Page 4 of Cinderella's Secret Baby

Take the free pass, you idiot.

“Hunter.” The man beside him—Remy, Amelia recalled—nudged Hunter.

Hunter lifted his gaze over Amelia’s head.

Amelia looked over her shoulder and up.

The bride had come to the rail of the terrace. She was red-carpet-gorgeous with midnight-black hair and luminous golden shoulders accentuated by the stark whiteness of her strapless satin gown. Her veil caught the sunlight so it created an angel’s halo effect around her astonished yet beautiful face.

Could this moment get any worse?

Hell, yes, Peyton assured her. She began to stir and whimper, rubbing her face into Amelia’s neck, rooting for the nipple she wanted.

Amelia’s full breasts were ready. So ready.

No. Please no.

But the tightness in her heavy breasts became a hard sting. A rush of tears rose to her eyes as letdown happened. Damp warmth began soaking into the pads of her bra, leaking around the edges to stain her shirt.

Mortified, Amelia spun and started back to the walkway.

Behind her, she heard something drop like a shoe.

She glanced back to see that the bride’s bouquet, a spray of ivory rosebuds interspersed with baby’s breath and lacy fronds of spring ferns, had landed on the grass.

Hunter wished he were a stranger to outrageous public displays.

Sadly, this pageantry was all too familiar. His sister was equally familiar. With a sharp nod from the terrace, Vienna assured him she would stay with Eden and followed his bride back into the honeymoon suite.

Through the speakers, Eden’s voice cried, “Is ittrue?”

With a squeeze of his arm, Remy also conveyed,I’ve got this. He cut a sharp line across his throat, indicating to the wedding planner that the microphone feeds should be cut.

Hunter left the pergola and brushed past the older man still working his mouth in search of further words to berate him.

As he went after the woman who may or may not be holding his baby, Hunter’s mind raced. No fully formed thoughts seemed to stick. That wasn’t like him. He knew how to grasp hold of catastrophe and mitigate it. He’d been doing it since his eleventh birthday party, the first occasion his stepmother had ruined with her obscene behavior and the last time he had celebrated that annual milestone.

Get things back on course, he kept thinking, but his “course” was marriage. To Eden. He couldn’t let that be derailed by a woman he had fooled around with once. Okay, three times. It had been a very active night, but it had only been sex. Not conception. Surely not.

“The woman with the baby,” he snapped at one of the servers in the tasting room even as he looked to the exit to the parking lot. “Did she leave?”

“She asked for somewhere to sit and—”

Hunter stopped listening and followed the pointed finger around the corner, stalking through a closed door labeled Operations Manager.

“Excuse me.” Amelia glared from the love seat crammed beneath the window.

Her face was bright red. The dark roots of her hair were so long, only the fraying bun on the top of her head was still blond. She looked a lot younger without the makeup she’d worn when he’d met her. Her brows were pulled into a knot of affliction, her wide mouth pinched.

“Get out,” she said more insistently.

While nothing was on show, she was clearly uncomfortable as she cradled the nursing baby against one breast and held a pink blanket against the other.

Hunter swore, but he’d seen a baby nurse before, and this was more important.

“Is it true?” he demanded.

“Get out!”

---