Claiming Her Billion-Dollar Birthright / Falling For His Proper Mistress. Maureen Child
“Besides, I told her I wouldn’t hold her mistake against her.”
“No,” Erica said softly. “You held it against me.”
He stared at her. “I beg your pardon?”
Erica’s pain was enveloped by a rising tide of regret and sadness. “Father, my whole life you’ve looked at me with barely concealed revulsion.”
“Not true,” he said, but his gaze slipped to one side, avoiding her eyes.
Even now, he couldn’t look at her. Couldn’t meet her gaze and admit to the truth. But she wouldn’t play the game anymore. She finally understood why she’d always been a little less worthy than her brothers and that in itself was liberating.
“Yes,” she said, “it is. I used to wonder what I’d done that was so wrong. So awful to make you dislike me so much.”
“I don’t dislike you, Erica,” he said, surprise coloring his voice. “I love you.”
She wished she could believe that, but with her heart aching it was simply impossible. “You’ve never acted as if you do.”
He squared his shoulders and lifted his chin. “I’m not an emotional man, Erica, but you should be well aware of my feelings.”
“Until this moment, I wasn’t sure you had any,” Erica snapped, then lifted one hand to cover her mouth, almost as stunned as he was that she’d said such a thing.
He looked at her as if she was someone he didn’t even recognize, and to be fair, Erica thought, she could understand his reaction. In her whole life, she’d never once spoken back to him this way. Stood up for herself. Always, she had tried to be the perfect daughter. To win a smile or a nod of approval from him. At this moment though, none of that meant anything to her. Right now, all she felt was her own hurt. Her own disappointment. Her own wish that things were different.
“Erica,” he said, that deep voice rumbling out around her as it had since her childhood. “I am your father in every way that matters. Haven’t I always been here for you? Didn’t I raise you? Have you ever wanted for anything?”
“Only your love,” she said, voice catching as she finally admitted to him that she’d felt that lack her whole life.
“How can you say that?” His shocked expression told her exactly how surprised he was by her words.
The tears that she’d managed to hold at bay all day finally began to show themselves. Irritated by their arrival, Erica quickly swiped them away with the backs of her hands.
“I’m sorry, Father,” she said at last. “Maybe my coming here wasn’t a good idea. I didn’t want to upset you. Didn’t want us to tear at each other.”
He took a single step toward her, then stopped, clearly unsure of his next move. Which was, she thought, another first.
“Erica …” He paused as if gathering his scattered thoughts, then said, “Your mother wouldn’t want you to go. She’d want you to stay here. With your family.”
Would she? Erica wondered. Or would her mother understand the need to discover her roots? God, what a clichéd way to think of this. But wasn’t it true? Wouldn’t she be exploring her past so that she could figure out her future?
“I do love you, Father,” she told him. “But I’m going to Colorado. I have to. To meet my brothers and sister. To find out if I belong there any more than I do here.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” His bellow was completely unexpected. Walter Prentice never lost his temper. Or at least, he’d never allowed anyone to witness it. “Of course you belong here, this is your home. We’re your family.”
“So are they.”
“You will not do this thing.” He folded his arms across his chest. “I forbid it.”
Erica had to smile through her tears. Typical of this man, she thought. If he couldn’t sway, he would command, fully expecting that his opposition would fold and do exactly as he wanted.
Still, she loved him and wished he would sweep her up into his big arms and tell her this was all nonsense. That of course he loved her. Always had. Always would. She wanted to be cuddled against her father’s broad chest and reassured about her place in the world.
But that wasn’t going to happen.
Sadly, she faced him. “You can’t stop me, Father, so please don’t try.” Erica walked to the door and opened it but before she could slip through, his voice halted her.
“If you don’t find what you’re looking for there?” he asked. “What then?”
She glanced back at him and suddenly thought that he looked so … lonely, in his plush office surrounded by the symbols of his success. “Honestly? I just don’t know.”
“So what is she like?”
Christian looked up from the desk in his office at the Manor and smiled at Melissa Jarrod. She wore a pale yellow silk blouse tucked into a short, dark green skirt. Her heeled sandals gave her already five-foot-eight height three extra inches and her blue eyes were sparkling with excitement. She shook her long fall of blond hair back from her face, planted both hands on the desktop and leaned toward him.
Looked as though he wouldn’t be getting much work done, he told himself. Melissa was bound and determined to get information on her new sister and until he surrendered to the inevitable, Christian knew the woman wouldn’t be going anywhere.
“Come on, Christian, give a little,” she prodded.
“I already told you she seems very nice,” he said.
“Nice doesn’t tell me a lot.” She straightened up and paced around the room. “Is she funny? Boring?”
He didn’t remember her being boring, Christian thought. Would have been easier on him if she had been. But no, Erica Prentice had to be strong and intelligent and—not helping, he told himself. “She’s … nice.”
Melissa laughed. “Honestly, you’re hopeless. You make a terrible spy.”
“Good thing I’m a lawyer then,” he said and shifted his gaze back to the papers on the desk. His brief hope that he’d satisfied her curiosity and would be allowed to get back to work was shattered a second later.
“Fine. As a lawyer, give me a description. Tell me how she reacted. What she’s thinking. Something,” she begged.
Sitting back in his chair, Christian looked across the room at the youngest Jarrod sibling—well, now thanks to Erica, she was the second youngest. Melissa hadn’t taken long at all to decide to come home to Aspen. She’d quit her job managing a trendy, luxurious day spa in Los Angeles and had taken over at the spa here at the resort. Since she was also a yoga instructor, she had plans to include yoga retreats at the spa, as well. She’d slipped back into mountain life as if she’d never left it.
“What do you want to hear?”
“I don’t know,” she said, laughing again. “I have a sister I’ve never met. Is she fun? Does she smile a lot? Is she stuffy? You know, more into business than anything else? Because really, with my brothers, I’m hoping she’s not.”
“She didn’t seem to be,” he said, thinking back on that one day he’d had with Erica. Not like he hadn’t been doing a lot of thinking about her ever since they first met. On the long flight home, he’d almost convinced himself that the instant attraction he’d felt for her wasn’t as overwhelming as he’d believed. But then Erica had called him that night to tell him she would be arriving in just a few days.
All it had taken was hearing her voice and his body was tight and hard and. Christian cut those thoughts off fast. Melissa was pretty damned intuitive and he didn’t need her picking up on what he was feeling for her sister.
“She