The Tycoon's Instant Daughter

by Christine Rimmer

  Jack said, “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Even though I doubt we’ll find anything there, we need to eliminate the obvious first.”

  Kate nodded. “His checkbook.”

  “I’ll bet it’s in that little desk in his sitting room,” Cord suggested. “Give me a minute.” He turned and reentered his father’s suite.

  Gunderson glanced over with a questioning expression as Cord pushed the door shut behind him. Cord shook his head and Gunderson looked away. The wasted figure on the hospital bed lay still, eyes shut, snoring steadily.

  Cord turned to the gilded desk. He found the large, professional-style leather-bound checkbook in the first drawer he opened. Quickly he scanned the pages of the register, which went back a year and four months. He found no suspicious-looking monthly entries. He put it away and then spent a few minutes going through the drawers and other various nooks and crannies the desk contained. He came up with nothing that might aid in the search for Madelyn and Brandon.

  He did, however, find a key ring with about ten keys on it of varying sizes, keys that could go to just about anything. The keys jangled as he dropped the ring into his pocket, thinking that one of them might let him in to the file cabinets in the basement. He didn’t recall whether they were locked or not.

  A few minutes after he’d left them, he rejoined his brothers and sisters in the hall.

  “Well?” asked Jack.

  “Nothing—at least not in there. The statements for that account for the past five or six years, anyway, are probably in the basement with just about everything else. So I’ll review them, too, when I find them.” He dragged in a fortifying breath. “There’s a mountain of paper down there. I think I’d better get started.”

  Jack said, “You think we’re going to let you tackle this alone?”

  Cord looked from one determined face to the next. “It could take a while. I’m not kidding. There’s a lot of paper downstairs.”

  Jack didn’t hesitate. “I’m all yours, for as long as you need me.”

  Rafe spoke up. “I’m free today.”

  Kate was willing, too. “I can make a few calls, rearrange my schedule so I can take off today.”

  “Then let’s get started,” Jack advised. “Let’s find out how and where Caine sent that money.”

  Kate sighed. “If he really did send any money. If he was telling the truth today. If any of this is any more than the pitiful delusions of a dying man.”

  “We know there’s something to it, Kate,” Rafe reminded her. “We know there’s no record of anyone drowning in Stockwell Pond twenty-nine years ago. There’s no grave, either. Did you ever think of that? If Caine really believed they had died, don’t you think he would have put up something, some memorial to the fact that they were no longer on this earth?”

  “Rafe’s right,” said Jack. “What the old man told us today makes an evil kind of sense. Madelyn and Brandon are alive—or at least, they were alive when they ran off twenty-nine years ago.”

  The basement of Stockwell Mansion was a maze of dark chambers. At its heart lay a large wine cellar and a professional-style gymnasium, with exercise machines, mirrored walls and a free-weight area. Branching out from there were a number of small finished rooms where servants often lived. Beyond the finished rooms, corridor after poorly lighted corridor led to storage areas for everything from kitchen goods to discarded furniture to old toys that generations of Stockwell children had long ago outgrown.

  Cord took them to the room where he’d stored the contents of their father’s office. He flipped the wall switch and the bare two-hundred-watt bulb in the ceiling popped on, blinding them all momentarily with the glare.

  “Lovely,” said Kate, wrinkling her fine nose as she surveyed the dusty stacks of boxes, the jumble of furniture and file cabinets. “Where do we start?”

  Cord quickly improvised a plan. Jack and Kate would each take a file cabinet. Cord and Rafe would split the piles of boxes between them.

  Kate asked if they’d give her a few minutes before she began. “I’ve got to make those calls I mentioned, to reschedule my appointments for another day.”

  Cord remembered poor Audrey, still waiting to take that dictation.

  And Hannah.

  Just thinking about her gave him pleasure. Was she still asleep? He glanced at his watch. Not ten yet. No way to tell from down here in the basement if she was up and about, or still dreaming in his bed.

  “Now that you mention it,” he said. “I should probably go check in at the office, tell Audrey where to look if some emergency comes up—and make a call or two myself.”

  “Good enough.” Rafe swung a file box onto their father’s huge, heavily carved mahogany desk and took off the lid. “Jack and I will get started.”

  Jack was already pulling open the top drawer of a file cabinet. “You two get your commitments handled and get back down here ASAP.”

  Cord rode the service elevator up with Kate. He considered going all the way to the second floor with her. He could look in on Becky—and Hannah.

  But no.

  Right now, business had to come before pleasure. He got off on the first floor. He went to his office, called Audrey in and told her regretfully that they’d have to put off that dictation till tomorrow, after all.

  “Good enough,” Audrey said. “Oh, that reporter from Inside Scoop called again. Pushy as ever. He still wants an interview.”

  Cord had been dodging that particular reporter for days. He suspected the man might have heard about Becky. But he wasn’t going to find out. In his experience, it never helped to talk to the tabloids. They only twisted what they heard. Better to let them do their worst—and then sue, if it came down to that.

  “Tell him, again, that I have nothing to say.”

  Audrey gave him her sweetest, most grandmotherly grin. “Will do.”

  He let Audrey go and made the necessary calls. By ten-thirty, he was ready to join the others downstairs.

  He felt certain, by then, that Hannah would be awake. No way Becky would nap much past ten.

  He wanted to run upstairs, just for a minute or two. To share a few tender, teasing words, steal a kiss—or maybe five.

  He was grinning like a fool.

  He didn’t really understand what was happening to him when it came to Hannah. Never had he felt quite this captivated by a woman. Anticipatory of the next encounter, yes. But not so…inexorably drawn. Considering the stacks of boxes that waited in the basement and all the work he wouldn’t get done today, a woman should be the last thing on his mind.

  Not so. Hannah Miller kept insinuating herself front and center in his thoughts.

  Better not to call her. He’d only be all the more tempted to drop everything and run upstairs to her side.

  Tonight, he thought.

  After he’d worked all day beside his brothers and sister trying to track down a lead or two on where his mother and his uncle and possibly his lost brother or sister were now…

  Tonight, he could claim his reward.

  Instead of buzzing the nanny’s room, he got Emma on the line. “I want twelve dozen pink roses delivered to Hannah’s room within the hour. When you talk to the florist, tell them I don’t want those damn buds that never bloom. I want the best, and I want them to smell like roses.”

  “And the card?”

  “It should read, ‘I can’t make it for our walk today—but I will make it up to you.’ Have them underline ‘will.”’

  “Signed with your name?”

  “No. She’ll know who sent them.”

  “Anything else?”

  “That’ll be it for now. Thank you, Emma.”

  He called Tiffany’s next and ordered a pin he’d always admired. It was shaped like a starfish, set with cabochon sapphires, a single ruby at its heart. The salesman assured him that the pin would arrive at the mansion within twenty-four hours. Cord would present it to Hannah tomorrow night, their third night together—the third of a long, enchanting string
of magical nights to come.

  Hannah really was different than any other woman he’d ever known. She made him laugh and she made him think. And in bed, she was a miracle. Innocent. And passionate. Shy and yet so willing. It would be a long time before he became tired of her.

  As he hung up the phone and went to join the others downstairs, he couldn’t help wondering just what she might be doing now….

  Chapter Seventeen

  Hannah pushed her tangled hair away from her face, gathered the robe she’d just pulled on closer around her and stared down at the words that Cord had written.

  You’re so sweet when you’re sleeping. I didn’t want to wake you. I’m hoping my daughter will let you sleep just a little while longer.

  From the monitor, Becky wailed.

  Hannah blinked the sleep from her eyes. Lordy. The fancy marble clock on the dresser said it was quarter of eleven. How could she possibly have slept that long?

  Oh, come on, she thought a moment later, what’s so surprising? You went to sleep when?

  It had been very late—after three.

  Hannah felt her face flushing—for heaven’s sake, her whole body was turning red, every square inch of skin just burning up—with embarrassment at the memory of what she’d been doing when she should have been sleeping.

  Not to mention what she’d been saying. Sweet Lord, she’d told him everything. She must have been out of her mind.

  From the monitor, she heard Becky suck in a long breath—and then wail all the louder.

  “I’m coming, darlin’,” Hannah whispered soothingly, as if the little one could actually hear her. “I’m on my way…”

  She grabbed the monitor and made for the door to the hall.

  By the time Hannah reached her side, Becky’s little face was purple as a pickled beet with baby frustration. Hannah scooped her up and carried her over to change her diaper. Once that was accomplished, she got the bottle warmed fast and gave Becky her late-morning snack. She was just raising her to burp her when the phone on the wall of the playroom buzzed—the house line. Hannah rose from the rocker, Becky on her shoulder, and hurried into the adjacent room.

  “Ms. Miller?” It was the calm, cool voice of the housekeeper.

  Hannah’s face went burning red all over again—as if Stockwell Mansion’s head housekeeper knew or even cared what Hannah and her employer had been doing all night long. “Um. Yes, Mrs. Hightower? What can I do for you?”

  “A Miss Ada Sessions is here to see you.”

  Ada Sessions? Hannah’s mind went blank.

  Then she remembered.

  The first nanny candidate of the day. Due at eleven. How could she have let herself forget?

  “Ms. Miller? Are you still there?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Hightower. Could you please ask her to wait a few minutes?”

  “Of course. Call when you’d like her sent up.”

  The line went dead and Becky burped. Hannah hung up the phone, grabbed Becky’s baby seat from the corner and fled to the small bathroom off the nanny’s room. There, she strapped Becky into the seat and left her, fussing a little, on the floor, as she took the world’s swiftest shower. Then she flew around her bedroom, grabbing underwear, a shirt, a skirt and a pair of ballet-style flats.

  Once she had her clothes on, she got a scrunchy from the bathroom drawer and quickly smoothed her hair into a ponytail. Finally, murmuring reassurances to the slightly disgruntled baby the whole time, she slapped on a bit of blusher, mascara and some lip-gloss.

  There. She looked a little frazzled, a little thrown-together—but then, frazzled and thrown-together was exactly how she felt.

  She called Emma back and asked her to send the applicant on up.

  Ada Sessions was twenty years old. She had worked as a nanny for six months, for a family that had recently moved out of state.

  Ada was very impressed with the house and the grounds. “I am, like, blown away. What a place. Like a palace kinda, huh?”

  Hannah thought, No way. Too young, too wide-eyed, and much too flighty. Becky requires someone mature…

  But then she caught herself.

  No one, in the end, would ever be good enough. She couldn’t just go on rejecting every applicant out of hand the minute they opened their mouths. No. After what had happened last night, she simply had to take action.

  What was she now, for heaven’s sake? Cord Stockwell’s mistress? The idea appalled her. She simply was not the mistress type. Then again, maybe “mistress” didn’t apply to her, anyway. The word mistress, after all, implied an ongoing intimate relationship.

  So far, the intimacy had only lasted one night.

  So was that it, what she and Cord had shared? Did she fall into the category of a one-night stand?

  Oh, good grief. What did it matter what she called herself—except for extremely foolish, which she definitely was.

  It wasn’t going to happen again. That was what mattered.

  Becky might be only a baby, but Hannah did want the best for her. And the best for her did not include having her nanny and her daddy carrying on down the hall.

  Hannah knew that if she stayed it would happen again. And again and again, until the inevitable occurred and Cord grew tired of her.

  So she would fix things. She would choose her replacement, which she should have done long before now.

  She had five candidates to meet with today. One of them would be the one.

  She asked Ada about her schooling, about the children the girl had taken care of before. The interview was going pretty well—until three men appeared in the hall, each carrying a huge crystal vase full of pink roses.

  “Delivery for Miss Hannah Miller,” announced the oldest of the men, a jolly fellow with a full beard and a Santa-size stomach. He actually winked at her.

  Hannah was forced to excuse herself. She asked Ada, whose eyes had gone so wide that they threatened to swallow her rather narrow face, to watch Becky for just a few moments.

  “Oh, wow, sure. No problem, Ms. Miller. Sheesh, that’s a lot of roses. From your boyfriend? He must be so romantic. And a big spender, too. Roses are not cheap.”

  Hannah pretended she hadn’t heard the question about the boyfriend, promised again to return in a minute, and went to lead the men to her room. They set the vases down—two on the bureau and one beside the TV.

  “We’ll be right back,” promised the one who looked like Santa.

  “Right back?” Hannah repeated rather stupidly.

  The Santa delivery man chuckled. “Sure enough. We’ve got twelve dozen total. This is only the first six.”

  Hannah said nothing. What could she say? She didn’t think she’d ever seen twelve dozen roses in one room in her lifetime.

  She opened the card while they were gone and felt that dangerous warmth in her midsection when she read how Cord intended to “make it up” to her for missing their daily walk.

  The roses were so beautiful. They actually seemed to glow…

  And three more vases of them, two dozen each, appeared a few minutes later.

  The bearded fellow winked a second time. “Whoever he is, I’d say he’s smitten.”

  Smitten? Hannah thought. Cord Stockwell, smitten? My goodness, could that be true?

  No. She had to be realistic about this. Cord enjoyed women. And he had plenty of money to lavish on them. Such extravagant gestures were probably part of his usual routine, whenever he started in with someone new.

  The three men filed out.

  Hannah lingered in her bedroom, which had become a pink bower. The scent of the roses swam in the air. She was ashamed to admit it to herself, but she could have sat on the edge of her bed, sniffing and staring, for hours.

  However, Ada Sessions was waiting for her to finish their interview. Hannah resolutely turned for the door to the playroom. Ada might not be the right one. But the right one would come today. The right one had to come.

  And all the beautiful roses?

  They had to go.
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br />   At three in the afternoon, in the tenth box he went through, Cord found statements from an account he hadn’t known existed. One check a month, for a significant sum, had been written on that account. The statements went back seven years. The checks were made out to Clyde Carlyle, Attorney at Law.

  They all knew the name, of course. For decades, Carlyle had handled all the personal legal matters of the Stockwell family. Rafe and Carlyle’s daughter, Caroline, who ran the Carlyle law offices now, had even dated for a while.

  “Check under ‘Carlyle’ in the files,” Cord told Jack, who had the cabinet with the C’s in it.

  “I’ve been through all the C’s,” Jack grumbled.

  “Well, look up ‘Carlyle’ again.”

  Jack pulled out the file in question and flipped it open. They all gathered around as he ran through the pages of correspondence and legal documents inside. There was nothing in it that had anything to do with the mysterious account.

  “So we’ll have to pay him a visit,” Jack said, shutting the file and sticking it back into the cabinet.

  Rafe was shaking his head. “Clyde Carlyle’s in a rest home. Maybe you didn’t hear. It’s Alzheimer’s and it’s pretty far advanced.”

  Jack shrugged. “Talk to the daughter, then.”

  Rafe didn’t look terribly excited at the prospect.

  Cord could read his twin reasonably well—well enough to be certain there was something going on here. Cord hadn’t seen Caroline in months, now that he thought about it, though for a while there, she and Rafe had been tight. He wondered what had gone down between his twin and Clyde Carlyle’s daughter. Since Rafe never talked about his love life, Cord doubted he’d ever be too likely to find out.

  And now was certainly not the time to ask. They had plenty of files and boxes to get through yet. He suggested, “Let’s finish going through the rest of this stuff. Maybe we’ll find something that will tell us more.”

  They returned to the dull work of reading dusty, yellowed papers that no one had so much as glanced at in years.