Page 42 of The Billionaire's Accidental Legacy

“Send her in.”

A few moments later the door to his office opened. The metallic disappointment he felt when he saw it was a redhead, and not Jessie, was disorienting.

“Mr. Kincaid,” she said, bobbing into a quick, ridiculous curtsy. “Your Grace.”

He lifted his chin. “I don’t answer to that title anymore.”

He’d given it away, even if it had only been a public showing of frivolity and nothing of weight.

The pretty redhead advanced on him, her brows low, her lips making a snarl. She was like a very mad kitten. “You abandoned my sister. And she needs you.Weneed you.”

“Ms. Hargreave, I don’t have the time...”

She leaped forward, and she pushed him with the edges of her fingers. It actually hurt a bit. “Don’t act like I should care about your time! Our father found us. Please, Mr. Kincaid, she’s too proud to tell you, but we need your help. You need to protect her. You need to protect your child.”

Jessie had been looking into the cost of a personal security detail ever since she’d gotten that phone call out of the blue from their father.

“Aren’t you going to congratulate me on becoming a grandfather?”

The ice that had dripped down her spine...

She was terrified. And Maren was even more terrified. She had begged Jessie to call Ewan back, but she couldn’t do that. Her sister didn’t understand. She was a virgin. She didn’t know what it cost her to even think about Ewan. That in the days since he had left her she...

She had been altered, forever, by the passion between them, and she simply couldn’t cope with having him near, not again. Only to have him leave.

Yes, she had promised that she would let him know if she needed him, but she wasn’t entirely confident that she did.

It was unsettling that her father knew where she was.

But she had no real evidence that he wanted to hurt her.

It was far more likely that he would wish to manipulate them into working for him again. Using his connections and their past misdeeds to make enemies for them.

Their minds were incredibly valuable, and while he possessed the same sort of mind, three were better than one.

Maren had vanished yesterday, with a cryptic comment about getting help herself.

Fine. Maybe her sister’s new palace and title would get her what they needed.

Maren was going to be a princess.

That had to hold some weight.

She stood up and went to the window, looking out over the vast green.

And then she felt a flutter in her stomach.

She put her hand there. “Baby? Is that you?”

Could she really feel her child moving?

She was stunned by that.

And then gripped with a vicious feeling of protectiveness.

“If that bastard comes after us, I’ll kill him. And I will relish the memory of it. The one that will never go away. Because it won’t.”

But her baby being like her? It made her want to weep. For the first time, she thought of the baby as a person. Not a circumstance that had been imposed upon her, but what would be a human being, independent of her. Walking around in the world.

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