by Dawn Temple
“Thanks.” She gestured toward a sturdy oak chair. “Sit.”
The pony she called a dog was sprawled out in front of the fridge, his jet eyes sparkling, as if the mutt found humor in her ordering Kyle around. Refusing to be intimidated by a house pet—or his fierce-looking owner—Kyle removed his damp coat and threw it over the vacant chair she’d indicated.
“I’d prefer to stand.” He leaned against the counter.
“Suit yourself.” Neither of them spoke while she got the coffee going. When she turned, the glint in her sleepy amber eyes warned him she intended to fire the first shot.
“So, tell me, Mr. Anderson—” she folded her arms and glared at him “—what kind of proposal does Dr. Walker have for his bastard daughter?”
Her bluntness surprised him. He’d expected her to dodge the point as long as possible. “You’re aware of Ms. Hoyt’s plan to blackmail my client?”
“Yes, but I made it clear to her that I don’t want any part of it.”
“Unfortunately, she’s decided to proceed anyway.”
“I figured as much, but regardless, Patty’s actions have nothing to do with me.”
“That’s a very naive statement, considering your mother’s blackmail threats center around your birth.”
She shrugged. “Perhaps, but without my help, her claims are just hearsay, right?”
“Hearsay?”
She spun and started rummaging in the cabinets but not before he saw the tinge of pink staining her cheeks. When she blushed, she reminded him of the first time he’d seen her. All that naturally unadulterated beauty in a sea of silicone implants and hair extensions.
“I’m a big Law & Order fan,” she mumbled, pulling down a couple of coffee cups and filling them.
“Me, too.” He accepted the cup she handed him, handle out, to avoid the possibility of brushing fingers. “Without your corroboration, her claims would indeed be hearsay, if the matter went to trial, but Patty isn’t threatening to sue Dr. Walker in a court of law. She intends to drag him through the court of public opinion.”
“Ah.” She smirked, intelligence sparkling in her eyes. “A much more dangerous venue for your client, to be sure.”
Kyle hid an unexpected grin behind his cup. He’d always admired women with quick wits. “In light of recent career developments, my client is justifiably interested in maintaining his good public reputation.”
She snorted, obviously not buying his PR spiel. “Either way, I won’t become involved. If your client wants to keep his ex-mistress quiet, why doesn’t he just pay her off?”
“Because this isn’t the first time she’s promised to take the money and disappear forever.”
She didn’t look a bit surprised. “Still not my problem.”
“True, but you are a part of the solution.” Offering her his most reassuring smile, he removed a bulky envelope from his breast pocket. “Dr. Walker and I have formulated a simple resolution, one that insulates both himself and you from Patty’s threats, both present and future.” He held the envelope out. “Take a look. It’s a very…generous compromise.”
Kyle’s wording was eerily similar to what he’d told her in that hotel lobby. Unsettled, Shayna took the envelope and slid a shaky forefinger under the seal. Instinct told her this would not be good.
Watching the papers emerge, she felt as anxious as a tourist at a snake-charming demonstration. Rationally, she knew the papers couldn’t harm her, but that didn’t stop her inner warning alarms from clanging ninety to nothing.
Her teeth worried the inside of her lower lip as the pages slipped free. Atop the bundle was a cashier’s check, made out to her, for two hundred fifty thousand dollars.
Stunned, she tentatively touched the dollar amount, half expecting the check to be a mirage. When it didn’t vanish under her fingers, she forced her slack jaw back into place. A familiar sick pain twisted in her gut. Patty had said Walker would pay big bucks to keep Shayna’s existence a secret, and she’d been right.
So much for her hope that the other fifty percent of her DNA contained a smidge of human decency. Obviously, Patty Hoyt and Steven Walker were cut from the same cloth.
“Ms. Miller?” he asked gently.
Floundering to make sense out of what was happening, she shifted her focus to his face. One side of his mouth kicked up, cranking his dimple to life. That pleased, confident smile brought the entire bizarre situation into crystal clear focus.
This man expected her to be thrilled, to simply agree to whatever Walker had in mind, pocket the check and send him on his merry way. No doubt with a grateful hug and hearty thank-you. She’d never been so disappointed or outraged in her entire life.
“Shayna?” Kyle’s normally robust voice was smoother than fresh cream. “I’m sure that much money comes as a shock—”
“Shock? It’s an insult!” she hissed. She could practically feel the blood draining from her face. Brinks immediately scrambled to his feet and came to stand at her side, his massive body braced against her hip.
Her temper, which normally took forever to erupt, rose to a full boil as she bundled the wad of papers, check and all, and chucked them at the trash. They bounced off and landed under the table. The placid look on Kyle’s face melted into confusion, but not even temporarily rendering him speechless could lessen Shayna’s anger.
“What does your no-good client expect in return for a quarter of a million dollar payoff, Mr. Anderson? Maybe he wants me to murder Patty and bury her body on my mountain?”
“No, of course not. Shayna, calm down—”
“Calm down! I don’t think so. How dare that…that—” she couldn’t come up with a word vile enough to describe Dr. Walker “—that man, try to buy me off.” The last words emerged as a shriek, but she was beyond caring. How dare he suggest she sell her pride.
Hands fisted at her sides, fury blackened the edges of her vision. “He’s afraid of what Patty’s information will do to his precious reputation, so he sends you down here with a counteroffer. Of all the rotten, lowdown, dirty—”
“Shayna!” Kyle’s shout ended her tirade. She barely heard Brinks’s growl over the roaring in her head. Kyle grabbed her arms and gave her several firm shakes. “Breathe, Shayna, breathe.”
Shocked, she drew in a gulp of air. Her temper had never before gotten so out of hand that she nearly passed out. Hell, she didn’t even know she could get that mad.
“Better?” Kyle asked gently, slowly releasing his hold on her arms.
Embarrassed, she nodded. Fearful her knees would give out any second, Shayna threaded her fingers into Brinks’s fur and tensed every muscle in her body. “Your time is up, Mr. Anderson. I think you should leave now.”
Brinks seconded the order with a teeth-baring snarl.
Barely holding herself together, she marched back to the front door, listening to the slap of Kyle’s thin-soled shoes and the patter of Brinks’s nails crossing the wood floor behind her. Her fingers shook as she yanked the door open. Another gust of wind roared inside, but she was too numb to feel the cold. Anger made an excellent insulator.
Kyle tossed a last wary look at Brinks. If not for the dog, Shayna knew Kyle wouldn’t have left without a fight. Feeling deflated, she leaned against the door and waved Kyle toward the front porch. Unfortunately, he stopped in the open doorway and turned to face her. His unexpected maneuver put them much too close for rational verbal communication, but pure stubborn pride wouldn’t allow her to back off a step.
He put a knuckle under her chin, leaving her no choice but to meet his gaze. Gone was his practiced charm and polish. All she saw was kindness and concern. The warm combination made her as light-headed as her earlier debilitating burst of temper.
“I’m sorry to have upset you, Shayna, but you have to realize this isn’t over. Please read the agreement. You’ll see that Walker’s only trying to make things right.”
He sounded so convincing that it took her a second to remember he was a master player, a l
awyer, a professional manipulator. A man not to be trusted.
Frowning, she stepped back from his tempting touch and straightened her spine, doing her best to look strong and intimidating. “You can tell your client that unlike my mother, I cannot be bought.” Then, before he could respond, she slammed the door in his face.
Kyle swore viciously as his dumpy rental slogged down the curvy mountain road. This should have been a one-day assignment. Get in, get her signature and get out. He hadn’t expected to be delayed by a tiny package of grit and pride. Shayna Miller’s disdainful glare had made him remember what he’d once been—the delinquent son of a two-bit criminal, a kid without hopes or dreams. A kid without a future.
But that kid was gone. Kyle had locked him away a long time ago.
The tires squealed as his foot agitated the accelerator. The car zoomed too fast around a corner, sending the tail end flying dangerously close to the mountain’s edge and his briefcase to the passenger floorboard. He eased off the gas. Struggling to regain his composure, he drew in a lungful of dry, forcefully heated air.
Law had been an ironic yet deliberate choice. He’d vowed to become his father’s complete opposite. He’d worked hard, graduated at the top of his class, and after taking a grunt position at Thomas, Peake and Moore, had worked his way up, establishing a reputation for unconventional yet effective tactics while always working within the bounds of the law. Seeing that stricken look on Shayna’s face had made him feel like a heartless jackass, no better than the Walkers and Patty Hoyts of the world.
She obviously despised Patty and Walker, and he couldn’t blame her. At least she’d lucked out and somehow landed with James Miller, who, from all reports, had managed to give her a mostly happy childhood. That put her miles ahead of most children in that situation.
Still, his instincts kept insisting something didn’t add up. Most people would be overjoyed to receive a quarter of a mil, but not Shayna. She had freaked out, gotten so overwrought she nearly passed out.
Although, he had to admit that the melodramatic line about murdering Patty had almost been funny—until her face had turned blue. She’d reminded him of one of his foster sisters, who used to hold her breath until whatever adult was in charge gave in to her demands.
Was that it? Had she—like her mother—put on an act and tried to play him for a fool? Her response had been frighteningly real, but a good con woman needed Oscar-caliber acting skills.
The ping of his BlackBerry cut off his internal line of questioning. He was expecting word regarding pieces of Shayna’s background report that hadn’t been completed this morning when he’d left L.A. Maybe whatever information Amanda, his secretary, had dug up would explain whether Shayna’s irate, over-the-top response to Walker’s offer was genuine or not.
Amazed to be getting cell reception amid the massive, shadowy trees and steep, rounded slopes, Kyle made a grab for his fallen briefcase and the cell phone tucked inside. The lightweight car veered to the right. Jerking upright, he overcorrected. The tires skied over the road’s glassy surface, sending the car sideways down the mountain. The tail flared, throwing him into a full skid.
Hands gripped tightly at ten and two, Kyle steered into the skid. The drum of adrenaline rushing through his brain blanketed out all sounds. His lungs froze. Suddenly the swirling stopped, replaced by a swift loss of altitude. The car hit ground with enough force to rattle his skull but not enough to deploy the airbags.
Inertia slammed him against the doorframe. Cautiously he flexed his muscles. His head felt ready to split open, and his knees, which had jammed into the steering column, stung like a son of a bitch.
He rolled his neck to check the view out his window. A relieved breath shuddered through him. The landscape tilted at a forty-five-degree angle, the car’s grille was buried nose down in the ditch, but he hadn’t gone over the edge.
Hands shaking, he shoved the door open with his shoulder and crawled out of the crumpled car. Wind and freezing rain slapped his face. He ducked back in, retrieved his coat and shrugged it on before snagging his briefcase off the passenger floorboard.
He scrambled up the steep embankment as fast as he could, slipping to his knees several times in the icy mud. Night was falling quickly, the already-freezing temperature plummeting, the rain lashing at him furiously.
Once he reached the road, he took shelter under a large tree. It blocked the deluge, but the wind continued to roar under the canopy of branches. To his right, something rustled through the underbrush just as the sun disappeared. Nature towered above him, blocking the moonlight, but the crooked beam of his headlights bouncing off the side of the ditch showed Kyle all he needed to see.
She was to blame for this mess.
She had him so frustrated and confused that he’d gotten careless.
She, with her sexy Southern drawl, her stubborn refusal, her well-portrayed outrage.
And whether she knew it or not, Shayna Miller had escalated the stakes. Now it was more than just business.
Now it was personal.
Shayna took Kyle’s advice and read Dr. Walker’s “generous” compromise. Definitely a shocker. By all rights, she should be even more livid than when she’d seen the check. No one would blame her if she suddenly burst into tears or started flinging breakables against the wall, but at the moment all she felt was numb. Overwhelmed. Lost.
Tossing the offending document onto the coffee table, she pushed to her feet and stood in front of the fireplace. Stirring up the flames helped melt away a layer of disbelief. As did imagining feeding the annoying papers to the hungry fire.
When she’d first seen that check, she’d been terrified. What would a man like Walker demand in exchange for such an obscene amount of money? Turned out the quarter mil was only a down payment. The full agreement, which turned out to be little more than an appalling, drawn-out employment contract, promised her a million dollars if she cooperated.
Wanted: one formerly mistreated and unwanted child to play the part of Dr. Steven Walker’s long-lost, much-loved and stupidly forgiving daughter. Experience as Patty Hoyt’s stooge preferable. Ethics: optional. Pay: one million dollars. Office hours: one hour on live television—as the surprise guest for the debut episode of Dr. Walker’s new talk show.
She could practically see the tagline: Benevolent father and prominent family therapist welcomes daughter he never knew into his happy family, saving her from a lonely life of poverty and despair.
What a load of malarkey. Or was it? All Shayna had to go on was Patty’s word that Walker had paid her off when he’d learned she was pregnant. Hell, even that much of her backstory could be a lie.
Sagging against the arm of the couch, she rested her sock-covered feet on the hearth. Walker’s offer did come with one very appealing caveat. In return for Shayna’s cooperation, he would pay Patty fifty grand a year for life, providing mommy dearest didn’t so much as blink in Shayna’s direction.
That kind of peace held way more appeal than a million-dollar bribe. Not that any prize could ever tempt her to agree to such a ludicrous plan.
She couldn’t believe that pompous jerk actually thought she’d go on national television and tell the world her daddy hadn’t taken good care of her. Sure, money had been tight in the Miller household, but they’d always had everything they needed. She’d had a far better life than a lot of kids. A hell of a lot better than the life she’d been living before James Miller became her daddy.
Letting her body fall backward, Shayna lay across the couch, staring up at the portrait over the mantel. It had been taken at the annual Moonlight and Mistletoe Ball. She’d been ten, with Bugs Bunny teeth and her first pair of high-heeled shoes. Daddy had looked handsome despite the four-inch-wide red-and-gold tie she’d insisted he wear, because it matched her new dress.
Even now she still considered it one of the happiest nights of her life. Despite the complete lack of physical similarities, the picture screamed family.
And now Kyle Anderson, he
r personal messenger of doom, had delivered a bizarre request that threatened everything she’d ever cherished. Dredging up her and James Miller’s past on national television would stir up entirely too many questions. With answers that could very well mean the end of her life as Shayna Miller.
Chapter Three
Kyle had managed to talk himself out of his unjustified anger with Shayna during the forty-minute hike back up the slick, icy mountain. He’d decided to withhold judgment on whether or not she was playing him until he’d had a second chance to thoroughly outline Walker’s plan. But after standing in the freezing rain, banging on her blasted door for five minutes, his good intentions had vanished. His fury rocketed back to full force.
She had to be in there. The damned weather had them both trapped on this mountain. No way he was going to freeze to death while she sat in her toasty cabin and ignored him.
The door finally swung open. Warm air brushed against his face but didn’t do a damn thing to thaw his temper. “What the hell took you so long? It’s damn cold out here!”
“Ex-cuse me?” Shayna tossed a mass of wet hair over her shoulder.
The apology he knew he owed her froze in his throat. Damn, but she was beautiful. Freshly showered, smelling like vanilla, her sensuous hair hanging loose to her waist, her curvy body wrapped in the most atrocious robe he’d ever seen.
Desire scorched through him. He barged inside, no longer aware of the cold that seconds before had nearly turned him into a block of ice. His briefcase slid from his grip and landed on the floor, unheeded by them both. Standing this close, her intoxicating aroma made him lightheaded. He swayed forward, his hands intent on touching her skin, but his aim was thwarted when she rushed him, grasping his biceps, her face scrunched in concern.
“Kyle?” The urgency in her voice cracked through the fog in his brain. “Are you all right?”
Hell no, he wasn’t all right.
Pulling himself together, he stepped away. As soon as he’d cleared the way, she shut the door behind him. Without the benefit of the mountain’s wide-open spaces, the lamp-lit cabin felt too small, too intimate.
