Substitute Bride For The Comatose Billionaire

r clicked sh

ook back at the yellow cab as it pulled away. Her eyes lifted, tracking past the black wrought-iron gates to

y-one

e photographs she'd found in the orphanage files. The same arrogant sprawl. T

een told no. The taller one, blond with a neck like a tree trunk, looked her up and down-taking in the unbranded cot

s arm shot out, blocking her pa

bored, carrying the flat vowels of someone who'd spent

ett D

ir. "Oh, that's rich. Another one thinks she's Daddy's long-lost girl." He reached for her sh

off into a s

t ended with her fingers locked around his wrist, her thumb pressing into the ra

phalt, mouth opening and closing like a landed

er. His hand shook so badly he could

ing something rotted. She stepped over his crumpled form and walked to the s

uch the finge

metal casing. A strange, resonant rhythm. A moment of silence,

h, leaving both guar

-

ors swung open wi

s that probably cost more than most people's homes. Emilie stood in the doorway, le

pping tea on a cream-colored

ed in her throat. The bone china cup slipped from her fingers, hitting the Persian ru

didn't

he jaw, the angle of the cheekbones, the way the girl stood with her

rne

ngled. Hettie didn't l

'd built an empire on never showing surprise. He rose, stepping automatically in front of

ports had suggested. No desperation. No eagerness. Just a flat, assessing

no longing, no anger. These were strangers who happened

pocket and emerged with

that sent the watch sliding across the marble-topped coffee table. It traveled in a perfect

de, a photograph: a newborn with a dark curl of hair and a

lling it to her chest. She looked up at Emilie, and the years fell away-the searching,

ili

e shoved past her husband-past twenty-one years o

nd Emilie's shoulders, her face pressing into the cotton of that cheap t-shirt, inhaling the scen

My baby.

whole body shook with them, twenty-one

stood

er brain-the part that had been trained by seven Ascended Masters to survive any environm

mbrace. She didn't throw the woman over her shoulder

mply w

thing raw underneath. He stopped three feet away, close enough to see the details his wife was too overwhelmed to notice-the ca

erged rough, defensive. "Wh

eyes. The movement dislodged a tear from Hettie

t had been her first memory. "Outside Boulder, Colorado. They found me in a

hed exactly with the hospital where Hettie had given birth, the storm

an reasserted control. "We'll ne

nett's chest with a sound like a gunshot. "No! She's my da

ice cut through the h

ie f

he motion was economical, precise. She held it out to Burnett, pi

eyes held his, flat and unblinkin

looking away from his daughter's face-this stranger who moved like a predator and spoke like a techn

way with the sample se

Emilie's hand-felt the roughness of her palm, the thickened skin

d. "You've worked so hard.

th-that these hands had held surgical instruments steady through twelve-hour procedures, had s

her toward the sofa. "Sit.

els on marble i

and status. Emilie turned her head to track the sound, her body shifting automatically to

escended was w

hat only looked good on women who'd never had to run for their lives. The fabric wa

d clearly practiced. Her eyes swept the hall, taking in the tableau: her mother disheveled and tear-stained, her father

gaze

or just a moment. Her eyes widened fractionally. The hand on t

ie had seen it-that flash of something cold and calculating,

high, sweet, concerned. "Daddy?

d never walked on anything less polished. Her eyes never left Emilie's fac

atched h

clothes and her worn sneakers, her mother's hand still clutching hers, a

thought, had