Claiming His Secret Heir

She turned around to find him closing in on her, his steps muffled by the Aztec-patterned rug in the lobby. She glanced into the meeting room where Damon’s older brother Jager seemed to be leading the meeting, all eyes turned toward him.

“Shouldn’t you be in there?” She wondered what he thought of her performance in the conference room. Was he going to rebuke her for pointing out the flaw in the software to the conference room at large? She wanted to believe he’d seen through her guise of camaraderie with Stephan, but then again, Damon didn’t trust her much anymore. Maybe he would see that calculated risk she’d taken as yet another betrayal. “Your meeting is still going.”

He joined her near the windows overlooking the Santa Cruz Mountains, in the corner farthest from the small reception desk where an administrator sat with a Bluetooth in one ear as she tapped her computer keys.

“I’ve waited too long to talk to you already. Jager can finish up in there without me.”

“Your investors need your guidance. Your reassurance.” She understood all too well about how fickle investors could be. Her father got antsy at the slightest hint of unease in a company that he’d backed. “I thought it was worth leaking the information about the software glitch to convince my father I had his best interests at heart.”

“You’ve given the remaining investors the best possible reassurance already by relieving the board of the one consistently dissenting opinion.” His blue eyes searched hers. “I wish you’d been there to receive the thanks we all owe you for making that deal happen.”

She felt a spike of relief that he’d recognized what she had been angling to accomplish. They still understood each other at some level, at least.

“You knew what I was doing then?” She flicked a thumb over the empty place on her ring finger, remembering how bare that spot felt.

“I’m not going to pretend I didn’t have a moment of…” He seemed to search for the right words. Behind them, the phone rang, and his brow furrowed. “Look, Caroline, I really need to talk to you, but not here. Could we go to my office?”

Her mind traveled back a year to late nights working on plans for the company when they would lock his office door and take a break from the job in the most rewarding way possible. She wasn’t sure she could sit in those chairs where they’d made love.

Not now.

“How about we speak in my office instead?” Maybe it was the business victory with her father making her feel newly emboldened. She guessed that when the adrenaline let-down kicked in, she was going to have to start dealing with the hurt and regret of discovering her father had gone to criminal lengths to separate her from Damon. But she couldn’t think about that right now if she was going to negotiate a future apart from Damon.

She needed to work from a position of strength before her heart broke the rest of the way.

“No problem.” Damon nodded. “You still have a key? I’m sure the cleaning staff have maintained it, but I haven’t been in there since the day I let the police go through your things.”

His words helped her to recall how much he’d been through, as well. This year had been so painful for them both. She reached in her bag and withdrew her key ring before leading the way down the hall.

Despite her outward bravado, her hands were a little unsteady as she worked the lock and opened the door. She turned on the lights to the penthouse corner office, a spread that equaled his in amenities.

Only now, of course, the administrator’s seat out front was vacant. Caroline hadn’t worked a day at Transparent since she’d departed for her honeymoon, but the space was precisely as she remembered. Unlike the rest of Transparent’s hypermodern offices, she’d chosen to complement the views from the floor-to-ceiling windows with bookshelves on every other wall. White linen swags draped along the tops of the shelves and the windows. Her cream leather office chair sat behind an antique desk, which was painted another shade of eggshell and hand-rubbed for a distressed effect. Birch branches stood in a wooden pitcher in place of flowers on one corner of the desk.

Here, the books, the framed photos, and the stunning mountain views provided all the color. A framed photo of Damon and her sat prominently on one bookshelf. The two of them seated together on a park bench in the gardens of the Winchester Mystery House. She wore a blue dress with white polka dots, a fanciful, romantic sundress with a fuller skirt than she normally chose. Wide-set straps showed off the necklace she’d bought in the gift shop that day, a glass daisy inspired by one of the windows in the home.