Книга - A Bride for the Black Sheep Brother

A Bride for the Black Sheep Brother
Emily McKay


Courted by a CainCooper Larson doesn't care about finding Hollister Cain's long-lost daughter, even though a huge inheritance hangs in the balance. As Hollister's illegitimate son, the renegade snowboarder broke away and made his own millions long ago. So when his former sister-in-law Portia Callahan insists she's spotted the missing Cain heiress and solicits his aid, it isn't money that motivates him. It's his long-forbidden hunger for Portia. So he agrees to help if she'll collaborate on an event to finance his latest venture. With Portia finally within reach, he quickly melts the cool society princess's resistance…but will the barriers that kept him a black sheep before get the better of him now?









“I’m talking about us.”


There isn’t an us,” Portia retorted.

“So you keep insisting,” Cooper replied. “But I need you to understand something. All that nonsense about men not finding you attractive is just nonsense. You’re gorgeous.”

Portia smiled. “Thank you. But—”

“I’m not done.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“But I need you to understand something else. I’m not a nice guy. I’m not selfless. I’m not softhearted.”

She was confused by this train of thought. “Oookay.”

Well, if she’d been confused before, he was about to make things worse.

He closed the distance between them and pulled her to him. He didn’t give her a chance to protest verbally, but pressed his lips to hers. There was a moment of shock. But she didn’t resist.

Not even for a second.

* * *

A Bride for the Black Sheep Brother

is part of the trilogy At Cain’s Command: Three brothers must find their illegitimate sister … or forfeit a fortune.




A Bride for the Black Sheep Brother

Emily McKay





www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


EMILY McKAY has been reading and loving romance novels since she was eleven years old. She lives in Texas with her geeky husband, her two kids and too many pets. Her debut novel, Baby, Be Mine, was a RITA


Award finalist for Best First Book and Best Short Contemporary. She was also a 2009 RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award nominee for Series Romance. To learn more, visit her website, www.emilymckay.com (http://www.emilymckay.com).


For my darling daughter, who loves books and reading and stories, despite being bad at “decoding” and being a crappy speller. It’s okay, honey. I am, too.


Contents

Prologue (#u1a70605f-29e2-5f0a-9e2c-769a125312ab)

Chapter One (#u14c726af-ff1b-5f6d-b8d6-c9ecaa5e4a06)

Chapter Two (#u2c028518-8a5f-570b-92f5-f4d2918cf68e)

Chapter Three (#ud33194ec-08f1-553b-9d69-a247dd7b5a3f)

Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)


Prologue

Portia Callahan lived her life by one simple rule: when all else failed, make a list.

Today’s list was simple, if perhaps a tad more important than most.





Nails

Hair

Makeup

Dress

Shoes

Wedding




Usually, checking items off her list helped her chill out. It soothed her rattled nerves better than a hefty margarita. Not today. Today, she’d checked off the top five items and her insides were still roiling with anxiety. Frankly, she would have ordered the margarita, but a) she was pretty sure smuggling one into the First Houston Baptist Church would put a kibosh on the whole wedding, and b) her hands were shaking so much she was sure she would spill it. If she spilled bright green margarita down the front of the thirty-thousand-dollar gown twenty minutes before the ceremony, her mother’s head would actually explode.

A little extreme, maybe, but this was the woman who had taken a nitroglycerin pill this morning when Portia had nearly messed up her manicure.

And that smeared tip on her pinky was nothing compared to her sudden urge to bolt from the church and run down the streets of Houston ripping this white monstrosity off her body. Maybe if her body was moving, her thoughts would stop racing.

Why was her dress so tight? Why was lace so itchy? Why were hairpins so pokey? Had her makeup always felt this sticky?

More to the point, if she felt this panicky now, if she hated the dress and the hairpins and the makeup so much today, when just yesterday they’d all been fine, was it a sign that what she actually hated was the idea of getting married?

Her stomach flipped at the idea. If she didn’t do something to calm her nerves, she was going to puke.

But what could she do? Her mother paced along the back of the church’s dressing room, critically eyeing every detail of Portia’s appearance. Shelby, Portia’s maid of honor, stood behind her, doing up the last of the hundred-and-twenty-seven buttons that went up the back of her dress. Portia hated those buttons. Each seemed to cinch her in a little more tightly.

Her body-shaping torture wear constricted her ribs so much she could feel them poking into her lungs. She could barely breathe. And she couldn’t help thinking maybe that was the point. Maybe the dress had been designed to squeeze her heart right out of her body.

Just when she thought she couldn’t take it anymore, there was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” her mother barked.

The door cracked open, and Portia heard the voice of her future mother-in-law, Caro Cain. “Celeste, I don’t want to alarm you, but there seems to be a problem with the photographer.”

Portia’s mother shot her daughter a quick glare. As if this was somehow her mistake, even though she’d personally had nothing to do with the photographer. “Don’t move an inch.” She looked her up and down. “You look perfect. Just don’t mess it up.”

And with that, Celeste flounced out of the dressing room to go skewer the hapless person who had created this problem. Portia, meanwhile, sent up a silent prayer of thanks to whatever deity had arranged the snafu.

As soon as her mother left the room, she turned around and grabbed Shelby’s hands. “Can you just—?” Stop trying to strangle me with those buttons! Portia blew out a breath. Then she smiled serenely. “Could you maybe give me a moment alone?”

Shelby, who had roomed with Portia for all four years at Vassar and knew her better than anyone, frowned and asked, “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“I’ll be fine. I just want a moment to meditate.”

“No, I meant—” Shelby gave her hand a squeeze. “Yeah. I’ll go keep an eye on your mother. I’ll make sure she’d occupied for the next—” She glanced at her watch. “The wedding is in twenty minutes. I can buy you maybe ten minutes alone. That’s all.”

“Thanks!”

A moment later, Portia was finally, blessedly alone for the first time in more than nine days. It was almost as good as a margarita. But she felt like every nerve in her body was rubbing against some other nerve and that any second, they might spark and then she’d just—poof—go up in flames.

Her mother had thought the botched manicure was bad. That had nothing on spontaneous combustion.

Alone in the dressing room, she turned slowly in a circle, scanning the room for the distraction she was looking for. Not that there was much room for spinning. Now that she was standing, the acres of white silk that made up the skirt of her dress took up a lot of floor space. She could hardly move in the damn thing. Huh. Was that why her mother had insisted on such a monstrously big dress? Had she suspected that Portia might be besieged by last-minute panic and bolt? Had she wanted to guarantee that if Portia did, she’d be easy to take down?

Portia stifled a hysterical giggle at the image of her mother tackling her on the steps of the church.

Not that Portia actually wanted to bolt.

Because she didn’t.

This was just nerves. Normal nerves.

Dalton was her match in every way. They were financial and social equals. Which meant that for the first time in life she didn’t have to worry about his motives for being with her. She respected him. They got along. And best of all, he was so stable. So steady. And she needed that balance in her life.

They were equals, but opposites. And didn’t everyone always say opposites attract?

And she loved him.

Okay, so she was eighty-nine percent sure she loved him. But she was 100 percent sure he loved her. At least, he loved all the parts of her that she showed him. He loved the well-dressed, poised debutante. He loved the best version of her. The person she was trying to be.

And, yes, there was this goofy, rebellious, silly version of Portia, but she was working hard on burying it. Burying it deep. She never went to sing karaoke anymore. She hadn’t been skydiving in months. She’d had her Marvin the Martian tattoo removed and the scar was barely visible. Soon, she would be 100 percent the socially acceptable debutante. Soon, she’d be the person Dalton loved.

It wasn’t Dalton she wanted to run away from. It was herself.

And the dress. But this was all nerves. She only needed to do something to relieve her tension. Even if it was only for a few minutes. And she knew just what would do the trick.

* * *

Coping with the unexpected was one of the things Cooper Larson did best. Zipping down the slopes on his snowboard, he had to be prepared for anything. Everybody knew that snow was mercurial. One second, conditions could appear perfect. The next, it could all go to hell. Cooper’s ability to think on his feet and adapt in a spilt second was one of the qualities that had earned him a spot on the Olympic team.

However, both of those skills abandoned him completely when he walked into the bride’s dressing room and saw his future sister-in-law standing on her head, her nearly bare legs sticking straight up in the air.

The sight was so unexpected—not to mention confusing—that it took him a while to even figure out what he was seeing. At first all he saw were the legs. It took him a good thirty seconds alone to work his way from the delicate feet down the miles of legs clad only in sheer cream silk, to delicate pale blue garters and eight or so inches of luscious female thigh. And beyond that a pair of bright pink skimpy panties with white dots all over them. Then—just when he thought his head might explode—he realized that the heavy pile of white fluff the legs were sticking out of was an upturned wedding dress.

Shaking his head, he looked again at the legs. Possibly the most fabulous legs he’d ever seen. And they were attached to his future sister-in-law.

Crap.

That was really inconvenient.

What was she doing standing on her head? When she was supposed to be getting married in less than twenty minutes?

And then, he heard her.

“Ba da da da da da!”

Was she singing “Jesse’s Girl”?

If that hadn’t been Portia’s voice, he would have thought he’d wandered into the wrong church. What the hell was going on?

“Portia?” he asked.

The mound of white fluff gave a little squeal. And the legs wobbled precariously. She was going down.

He leaped across the room and grabbed her. Maybe a bit too strongly, because her legs fell against his chest and she kicked him in the face.

“Damn!”

“Ack!”

He stumbled back, dragging her with him.

“Put me down!” she squealed.

But putting her down gently wasn’t an easy feat. He took another step back, but then she kicked him again.

“Put me down!” she screamed again.

“I’m trying!”

“Cooper?”

“Yeah. Who else?” Finally, he wrapped an arm around her waist and managed to flip her over. He got a face full of fluffy white lace for his trouble, and her elbow slammed into his chin. He let her go and stepped back, holding his hands out in front of him to ward off her attack. “Are you okay?”

When she looked up, he realized she had a pair of earbuds in her ears and noticed the iPod shoved into the bodice of her dress. She yanked the earbuds out, and he could hear the music playing faintly.

She pushed down her skirt, glaring at him. “Of course, I’m okay. Or rather, I was! Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“You were upside down.”

“I was doing a headstand!”

“In your wedding dress?”

She opened her mouth to fire back some quip, but then hesitated, snapped her mouth closed and frowned. “Good point.” She grabbed the skirt of her dress and shook it out.

The dress didn’t look too bad. Her hair, on the other hand, was a mess. What had obviously once been some kind of fancy twist of curls on the back of her head had started to slide off to the side. One lock of pale golden hair tumbled into her face. Her cheeks were flushed, her lips moist and pink.

He’d known Portia for about two years and in all that time he’d never seen her looking so disheveled. So human. So sexy.

Yeah. And the fact that the image of her bright pink panties and her bare thighs was still seared into his brain had nothing to do with that. And what precisely had been on those panties of hers? From a few feet away, he’d thought they were misshapen white dots, but up close they’d looked like cats. Was that possible? Was there any chance at all that uptight, straitlaced, cold-as-dry-ice Portia Callahan would get married wearing panties with cat heads on them?

“What the hell were you doing?” he asked.

“I was meditating.”

“And singing along to eighties pop?”

“I was... I can’t...” She blew out a breath that made her hair flutter in front of her face. “It helps me think.” And then, she must have realized her hair was mussed, because she grabbed a stray lock of hair and stared at it. “Oh, no! Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no, oh, no!”

She jumped up and ran to the mirror. Still clutching the lock of hair, she turned this way and that, staring at herself in the mirror, muttering “oh, no!” over and over.

He didn’t have a lot of experience with panicking women. Zero experience, really. And, to be honest, his mind was still reeling that this was Portia who was panicking. Up until five minutes ago, he would have described her as slightly less emotional than the Tin Man. He would not have pegged her for the type to panic. Or wear pink kitty panties. Damn it, he had to stop thinking about her underwear. And her thighs.

And unless he wanted to be the one to explain to Caro Cain why the wedding was off, he suspected he needed to do some serious damage control.

So he made sure the door was locked and went to stand behind Portia.

He looked at her in the mirror. She was so busy freaking out she didn’t notice him until he put his hands on her shoulders. Then she looked up, tears brimming in her dark blue eyes. How had he never before noticed how dark her eyes were? Almost purple, they were so blue.

He dug around in his pocket, but found nothing to give her to wipe her eyes, so he pulled the silk pocket square from his suit pocket and handed it to her.

“Here.” She just stared at him, frowning. Crap, he was no good at this. “It’s gonna be okay.”

“It is?” she asked hopefully.

“Sure.”

She stared up at him, a tremulous smile on her lips. “You think so?”

“Yeah.” He felt a little catch in his chest. God, he hoped he wasn’t lying. “It’s just hair, right?” And, that must have been the wrong thing to say, because her lip started wobbling. “I mean, you can totally fix that!” He reached out and gave the lumpy twist a poke. “Just stick in a few more of those pin things, and it’ll be fine.”

She threw up her hands. “I don’t have any more pins!”

“Then how’d you get it up in the first place?”

“I had it done at a salon.”

“Oh.” He didn’t point out that if that was the case, she probably shouldn’t have done a headstand. It took a lot of restraint. Surely he got points for that, right? “Well, I bet the ones that came out are still on the ground over there. Let me look.” After a minute of crawling around on the floor, he stood up, triumphant. “Five.”

She was still sitting in front of the mirror, but she was looking calmer. And she’d done something with her hair so that it looked...more balanced. “Okay. Hand them over.”

He did, and then watched as she jabbed them in. When she was done, she met his gaze in the mirror.

“And it’s really going to be okay, right?”

“Sure.”

“I don’t mean the hair.”

“Yeah. I got that.” He swallowed. Who the hell was he to give relationship advice to anyone? Especially since he couldn’t stop thinking about Portia’s legs and how adorable she looked in that damn headstand and how she’d always been beautiful but he’d never known how pretty she was until now. “Yeah. It’s going to be okay. Dalton is a good guy. And you’re perfect for each other.”

Except he was lying. Until now, he’d always thought Portia was the perfect girl for Dalton. But this girl? This girl who did headstands in her wedding dress and freaked out and wore pink kitty panties? This girl had more going on inside than he’d ever guessed. This Portia was vibrant and intriguing, and startlingly appealing in this moment of vulnerability. And maybe Dalton wasn’t the right guy for her after all.


One

Twelve years later

Portia Callahan wanted to die of humiliation.

Only one thing kept her from actually doing it. If she died during the Children’s Hope Foundation annual gala, the charity’s silent auction would bomb. Everyone would be so busy gossiping about how Celeste Callahan had finally berated her daughter to death that no one would raise their paddles to bid.

So instead of dying, Portia stood in the service hallway outside of the Kimball Hotel ballroom and let her mother rant at her.

“Honestly, Portia! What were you thinking?” Celeste’s crisp pronunciation grated against Portia’s already frayed nerves.

She breathed out a sigh and let go of all the logical, sensible answers she could give. I was thinking of the children. I was trying to do the right thing. Instead she said what she knew her mother needed to hear. “I guess I wasn’t thinking.”

Which was also true. Three months ago, when she’d visited the inner-city Houston high school on behalf of Children’s Hope Foundation, she hadn’t been thinking about how her visit might “look” to the Houston society types. She’d been thinking about connecting with the students, encouraging them to dream of a life beyond minimum wage work. She’d been thinking of them and what they needed. There hadn’t even been anyone from the Foundation there that day. It had never occurred to her that the teacher snapping photos might send them in to the Foundation or that a few of them might end up in the photomontage that played in the background at tonight’s annual gala. And it had certainly never occurred to her that members of Houston high society might be offended by pictures of her playing a pickup game of basketball with former gang members.

“No, Portia. You clearly weren’t thinking. That photo...” Celeste sighed.

God, Portia hated that sound. It was how-could-you-do-this-to-me and what-did-I-do-to-deserve-you all rolled into one exhalation of disappointment.

“It’s not that bad,” Portia tried to explain. She kept her voice low, painfully aware that they weren’t really alone. Sure, her mother had dragged her off into one of the hotel’s service hallways, but the gala’s waitstaff were filtering past with trays of drinks and appetizers. A couple of them had even slowed down, straining to catch what they could of the argument.

“It would be bad enough if it was just the photo,” Celeste said. “But with Laney’s pregnancy, everyone is watching you, waiting to see how you’ll—”

“Laney’s pregnancy?” Portia interrupted. Nausea bloomed in her stomach, turning those butternut squash appetizers into bricks. “Laney is pregnant?”

Laney was Portia’s ex-husband’s current wife.

Not that Portia had anything against Laney. Or Dalton for that matter.

She was thrilled, just thrilled, that they’d found love and were blissfully happy. She really was. Or she really tried to be. But it would be easier if her own life didn’t feel so stagnant.

And now Laney was pregnant? Portia and Dalton had struggled with infertility for years. But apparently all Dalton needed was a vivacious new wife.

Portia pressed a palm to her belly, willing the appetizers to stay put.

“Laney is pregnant,” she repeated stupidly.

“Yes, of course she is. They haven’t announced it yet, but everyone has noticed the bump. Honestly, Portia, how do you miss these things? All of Houston has noticed, but you’re blissfully unaware of it?”

“I just didn’t—”

“Well, you need to. You simply have to be more concerned when gossip is brewing around you. And for God’s sake, try not to provide all of Houston with photographic evidence of your midlife crisis.”

“It’s not a midlife crisis!”

Celeste’s gaze snapped from self-pity to anger. “It’s a photo of you and five gang members, one of whom is staring down your dress and another of whom has his hand entirely too close to your person.”

“He was blocking. He wasn’t even touching me!” Was that really how the photo looked to other people? “Mother, it’s just a picture. There are fifty pictures in the slide show that illustrate the amazing work the foundation does. One of them happens to have me in it. It’s not that big a—”

“It is a big deal,” Celeste snapped. “The fact that you think it isn’t only shows how naive you are. A woman in your position—”

“My position? What is that supposed to mean?”

“A woman’s position in society changes when she goes through a divorce. You’ve seen this in your own life and in Caro’s. Thank God you’ve fared better than she has. So far.”

“Right,” Portia said grimly. “Caro.”

After her divorce from Dalton, Portia had stayed friends with her former mother-in-law. Caro Cain wasn’t the warmest person, but she was still easier to deal with than Portia’s own mother. And right now, Caro needed every friend she had. Her divorce from Hollister Cain had left her a social pariah.

“Do you know how many people are out there snickering about that photo?” Celeste demanded.

“Nobody but you cares about that photo!”

Celeste took a step closer. “This is how the world works. Stop being naive.”

“It’s not naive to want to help children.”

“Fine, if you want to help children, I can have Dede set something up.”

“I don’t need Daddy’s press secretary to set up a photo op for me.”

“Fine. If you don’t want my help, do this on your own. Go make puppets with a kid with cancer, but for God’s sake, stay out of the ghetto, because—”

But Celeste never got a chance to finish her thought, because just then, one of the waitresses walked by with a tray of champagne and somehow tripped, spilling a flute of the amber liquid down the sleeve of Celeste’s dress.

The older woman reared back, gasping in shock.

The waitress stumbled again and barely stepped out of the way before Celeste whirled on her. “Why you clumsy, little—”

“Mother, it’s okay.” Portia grabbed her mother’s arm, more out of instinct than out of fear that her mother might hit the girl.

Celeste jerked her arm free, her mouth twisting into a snarl. “I’ll have your job for this!”

“Let me handle this, Mother.” Portia looked nervously around the hall. It was empty now except for this one waitress. “Go on to the bathroom and clean up what you can. Champagne doesn’t stain. It’ll be okay.”

Celeste just glared at the waitress, who glared back, her jaw jutting out.

Portia guided her mother a step away toward the doorway that led into the ballroom. “I’ll handle it. I’ll talk to the girl’s supervisor.”

“That clumsy bitch shouldn’t be anywhere near a function like this.” Then Celeste flounced off to clean herself up.

Portia turned back to the waitress, half surprised to still see her there. The young woman looked to be in her early twenties. Her hair was dyed a dark maroon, cut short on one side and long on the other. She wore too much eye makeup and had a stud in her nose. And she was glaring belligerently at Portia.

“My name’s Ginger, by the way. If you’re going to go tattle to my boss.”

Portia held up her hand palm out in a gesture of peace. “Look, I’m not going to have you fired, but maybe you could just stay out of Celeste’s way for the rest of the night.”

Ginger blinked in surprise. “You’re not?”

“No. It was an accident.”

“Accident. Right.” Her tone was completely innocent, but there was a slight smirk to her lips as she stepped toward the door into the ballroom. Her smirk made her look so familiar. “Thanks.”

“Wait a second—” But the door swung open and two more waiters came into the hall and pushed past them. Portia reached for Ginger’s arm and stepped off to the side, where they weren’t in anyone’s way. “Did you do that on purpose?”

“Tip the glass down your mother’s back? Why would I do that?” Ginger smirked again and Portia felt another blast of recognition. Like she should know this girl.

“I don’t know,” Portia admitted. She looked pointedly at the tray of champagne flutes. “But it seems like it’d be awfully hard to tip just one glass without them all spilling.”

“You gonna have me fired or not?”

Portia sighed. “Why would you do that?”

“What? Spill a drink on someone who’s verbally abusing her daughter in public? I can’t imagine why.” Ginger turned as if she was going to stalk off, but stopped and turned back before she reached the door. “Look, it’s none of my business, but you shouldn’t put up with that. Family should treat each other better.”

“Yes. They should.” Portia had no illusions about her mother. She wasn’t sure why she felt as if she had to justify her mother’s words—certainly not to a stranger—but she found herself doing it anyway. “I know my mother can be a bitch. I’m not going to pretend she has my best interests at heart. But when it comes to this kind of thing, she’s almost always right. And I’m usually wrong. If she thinks people will misinterpret those photos of me, then I’d bet money they already have.”

“That’s messed up.” Ginger just shook her head. “That doesn’t bother you?”

“It does, but it’s the world I live in.”

“I don’t care if that’s the world you live in. Family should be on your side. No matter what.” Ginger’s expression darkened. “The world you live in sucks.”

The fierceness in Ginger’s gaze took Portia aback for a moment. Portia looked at the girl closely. Again she was struck by how familiar she seemed.

“Have we met before?” she asked impulsively.

Ginger took a step back, the startled movement jostling the champagne flutes on her tray. “No. Where would we have met?”

Before Portia could press her for more information, the waitress spun away and disappeared through the door.

Now Portia was sure they’d met before. It was something in the girl’s smile. And something through the eyes.

The eyes.

Portia’s breath caught in her chest as the realization hit her.

This young woman. This waitress whom Portia had met by chance had eyes the exact same color as Dalton Cain’s. Now that she’d placed the eyes, Ginger’s other features seemed to slip right into place. That fierce intensity was pure Griffin Cain. That sarcastic smirk looked just like Cooper’s. Ginger was a near perfect amalgamation of the three brothers. Yes, in a more delicate and feminine form, but still, she could be their sister.

Which Portia might be able to dismiss, except for one crucial fact. Dalton, Griffin and Cooper actually had a half sister. They all knew she existed, but no one knew who or where she was. As impossible and unlikely as it seemed, had Portia just found the missing Cain heiress?

* * *

Portia looked for Ginger the rest of the night. She constantly scanned the crowd for the waitress’s maroon hair and nose stud, but she seemed to have disappeared completely.

By the time Portia had made it back to her small home at the end of the night, she was determined to track down the waitress. It wasn’t that she was obsessed with finding the girl, but it gave her something to think about other than the gossip about her that had been simmering in the background.

Why was it acceptable for people to talk about her merely because her ex-husband was going to be a father? Or because someone had snapped a photo of her playing basketball with some disadvantaged teens? Other people could do truly bad things and no one seemed to care.

The same brutal dynamic was at work with Caro Cain. Hollister Cain, Portia’s ex-father-in-law, had had countless affairs. Somehow Caro had held her head up through it all. When Caro divorced him, people gossiped about her.

Of course, Hollister and Caro had paid the price for his many affairs. Just last year, when Hollister’s health had been so bad, he had received a letter from one of his past conquests. The woman had heard he was on his deathbed and had taunted him with the existence of a daughter he’d never known about.

Whoever had written the letter had known what a manipulative bastard Hollister was. She had known it would drive him crazy to learn he had a daughter he’d never met and couldn’t control. When he’d received the letter, Hollister had called his three sons to his bedside—Dalton and Griffin, his legitimate sons, and Cooper, his illegitimate son. He’d demanded that they find the daughter and bring her back into the family fold. Whichever son found her first would be Hollister’s sole heir. If she wasn’t found before Hollister died, he’d will his entire fortune to the state.

The quest he’d set his sons on had torn the family apart. It had destroyed his own marriage. And now, a year later, the missing heiress still hadn’t been found. And Hollister’s health had improved. The last time she’d seen him, he’d seemed as bitter and angry as ever, but he was no longer haunted by death. He was just as determined that someone find his daughter.

Maybe it was ridiculous for Portia to think that she might have just found the woman tonight.

As far as she knew, Dalton and Griffin had figured out that their sister was from somewhere in Texas, but that hardly narrowed it down. There were almost thirty million people in Texas.

But of all the people Portia had ever met, only five of them had Cain-blue eyes. Hollister and his sons and now Ginger. This woman with Cooper’s smirk and Dalton’s determination. She looked just like a Cain.

Not that it was any of her business.

So what if a waitress at a hotel in Houston looked like she could be Dalton’s sister?

It didn’t have anything to do with Portia.

Except that when Portia thought about Ginger—about the waitress’s petulant defiance, about the fierce way she talked about how families should treat each other, Portia felt oddly protective of her. If she was the missing heiress, someone would find her. Someday—maybe someday soon—one of the brothers would stumble on a piece of evidence and they would track her down. Everything about her life would change in a moment. And she was completely unprepared for it.

Ginger was about to be thrust into a world of cutthroat gossips where her every action and motive would be questioned, analyzed and criticized. Where mothers berated their daughters in public and where divorcées were ostracized when they didn’t get a lavish divorce settlement. It was a world of wealth and power, but it was also a crummy world.

But maybe there was something she could do to make this world a little less crummy.


Two

When she was young, Portia had had a reputation among her family for being impulsive, reckless, rash—qualities she had worked hard to banish from her personality in the past fifteen years. And she’d succeeded. No one who knew her now—well, almost no one—would call her reckless.

Now she was not the kind of girl who got a tattoo over summer break—even one of a completely inoffensive, beloved cultural icon like Marvin the Martian. She was not the sort to do headstands in fancy clothes. Those parts of her were gone. It was that simple.

So, a week after the Children’s Hope Foundation gala, when she packed her bags and hopped on a plane, it was part of a planned vacation. After all, it was perfectly reasonable for her to take a few weeks of vacation after the months of grueling work on the event. And the Callahans had a condo in Tahoe that she often visited. It wasn’t as if she was fleeing from Houston because she couldn’t stand the gossip—which hadn’t actually been that bad. This was a vacation. A well-thought-out event.

And if she tweaked her travel plans just a smidge so that they included a four-hour layover in Denver, that was totally normal. She’d never liked long flights. Or airports.

And it was also normal—and not at all impulsive—for her to stop by and visit the one person she knew in Denver. Her former brother-in-law, Cooper Larson. Cooper—once the snowboarding darling in the world of extreme sports—was now a successful businessman. He was the CEO and owner of Flight+Risk, which just happened to be headquartered in Denver. He was also possibly the one person who could help her untangle the identity of the Cain heiress.

This was a slight detour in her life. That was all. Visiting Cooper wasn’t impulsive or reckless. It was smart. Of the three Cain brothers, he was the least invested in finding Hollister’s missing daughter. He had the least at stake. And he was the most likely to know where the young woman was coming from. Visiting Cooper was only logical.

The litany of logical, sensible reasons echoed through her mind as she paid the taxi driver who’d taken her from the airport to Flight+Risk’s office in downtown Denver not far from the Sixteenth Street Mall. The building was an older one that had been refurbished. It was sleek and modern inside, while maintaining the sort of informality that suited Cooper’s snowboard accessory business. It was exactly what she’d expected of his office. It suited the black sheep of the Cain family.

The only thing that threw her for a loop was Cooper’s assistant. She’d expected some young blond snow bunny type. Someone with more style than sense. Someone she could easily talk her way past.

Instead, the woman—Mrs. Lorenzo, according to the nameplate on her desk—was nearing fifty, with a humorless smile and cold, assessing eyes.

“And what did you say your name was again?”

“Portia Callahan.”

“Hmm...” Mrs. Lorenzo looked her up and down, as if Portia might be lying. Then the older woman turned back to the computer, clicked her mouse several times and started typing.

Mrs. Lorenzo must have sensed Portia’s doubts, because she raised an eyebrow and made a disapproving mmm sound.

“I’m his sister-in-law,” Portia threw out hopefully.

Mrs. Lorenzo smirked. “Mr. Larson has one sister-in-law—Laney Cain. She’s a lovely young woman. And you are not her.”

Portia swallowed, suddenly irritated by this woman’s superior attitude. She so didn’t need one more person telling her how lovely Laney was. “I’m his former sister-in-law.”

“I see.” Mrs. Lorenzo’s mouth turned down as if Portia had just admitted to being pond scum. “Mr. Larson is in a business meeting out of the office this morning. Would you like to reschedule?”

Portia glanced down at her watch. If she’d done the math right, she had about two hours before she needed to head back to the airport. “No. I’ll wait.”

“Excellent,” Mrs. Lorenzo said grimly. “I’ll let him know when he gets in.”

With a sigh, Portia picked a chair in the reception area and settled down to wait. She pulled a magazine out of her travel tote and flipped it open, but didn’t actually read any of it. Instead, she stared blankly at the brightly colored pictures, her mind racing from the lies she’d been telling herself.

Here was the flaw in her logic: if today’s visit to Denver really was logical and not impulsive, she would not have ambushed Cooper at work, hoping to talk her way past his secretary. She would have called ahead and made an appointment. Or better yet, called him and asked to meet for lunch. Or even better yet, just called and talked through this on the phone.

He was her former brother-in-law. Calling him to chat was perfectly reasonable. She’d talked to him on the phone plenty of times during her marriage to Dalton. And even since the divorce, she’d called a couple of times a year to hit him up for donations to the Children’s Hope Foundation.

But instead of just calling, she’d changed her travel plans and come to see him in person. Why?

She looked around the office, felt panic starting to choke her and fought the urge to bolt. What was she doing here? Why had she gone to these drastic lengths? And for a girl she barely knew? Based on nothing more than a pair of blue eyes and a gut feeling?

It was ridiculous. Absurd. Completely irrational.

And that was why she’d come here herself.

Because it was irrational and ridiculous. And she knew if she hadn’t jumped in feetfirst, she would have backed out. If she had called and tried to explain this over the phone, she would have panicked and changed her story. She never would have had the guts to actually talk about the missing heiress. She had come here to do it in person because now she was committed. Now, she couldn’t back out. She could only wait.

* * *

In business, as in snowboarding, talent and preparation only got you so far. After that, it was all a matter of luck. Which sucked, because Cooper Larson had never been a particularly lucky man. Ambitious, yes. Talented, smart and ruthless, yes. Lucky, not so much.

But he was okay with that. Luck was for a privileged few. It wasn’t something you could control or work for. And personally, he would much rather owe his success to something he’d done.

Still, when it came to important business meetings, like the Flight+Risk board meeting he had scheduled for the afternoon, he never left anything to chance. The meeting would be held at a hotel conference room, not far from Flight+Risk’s headquarters. He’d spent the morning at the hotel, putting the finishing touches on the proposal he’d be bringing before the board. Which left him just enough time to stop back by the office and check in before grabbing lunch and heading to the board meeting.

Except Portia was waiting to see him when he got there.

For a moment, he just stopped cold in the doorway staring at her. “Portia?” he asked stupidly. “What are you doing here?”

She stood up, looking strangely nervous. “I had a layover in Denver. And I thought maybe we could talk.”

She’d been reading a magazine when he walked in and now she rolled it tightly in her hands, clenching it as if maybe she wanted to swat the nose of some naughty dog.

He studied her, taking in the white of her clenched knuckles. The faint lines of strain around her eyes. He hadn’t seen her often since her divorce from Dalton—hell, he hadn’t seen her often during their marriage—but he knew her well enough to recognize the signs of stress and nerves.

Even though it would mess with his schedule for the day, he nodded toward his office. “Sure. Come on in.” He glanced toward his secretary with a nod. “Hold my calls.”

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?

But he was getting off track. Regardless of how he felt about Portia, it was hard to be too enthusiastic about helping out when her entire reason for asking for his help was because he didn’t fit into her world.

“I can’t tell Dalton where to find her,” Portia said. “He wouldn’t think twice about thrusting her into this completely unprepared. And I’m not saying that because I think he’s jerk. He just wouldn’t even think. He always put business first. He wouldn’t hesitate.”

“And you think I would?”

“Hesitate?” She shrugged. “I think you know better than anyone where this girl is coming from. She has a middle-class background at best. She won’t know what she’s getting into. She’ll be vulnerable and unprepared—”

“Yeah. I get it.” Cooper cut Portia off with a sharp wave of his hand. Jesus, was this how people had seen him when he’d first gone to live with the Cains? “It’s probably not as bad as you think. I’m sure she’ll at least be potty trained.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Portia glared at him, but she looked more exasperated than angry. “I’m trying to protect her.”

“Fine. So mentor her or whatever. Take her under your wing. This doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

“If I’m right and she really is Hollister’s daughter, then she’s your sister. It has everything to do with you.” She tilted her head just a little and eyed him. “Besides, you can’t tell me that you aren’t at least a little bit interested in winning. In doing what neither Dalton nor Griffin has been able to do. It’s a lot of money.”

An ugly thread of disgust wound through his stomach. He got so damn sick of these games people played. If asking didn’t get what you want, why not manipulate and pit people against one another? That’s exactly what Hollister had been doing for years.

Cooper pushed himself to feet. “I don’t give a damn about Hollister’s money. I never have. If I had, then I’d been one of Cain Enterprises’ lackeys right now instead owning my own company.”

“Fine. You don’t want the money? Give the money away. Give the money to me.”

“You don’t need the money any more than I do.”

“Please, Cooper—”

“Why?” he demanded. “Why on earth do you care so much about this girl?”

She bumped up her chin again. “Because family is supposed to take care of each other, that’s why.”

“You’re not part of the family anymore.”

She went instantly still, and for a second, he would have sworn she’d even stopped breathing. Damn it. It was as if his words had skewered her.

Then resolve settled in her gaze. “You’re right. I’m not part of this family anymore. But I was for ten years and I know how hard the Cains can be. I had to fight tooth and nail to get Caro to accept me and treat me with respect. I never won over Hollister, and I’m embarrassed to say I stopped trying long after I should have. He is a hard man. Brutal. And even though I love Caro like she’s my own mother, I would be very surprised if she welcomes this girl with open arms. And why should she after the way Hollister treated her in the divorce?” She blew out a breath then, and he could tell she had to work to make it sound even. To make it sound like she wasn’t already emotionally invested. “This girl is your family. Don’t you want to help her?”

Did he want to help this girl? This stranger who might be his sister? Hell, he didn’t know.

Cain family politics didn’t interest him. At all.

He didn’t give a damn about what happened to the company or to Hollister. None of this was his problem. And frankly, he didn’t buy half of what Portia was telling him.

He leveled his gaze at her. “Okay, enough with the warm-fuzzy garbage. What aren’t you telling me?”

She pulled back and blinked rapidly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Come on, you came here in person to beg me to do this and you expect me to believe your only motive is family loyalty to a girl you spent five minutes with?”

He half expected her to have some visible reaction, but Portia was a cool one, and even though he knew he’d hit on something, she didn’t so much as flinch. But he could see the calculations going on behind her eyes, so he didn’t trust her words when she calmly said, “Fine. You want a motive? How does this one work? I know you don’t want the money, so I’m hoping you’ll give it to me.”

For a second, all he could do was stare at her. There was a hard glint in her eyes, a stubborn tilt to her chin, that almost—almost—made her statement believable. But not quite.

“All right,” he said, wanting to see where she was going with this.

Her chin bumped up a little. “I...um...the divorce left me destitute. I need the money.”

“You’re destitute?”

“Totally broke.”

“Nice try. I don’t believe you’re broke. Not for a minute.”

She frowned, scrunching her mouth to the side adorably. “Really.”

“No. When you and Dalton got married, Hollister told me you had a trust from your paternal grandparents that was worth over fifteen million. I know Dalton didn’t touch it. So unless you expect me to believe that you’ve blown through fifteen million in two years...”

She sighed. “I could be really bad with money?”

“No.” He didn’t believe that, either. He cocked his head to the side. “But I do believe you want the money. Why?”

She frowned again, and he sensed that she was trying to decide exactly what to tell him. Finally, she said, “Have you talked to Caro lately?”

“Caro?” he asked, surprised by the sudden change in topic. “No. Why?”

“Because things haven’t gone well for her since the divorce. Personally. Socially. Financially. And I just thought...if you really don’t want the money, then we could give some of it to her.”

“She needs money?” But then he waved aside his own question. “Of course she needs money. Hollister’s such a bastard, he probably butchered her in the divorce. Jesus. Do Dalton and Griffin know?”

“I don’t think anyone knows. She and I haven’t always been close, but we are now. I see it, but she doesn’t even admit it to me. Besides, she’s not exactly their favorite person right now.”

“Yeah. I guess not,” he agreed. The mysterious letter about Hollister’s missing daughter had turned their lives upside down. Neither Dalton nor Griffin had been particularly thrilled to find out that the letter hadn’t been penned by some anonymous former lover of Hollister’s, but by his angry and bitter wife. “So Hollister eviscerated her in court and she’s too proud to tell her sons that she needs financial help. But you think she’ll take money from me?”

“I know she’s probably not your favorite person, either—”

“I have no problem with Caro,” he said quickly. “I never have.”

“Oh,” Portia said softly. “I just assumed.”

It was a fair assumption. Caro was easy to characterize as his wicked stepmother. But that didn’t mean they were enemies or that he wanted her out on the street.

“Caro and I get along fine,” he said. “But I don’t think she’d take money from me.”

“She might if it was Hollister’s money. He screwed her over. I think she’d enjoy screwing him back.” Portia’s face settled into resolve. “I could convince her.”

Which brought him back to square one: he didn’t have time for this.

“Look, it’s not about whether or not I want to help her. I don’t have the time. It’s not my problem.”

“But Caro—”

“Look, I can find a way to help Caro without finding this missing heiress.” And he would find a way to help her. Just not now. He glanced down at his watch. “And I’ve got a meeting I’m going to be late for. I’m sorry, Portia.”

He took one last look at Portia. She was perfect and pristine and untouchable. God, sometimes she was so pretty, it almost hurt to look at her. And other times, her beauty seemed almost too fragile. Like she might shatter. He was never sure if the part that would shatter was the real woman or only the outer shell that she showed the world.

In the decade she’d been married to his brother, he’d stayed far away from her because it had been the right thing to do. Now that she was single, he had other reasons for staying away. They weren’t from the same world. He’d learned as a kid what it meant to be an outsider in that world. What it meant to be Hollister Cain’s bastard son. Seeing the things other people had. Reaching for them. Having your hand slapped away.

Yeah. He knew what it meant to want things you couldn’t have.

And yeah, he knew that this mystery sister—whoever she ended up being—was going to have a hell of a time adjusting. But he also knew that nothing he did was going to make it any easier on her. She’d either be strong enough or she wouldn’t. She’d have to find her own way. Just like he had.

“She has your smile,” Portia said. “If that matters at all.”

His step faltered only a little. “If she has you on her side, she’ll be just fine.”

With that, he left the office, putting the conversation and everything it had stirred up behind him. His future rested on the outcome of the board meeting he was going to. He didn’t need this Cain family drama. He didn’t need a sister. And he sure as hell didn’t need Portia here tempting him.


Three

Three hours later, Cooper sat at the head of the conference table and watched his dreams spiral down the drain.

The board voted no.

By a wide margin. It wasn’t even close.

Nine of the twelve board members had voted against his plan to get Flight+Risk into the hotel business. Millions could be made in an upscale resort catering specifically to snowboarders. His gut had told him this was a solid venture. But apparently the board thought his gut was “fiscally irresponsible at this juncture.”

Now, as the board members started to filter out of the hotel conference room—the votes cast, the meeting officially adjourned—they could hardly meet his gaze. Which was fine, since he feared he might lunge across the table and slam his fist into Robertson’s face. The bastard had been on the board since the company’s inception. The man—a staid, lifelong businessman in his sixties—had a background in the retail industry that had proved invaluable, but he had little to no imagination. If you couldn’t sell it at Macy’s, he wasn’t interested. He’d been an opponent of Cooper’s resort plan from the beginning, but Cooper had really thought he’d won over enough of the other board members. Clearly, he’d been wrong.

With the exception of a couple stragglers, the room cleared within two minutes. An obvious sign that the board wasn’t any more comfortable with the outcome than he was. They may have voted against him, but no one wanted to face him down. As for the part of him that wanted to beat the crap out of someone as a result? Well, that was a part that he’d worked hard to bury beneath the facade of a successful businessman.

So he’d waited quietly for the board to leave. He just sat there at the head of the table, staring blankly at the stack of pages in front of him while the rats fled the sinking ship. When he looked up, only two other people remained—Drew Davis, the only fellow snowboarder on the board, and Matt Ballard, the Chief Technology Officer of FJM, a green energy company out of the Bay Area, and a good friend of Cooper’s.

After a moment of silence, Drew said, “Man, you’re so screwed.”

“I’m not screwed.” But Cooper said it grimly and with no real conviction.

“No, you’re totally f—”

“No. I’ll convince them.”

There was too much at stake in this fight. This was his company. Flight+Risk made the best, toughest gear for winter sports. The best snowboards, the best jackets, the best thermals. All of it. He knew it was the best for two reasons: first off, because he’d designed most of it himself and demanded absolute perfection. Second, because every top snowboarder in the world wanted to use his gear. Yes, it was that good. He made sure of it himself, because inferior gear put people’s lives at risk. And profits as well, though that had always been a secondary consideration for him. Still, his perfectionism, ambition and determination had made him a legend on the half-pipe and in the business world.

So why the hell didn’t his board trust that he was right about this?

“How exactly are you going to convince them?” Matt asked, rocking back in his chair. Matt had pulled his laptop out the second the meeting was over and was typing now. He was one of those unique guys who could manage to do multiple things at once. Probably because he was freakin’ brilliant. He’d been Flight+Risk’s first private investor. In fact, he’d approached Cooper as a fan and offered him start-up money before the company had been more than a business plan and prototype board. They’d become good friends over the years.

Somehow it didn’t make Cooper feel any better that the only two members of the board who voted yes with him were his two best friends. It smacked of pity votes.

He looked first at Drew and then at Matt. “You can’t honestly tell me you agree with Robertson that investing in another manufacturing facility is a better use of our money?”

“Not better,” Drew said. “Less risky.”

“My plan isn’t risky,” Cooper said stubbornly.

“You want to invest forty million dollars in this,” Drew said. “Flight+Risk will be overextended. Of course the board is going to balk.”

“The company has stellar credit and it will only be for the next eighteen months. The location I’ve picked is perfect. There’s already a resort there—”

“A dated, crummy hotel,” Matt interjected.

“And, yes, it needs renovations, but the preliminary inspector said the building was sound.” The hotel he’d found, Beck’s Lodge, was aging and currently unprofitable, but he knew he could turn it into something amazing. “The snow out there is perfect. As soon as the resort opens, the returns on this investment will be huge. You know I’m right.”

“Yeah,” Drew said. “I think you’re right. But the board cares more about what the stock market thinks.”

“Being overextended isn’t the problem,” Matt said without looking up.

Drew and Cooper both turned to look at Matt.

“What?” Drew asked.

“Then what is the problem?” Cooper asked.

“It’s a problem of perception.” Matt looked up as if surprised to be the center of the attention. “Come on. Cooper has a reputation for taking crazy risks. That incident with the model after the Olympics when you were reprimanded is a perfect example. And everyone knows Flight+Risk nearly failed in the first two years and would have if you hadn’t been pumping your own money into the company to keep it afloat.”

“You’re saying the board didn’t vote against the idea. They voted against me.”

“The media loves that stuff,” Matt said, shrugging. “It makes for great reading. But the kinds of risks you take scare the hell out of investors.”

“Those kinds of risks pay off.”

“Barely.”

“No. Every one of the risks I’ve taken in business has paid off huge.”

“Yes. They did pay off huge. After you almost failed miserably. You’ve had a lot of success, but your winning streak is going to end someday. No one wants to catch the flak from that.”

“So you’re saying everyone just thinks it’s my time to fail.”

“Yeah.”

“But this isn’t risky. By the time I’m done with this resort, the best snowboarders in the world will be there. If I were a golfer building one of those golf communities, everyone would be clamoring to invest.”

“Maybe.” Matt shrugged and looked back down at his laptop. “But golf is different. Those guys know rich. You’re just a snowboarder.”

Just a snowboarder?

That pissed him off. Yeah, he knew Matt didn’t mean it personally, but it was hard not to take it that way.

Because even if Matt didn’t buy that argument, plenty of other people did. Never mind that Cooper had been running Flight+Risk for three times as long as he’d been a professional snowboarder. He had more money now than any one man could spend in a lifetime and had earned his money himself, unlike so many other rich bastards. And he’d never once made a business decision that hadn’t paid off. Never mind any of that.

In the end, the board was scared he didn’t have the business chops to know a great investment from a pipe dream. They’d pegged him as too much of a risk taker just because he’d left college to snowboard professionally. They thought he didn’t know the upscale market just because he’d had to work for every one of his successes. Because he’d worked hard to keep his relationship to the Cains on the down low. He’d never wanted people handing him things because of who his father was. He’d never wanted the Cain name to buy him anything. So sure, his lineage was out there for whoever dug around in his past—and reporters loved that nonsense—but he didn’t advertise it. He’d never taken the Cain name, even though he’d lived with Hollister and Caro after his mother had died. He never talked about his father or his family connections.

He would have laughed at the irony if it hadn’t pissed him off so damn much.

Would he have to put up with this kind of thing if he’d been in the habit of reminding the board who his father was? If he’d trotted out his father’s name, the board probably would have rolled right over.

Instead, he did things his own way and his ideas were labeled too risky.

It wasn’t fair.

Which was fine. His life had never been fair. He was the king of making not-fair work for him.

He looked up suddenly to realize that his two friends were exchanging worried glances. As if he’d been quiet too long and they were concerned he was plotting Robertson’s demise. Well, he was, but not in the way they were worried about.

So he smiled broadly and stood. “It’s all good.”

Drew stood also. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. It’s just time for Plan B.”

Matt raised his eyebrows. “Really? ’Cause I heard you say once that backup plans were for losers without the determination to get it right the first time.”

Yeah. That sounded like him. He shrugged. “Okay, we’ll call this Plan 2.0.”

Matt snapped his laptop closed and stood. “So what’s Plan 2.0?”

“I’m going to convince the board that this isn’t risky. I’m going to convince them that I do know this market.”

“They’ve already voted you down. Flight+Risk can’t move forward unless it comes to a vote again,” Matt pointed out.

“I got too eager and pushed the vote too soon. But by the time I’m done with them, they’ll be desperate to get Flight+Risk involved.”

“How exactly are you going to do that?” Drew asked.

“I’m going to hire an expert.”

* * *

In the end, Portia missed her flight to Tahoe and had to reschedule for the next day. The airline had pulled her suitcase off the flight and had held it in Denver, thank goodness, and she’d been able to find a car service to deliver her bag to her hotel. It was all far less inconvenient than it might have been. No matter how Portia tried to tell herself that she’d only lost one day and that she hadn’t gone that far out of her way, she couldn’t help feeling that the entire trip had been a huge waste of time.

For tonight, she’d checked into a hotel in Denver, not far from Flight+Risk’s corporate offices. In the morning she would see about getting another flight to Tahoe. But now, she had room service coming with a salted caramel brownie and carafe of red wine.

Yes, tomorrow she would start her vacation. She’d still get her two weeks of solitude at her parents’ summer cabin by the lake. She’d read the dozen or so books already loaded onto her Nook. She’d watch movies. Do some yoga. It would all be very relaxing.

Except she wasn’t relaxed. Her mind was still whirling with thoughts of the waitress from the Kimball Hotel, the woman she knew was Hollister’s daughter.

Part of her agreed with Cooper. She should just let it go. It wasn’t any of her business.

Honestly, she hadn’t given the Cain heiress much thought in the year since Hollister had issued the challenge. However, now that she’d met the woman, she couldn’t stop worrying about her. She knew better than anyone what a brutal man Hollister was. He was no one’s ideal father-in-law. He’d criticized her endlessly. He’d only gotten worse once her fertility problems became public knowledge.

Dalton hadn’t put up with that, of course. He’d called his father on it every time he’d witnessed it. But Dalton hadn’t been around much. Caro had stepped up to her defense, as well. That was how she and Caro had gotten so close. At first, Hollister’s behavior had hurt. She hadn’t realized he treated everyone badly. He wasn’t picking on her. He was just a jerk.

Would Ginger know that?

She’d seemed tough. Would she be able to defend herself against the likes of Hollister? Would she understand that any sign of weakness would stir up the piranhas? Would she have any defenses against the people who would pretend to be her friend and then turn on her in a second?

Yes, Cooper was right. It wasn’t Portia’s business. But that didn’t stop her from worrying about the girl. She’d been counting on Cooper to take over finding the heiress for her. The hope that some of his reward money would be funneled to Caro was just the salted caramel topping on the brownie. Now that he’d refused, she was left in the hot seat again. She had no other ideas about how to help Caro or the heiress. Unless she went to Dalton.

Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that being found was going to change this woman’s life forever, and not necessarily in a good way. But what could she do? Not telling anyone that she’d found the heiress wasn’t an option. Damn Cooper for not agreeing to help her. Really, she’d thought better of him.

A moment later there was a knock on the door. Men may never do precisely what she expected them to do, but thank goodness for chocolate. It was there when she needed it.

But when she opened the door, it wasn’t room service with her brownie. It was Cooper.

He leaned casually against the wall right outside her hotel room, one ankle crossed over the other. He was wearing the same suit he’d had on earlier in the day, but the tie was gone and the jacket looked rumpled. Like he’d taken it off several times over the past few hours.

He looked up when she opened the door. “Hey, I need a favor.”

“You’re not a brownie,” she muttered under her breath.

He blinked, looking surprised. Then his mouth curled in a wry smile. “Not the last time I checked.”

“I ordered a brownie from room service.” God, that sounded pathetic. A woman eating a brownie alone in a hotel room? It practically screamed loser. “It has a salted caramel topping.”

Nope. That didn’t sound any less pathetic.

Thank God, she hadn’t mentioned the carafe of red wine.

He had texted her over two hours earlier saying he wanted to stop by to talk, so she’d sent him her room number, but when he never showed up, she’d assumed he’d decided against it.

Cooper ignored her babbling and asked, “Can I come in?”

Tempted though she was to demand he go find her brownie as a gesture of goodwill, she stepped aside and let him enter.

He walked into the room and shut the door behind him. Her hotel was one that catered to businesspeople, so her room was a minisuite, with a small living area and kitchen. Before the knock, she’d been about to settle onto the sofa and watch a movie she’d bought on pay-per-view. A sappy romantic drama she’d already seen. The title of the movie was splashed across the screen in pause mode. She clicked the TV off, feeling strangely ashamed of her choice. Next time she was picking an action movie. Or one of those comedies with all the frat-boy humor.

She glanced back over to see Cooper studying her. “What?” she asked self-consciously.

“Nothing.” His full lips curved into a smile. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you looking...” His words trailed off like he didn’t have the faintest idea how to describe her appearance.





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