rocked back. “Hey, is there anything about me that strikes you as vindictive?”

“I guess not,” she admitted, a small smile forming on her lips. Heck, he wasn’t even kicking her out for ruining his life.

“It was an accident. And Gramps compensated her fairly. But, I guess I’ve always felt a little guilty.”

“Have you been giving money to random gypsies ever since?”

“It’s not like I come across a lot of them. Alhough …” He pretended to ponder. “I suppose a charitable foundation wouldn’t be out of order.”

“I’m sure they appreciate it.”

Sinclair’s cell phone chimed.

She opened her purse to check the lighted number. “Kristy.”

It chimed again under her hand.

“Better answer it,” Hunter advised. “She’s probably worried.”

“So was I,” Sinclair said over the sound.

His hand covered hers for a brief second. “We’ll talk more.”

Sinclair pressed a button and raised the phone to her ear. “Hey, Kristy.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

“And Hunter?”

Sinclair looked at him. “He’s had better mornings.”

“What was he thinking?” There was a clear rebuke in Kristy’s tone. “Going out on his own. Jack says that Hunter was being dangerously cavalier with the family fortune.”

Some protective instinct leapt to life within Sinclair. “He was thinking it was a good deal.”

Hunter shook his head, mouthing the word, “Don’t.”

Sinclair ignored him. “And they might want to look closely at it before they decide it’s a bad risk.”

Hunter stood to lean over the table, but Sinclair turned away, protecting the phone. The least she could do was come down on his side.

“Are you defending him? Did he try to make this your fault? It wasn’t your fault, you know. You were being honest. He was being underhanded.”

“He was being smart.”

There was a shocked silence on the line.

“Are you sleeping with him again?” Kristy demanded.

“None of your business.”

“That’s it. I’m coming to Paris.”

Hunter lunged forward and grabbed the phone from Sinclair’s hands.

“Goodbye,” she quickly called as he snapped it shut.

“Have you lost your mind?” asked Hunter.

“She said you were being underhanded.”

“You can’t fight with your sister over me.”

Sinclair folded her arms over her chest and blew out a breath. “Sure, I can.”

Hunter handed back the phone. “No. You can’t. She’s your sister. Keep your eye on the long game.”

Meaning Hunter was the short game?

“And she loves you,” he said.

“She’s coming to Paris.”

“You want to go to London?”

Sinclair grinned. “We couldn’t.”

Hunter sighed. “You’re right. We couldn’t.”

She caught a figure in her peripheral vision, turning to see Jack pulling up a chair at their table.

“You okay?” he asked Sinclair.

“You’re as bad as Kristy,” Sinclair responded. “What exactly do you think he’d do to me?”

“What did he do?”

“He invited me to go ballroom dancing. We’re getting ready for the Valentine’s Day ball on Thursday.”

Jack shot his gaze to Hunter. “That true?”

“What if it is?”

“I just had a call from Kristy,” said Jack.

“She’s coming to Paris,” announced Sinclair.

Jack nodded. “That’s what she said.” He was still eyeing up Hunter suspiciously. “You’d better sign us up, too.”

After the day they’d had, Hunter wanted nothing more than to curl up in bed and hold Sinclair tight in his arms. He’d discovered he hated fighting with her. And he hated that her family and his had decided to protect her from him. Even now, across the floor in the Versailles Ballroom, Kristy was scoping them out, staring daggers at him.

A private jet had whisked her across the Atlantic in time for dinner.

Part of him wanted to thumb his nose at the lot and haul Sinclair away so they could be alone. Another part of him recognized they had legitimate concerns. His efforts to help her had gotten all mixed up with his desire for her.

He didn’t want to hurt her, but he might in the end. The Lush Valentine’s Day ball was only a few days away. He’d make sure she was a smash hit there, but then what?

She’d still work for him. Could they possibly keep sleeping together? Could they keep it a secret? And what did that say about them if they did?

As he guided her through a simple waltz, he considered the possibility that Kristy was right. After all, who would have Sinclair’s best interests at heart more than her twin sister? A twin sister whose thinking wasn’t clouded by passion?

God knew his was clouded by something.

Sinclair had dressed for the evening in a brilliant-red strapless satin gown. When he glanced at her creamy shoulders, the hint of cleavage, and her long, smooth neck, his thoughts were definitely on his own best interest. And that best interest was in peeling the gown off inch by glorious inch to reveal whatever it was she had, or didn’t have, on underneath.

The bodice molded gently over her breasts, it nipped in at her waist, then molded over her bottom, while the full skirt whispered around her gorgeous legs.

“How am I doing?” she asked as the music’s tempo changed.

“Fine,” he told her, forcing his thoughts back to his job as dance instructor. “Ready to try something more?”

She nodded, blue eyes shining up at him, making him wish all over again that he could whisk her away.

He led her into a turn. She stumbled, but he held her up, tightening his hand in the small of her back, filing the sensation away in his brain.

“Sorry,” she told him.

“No problem. Just pay attention to my hand,” he reminded her, demonstrating the touches. “This means left. This means right. Back, and forward.”