“Well, it might be damn near impossible to find her even if she does exist.”
Griffin gave her a level look. “So you think Laney’s theory was wrong? You don’t think this nanny, Vivian, is the one?”
Sydney flipped back through the file to find the color copy she’d made of the photos Laney had found. The first picture was of two women and a girl standing on the beach somewhere. As Sydney understood it, the older woman was Matilda Fortino, Laney’s grandmother. She’d been the Cain’s housekeeper for Dalton and Griffin’s entire childhood. Dalton had gone to see her because he’d thought that if anyone had the dirt on his father, it would be her. His search had brought him to Laney, whom he’d apparently been in love with when he was younger. As hard a time as Sydney had imagining Dalton—her serious and stoic boss—falling in love at all, she was glad that he seemed to have found happiness, even if he hadn’t found his missing sister.
But Laney had believed the girl in this photo might be the missing girl. There was another picture of the girl’s mother stapled behind the first. In that picture, she was still pregnant and she had her arm around the shoulder of another pregnant woman—Laney’s mother. More importantly, the picture had been taken in the Cain’s backyard.
Laney’s grandmother had Alzheimer’s and could tell them nothing about the young woman or the girl. However—according to Laney’s notes—Matilda’s incoherent ramblings had led Laney to believe that the woman had a connection to Hollister, a connection that might have put her in danger.
Was all this conjecture, or was this a real lead?
Sydney looked at the two pictures and frowned. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “The connection seems specious at best.”
“I know. It isn’t a lot to go on.”
Sydney looked up to study Griffin, but once again she was frustrated by his chameleon charm. His mouth was twisted into a smile, but she couldn’t read his emotions. Was he as doubtful as she was, or did he believe this girl on the beach was his sister?
Glancing down at the picture, he said, “It would help if whoever took the picture was close enough to see the girl’s eyes.”
“Why?”
“Well, if she had Cain-blue eyes, then we’d know for sure Hollister was her father.”
“Cain-blue?” Sydney asked.
“Sure. Didn’t you ever notice that my eyes and Dalton’s are the same color?”
“No” She couldn’t keep her skepticism from her voice. “Blue eyes are blue eyes. But you and Dalton look nothing alike.”
“Maybe not,” Griffin chided. “But our eyes are almost identical.”
Before she could scoff, he grabbed her hand and tugged her gently to her feet, positioning her to stand between his outstretched legs.
“Look,” he gently urged her. “Tell me Dalton and I don’t have the same eyes.”
She had no choice but to gaze into Griffin’s eyes. Standing this close, she was hit with the scent of him. All fresh and minty. His hand, warm and dry, still clenched one of hers. His thumb rubbed idly across the back of her hand. She was struck by how gentle his touch, but how rough his skin, was.
She had been touched by him enough—and intimately at that—that she knew the skin on his hands was roughened as if by hard manual labor, but for the life of her, she’d still couldn’t imagine what he might be doing in his spare time to earn those calluses.
Giving her head a little shake, she tried to focus on his eyes.
“Well, for starters, the shape of your eyes is totally different. His eyes are rounder. Yours are more almond shaped. And crinkly.”
“You’re saying I squint?” he teased, his hands releasing hers to settle on her hips. With nowhere else to put them, she dropped her own hands to his waist.
“No,” she harumphed. “I’m saying you laugh. Dalton never laughs. Besides, Dalton has this way of looking right through someone. His eyes have this soulless quality. It’s not disdain or annoyance. Just disinterest.”
Griffin chuckled. “Exactly. So what about me?”
And this was what stumped her.
“You…really look at people,” she began slowly. Sometimes, when he looked at her, she felt as though he could see into her very soul, but she wasn’t going to say that aloud. “And I’m not entirely sure that’s a good thing because sometimes I’m still not sure if you smile because you enjoy being with people or if human nature amuses you.”
The smile slowly faded from his expression and she felt the tension in his hands. Like he was trying to decide if he should push her away or pull her closer.
Part of her knew she should probably stop talking right then and there, but instead she finished her thought.
“But you’re not a cruel man, so I don’t think it’s that you’re laughing at people. It’s more like…just another way of keeping people at a distance.”
She kept her gaze pinned to the top button of his shirt while she spoke, all too aware that she was just guessing about him but that her guesses revealed as much about her as they did about him. If he was really paying attention. And maybe he wasn’t.
He gently cupped her chin and tipped it up so she met his gaze. “Is that what you think? That I push people away?”
It’s what I do.
But she didn’t say that aloud. Instead, she asked, “Do you?”
“Doesn’t everybody?”
“Yes, I suppose everybody does.”
Suddenly this whole conversation felt way too intimate. Even more intimate than the time they’d spent in bed together because that had been about sex, not emotion. And if there was one thing she was good at, it was separating her physical needs from her emotional needs.
So—though she’d told herself that she wasn’t going to sleep with him again now that he was her boss—she gave into every urge she’d been suppressing for the past twenty-four hours. She threaded her fingers up through his hair, luxuriating in the feel of the thick, long strands. She let herself lean into him. And she inhaled deeply, letting the warm spicy scent of him invade her senses.
His hands clenched on her h*ps and this time she had no doubt about his intention because he pulled her close to him, rocking his h*ps against the juncture of her legs. He dipped his head down to her neck and left a trail of kisses along the sensitive skin there.
His breath was hot against her skin as he murmured, “Isn’t this crossing that line you drew in the sand?”
“Yes, damn it.” She wished he hadn’t brought it up, but she couldn’t fault him for it, either. She was the one who’d set the boundary. She couldn’t begrudge him for respecting her wishes, even if he was ignoring her desires.
She gave his waist a quick squeeze, relishing the way his muscles clenched in response to her touch, and then she stepped back.
She smoothed her hands down her sleek tan sweater and gave the hem a tug. “What were we even talking about?”
“Cain-blue eyes,” Griffin said easily, apparently less befuddled than she was.
Right. The Cain eyes.
That was the discussion that had led her astray. And—she now realized—she’d never even really responded to the comment. She’d gone and rambled on and on about the shape of his eyes and the character of his smile, but she’d never really admitted that, yes, he and Dalton had eyes that were exactly the same piercing shade of blue. Not bright sky-blue or deep indigo-blue, but an eerie sort of sea-blue, turquoise almost, pale in the center with a dark ring of contrast.
She knew intimately the shade of Griffin’s eyes—just as she knew their shape. But she was only vaguely aware of what Dalton’s eyes looked like.
“Well,” she said brusquely, “even if we could see her eyes, that would tell us nothing. The girl could have brown eyes and still be Hollister’s daughter.”
“Nah. If she’s Hollister’s daughter, she has blue eyes.”
“You’re just assuming the girl’s mother didn’t have a brown-eye gene to contribute to the pool?”
Griffin waggled his hand in a maybe/maybe not gesture.
“My instinct tells me that whoever she was, the girl’s mother would have had blue eyes. My father definitely had a type. My mother, Cooper’s mother and his other longtime mistress all looked like they could have been sisters.”
It took a second for the full meaning of his words to sink in. When they did, she raised her eyebrows in question and asked, “Seriously?”
He gave a dismissive shrug. “Yeah. He liked waifish blondes. The more fragile-looking the better. And they were all blue-eyed.”
She kept looking at him, waiting for him to pick up on her train of thought. When he didn’t, she gave his shoulder a playful shove. “Not that, idiot. I mean, your father had a long-term mistress and no one thought to question her?”
“Sharlene doesn’t know anything.”
“Sharlene? Why does that name sound familiar?”
“How should I know?”
“Sharlene is a pretty unusual name. You’re not talking about Sharlene Sheppard, are you?”
“She was Sharlene Davonivich then, but yeah. Why?”
“And this was before she married Jack Sheppard, your father’s business rival?” she asked.
“Actually, this was before Jack Sheppard was his business rival. They used to be partners. Things went bad sometime after Sharlene and my father broke up.”
Sydney let out a low whistle. “Sometimes the history of Cain Enterprises reads like an Italian opera.”
Griffin looked slightly abashed. “Yeah. Heartache. Epic rivalries. It’s like Les Misérables but without all the singing.”
She chuckled, then asked, “Are you sure she’s not involved? How long were they together?”
Griffin shrugged. “Ten years, maybe.”
“Ten years? Forget what she knows. Forget this wild goose chase after a pregnant nanny who may or may not have even slept with Hollister. If this Sharlene person was your father’s mistress for ten years, then she could be the girl’s mother.”