Emily McKay: A Bride for the Black Sheep Brother

Mrs. Lorenzo narrowed her gaze infinitesimally in disapproval. “Sir, shall I send you a reminder, oh, say thirty minutes before your meeting?”

Good ol’ Mrs. Lorenzo could always be counted on to impose a rigid schedule. He grinned. “Make it twenty minutes.”

If he skipped lunch that would leave plenty of time to walk back over to the hotel.

He led Portia into the office and gestured toward one of the chairs, admiring the subtle sway of her hips as she preceded him. Portia was built exactly the way he liked—tall and lean. Today she wore her pale blond hair back in a sleek ponytail. She was dressed in skin-tight jeans and a white shirt under a tan sweater. Everything about her looked cool and confident. Everything except those white knuckles.

Though he gestured her toward a chair, he didn’t sit behind his desk. Instead, he propped his hips on the desktop and stretched his legs out in front of him. Frankly, he hated the trapped feeling that came with sitting behind a desk for too long. It reminded him of school. And with the board meeting this afternoon, he was going to spend enough time sitting still.

“What’s up?” he asked as soon as Portia sat down.

She bobbed back to her feet before answering. “I think I’ve found the heiress.”

“Who?” he asked.

“The missing Cain heiress. The one Dalton and Griffin have been searching for so frantically. Your sister. I’ve found her.”

“What?” He frowned. Her answer was so unexpected, so completely out of left field, his brain spun. No, not even left field. Out of no field. “I didn’t even know you were looking for her.”

“I wasn’t!” Portia started pacing, her words pouring out of her. “I was at a fund-raiser. The big Children’s Hope Foundation gala. And I just met this girl. She’s about the right age, mid-twenties. Her hair’s red, but I’m pretty sure it was dyed. But she has the Cain eyes.”

He rolled his own eyes at that, but he was surprised by the way those words drove the tension right out of his body. “The Cain eyes? That’s what you’re basing this on? The fact that she has blue eyes?”

Portia paused on the far side of his office, right in front of the wall of books he’d never read that the decorator had picked out. He got the feeling that Portia wasn’t studying the book spines, but rather summoning her courage before turning back to look at him. She jutted out her jaw as she frowned. “It’s a real thing. Don’t act like it isn’t.”

“I’m not acting. Ten percent of the population have blue eyes. They can’t all be related to the Cains. Not even Hollister slept around that much.”

She blew out a frustrated breath. “Listen, there are some things women are better at than men. Facial recognition—including eye color—is one of them.” He waggled his hand in a that’s iffy gesture. “Trust me on this. Cain-blue eyes are very unique. I spent ten years staring into Dalton’s eyes. I know that color. And I’ve never seen anyone else with those eyes except for Hollister and his sons. This girl—this girl I saw at the fund-raiser—she’s your sister. That has to mean something to you.”

Cooper shifted and studied Portia.

She was such a mystery. Half the time, she came off as this coolly serene princess. No, more than half. Eighty percent, maybe ninety percent of the time. But he’d seen another side of her. He knew she had more going on than the ice princess thing most people saw. He couldn’t forget when he’d walked in on her doing a headstand on her wedding day. Every time he saw her he thought of those long legs and the pink kitty cat underwear. A guy never forgot a thing like that. He never forgot the sharp punch of desire. Even when the woman had spent a decade married to his brother.

But Portia wasn’t married to Dalton anymore. She was here in his office. A thousand miles from her home. Talking to him about something she easily could have told Dalton.

What was up with that?

He ran his thumb along his jaw. “Okay. So let’s say this is the girl. Let’s say she’s really the heiress. Why come to me? Why not just call up Dalton?” And then it hit him—of course she wouldn’t call Dalton. He was her ex-husband. Yeah, their divorce seemed civil enough. From the outside. But who knew what it had been like from her side of things? Just because she’d kept in contact with Caro and Hollister that didn’t mean she wanted Dalton to win the challenge so that he could inherit all of Cain Enterprises. “Never mind. Sorry I said that. That was stupid. Of course you’re not just going to hand him the money. But why not talk to Griffin about this?”

She pulled a sheepish face. “I’m not exactly Griffin’s favorite person. I don’t know if he’d even believe me. But in reality I couldn’t go to him for the same reason I couldn’t go to Dalton.”

“The same reason? Jesus, how many of us have you married?”

She narrowed her gaze, looking confused for a second before shaking her head. “Very funny. Yeah, sure, I’m not Dalton’s biggest fan right now, but that’s not what I meant.”

“What did you mean?”

“I couldn’t talk to Dalton because he wants it too badly,” she said simply, like he was the idiot for not seeing it right off.

“You can’t tell him you think you’ve found the girl because he wants to find her?” he asked slowly, drawing the words out while he tried to wrap his brain around what she meant.

“Yes! Think about it—if the girl isn’t found before something happens to Hollister, then Cain Enterprises is going to be in serious trouble. If Hollister’s shares of the company go to the state, they’ll probably be auctioned off, most likely to Cain’s competitors. The company will be in ruins. Even though Dalton doesn’t work for Cain Enterprises anymore, he doesn’t want that to happen. He’s worked his ass off for Cain all his life. A new job doesn’t change that. He still loves the company. He’s always going to pick what’s best for Cain Enterprises. He’s not going to think twice about his sister.”

“So you’re telling me you haven’t gone to Dalton with this information because you’re worried about the heiress?”

“Exactly. Someone needs to think about what’s best for this poor girl.”

Cooper raised an eyebrow. “This poor girl? If you’re right, this poor girl is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Probably more money than she’s ever dreamed of. No one would call this girl poor.”

Portia seemed to hesitate, then smiled faintly. “Perhaps poor isn’t quite the word I meant, but I’m sure you’ll agree, if Dalton and Griffin do find her, she’s going to have a rough time of it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just that the Cains live in a world of wealth and power that most people can’t even imagine. You and I both know that if you’re unprepared for that world, it will gobble you and devour you whole. This girl, she didn’t grow up with money.”

“How exactly do you know she’s poor?” he asked with a bit of a sneer. “Are you guessing based merely on the way she was dressed or is this something she told you while you were gazing into her Cain-blue eyes?”

“Very funny. But trust me, I know. She’s a waitress, with dyed red hair and one of those little studs in her nose.”

“You think rich kids don’t rebel? Because I’ve got to tell you, I’ve made a lot of money in an industry that’s all about rich kids rebelling.”

“Exactly. When rich kids rebel, they go snowboarding in Utah. Kids working jobs as waitresses at a hotel? Those kids don’t have time to rebel.”

Well, she had a point there. And he might even be willing to help her; her heart was in the right place, even if it wasn’t really her business anymore. After all, he’d always liked Portia—hell, he’d always more than liked Portia. That was part of the problem, though, wasn’t it? It wasn’t appropriate to more-than-like your sister-in-law. Not that she was his sister-in-law anymore. Was there some sort of statute of limitations on that?