Secret Heiress, Secret Baby. Emily McKay

he said seriously, not sensing how close she was to losing it. “Not a date. A conversation.”

      “No. I’m not getting brunch with you. Or dinner. I wouldn’t so much as share a handful of breath mints with you.”

      He pulled his hand back, tucking it in his pocket, but he didn’t turn away from her. He just stood there, looking oddly forlorn on the edge of the dance floor. “There are things we need to talk about.”

      Aware that they were attracting attention, she stepped just a little closer so no one would overhear her. “You are a lying, cheating bastard. I have nothing to say to you. And there’s nothing you could say to me that I would want to hear.”

      She didn’t give him a chance to answer. She knew all too well how charming he could be when he set his mind to it.

      But as she walked back across the ballroom to the spot where her family congregated, she wondered if she’d been lying to herself as well as to him.

      There were so many things she should be telling him. When she’d first made the decision not to tell him about the baby, it had seemed so logical. So cut-and-dried. Now? Now she wasn’t so sure.

      Worse still, part of her did want to know what he had to say. Part of her would never stop wondering why he’d left.

       Four

      Cursing under his breath, Grant watched Meg walk away.

      What the hell was she doing here?

      What. The. Hell.

      He had done everything in his power to keep the Cains from finding her. The information from his father that he’d used to find her—he’d buried that deep. He’d made sure no one, not even his stepmother, could find it. Plus, he’d made sure that if the Cains ever did find her, he’d know about it within a matter of hours. She was not supposed to turn up with the Cains at a major social event and catch him by surprise. That was not how this was supposed to go down.

      So what the hell had gone wrong?

      Becca slithered up next to him, put her hand and head on his shoulder and watched Meg walk away. Then she glanced up at him from under her lashes. “I get the impression that didn’t go the way you wanted it to.”

      “Intuitive, as always,” he said dryly.

      She gave his shoulder a sympathetic rub. “I guess Hollister’s millions of shares of Cain Enterprises stock are going to stay in the Cain family after all.”