Substitute Bride For The Comatose Billionaire

The taxi door clicked shut behind her.

Emilie Dunlap's worn canvas sneakers hit the pristine asphalt of Beverly Hills with a soft thud. She didn't look back at the yellow cab as it pulled away. Her eyes lifted, tracking past the black wrought-iron gates to the mansion beyond-a medieval castle dropped into the California hills, all stone turrets and manicured excess.

Twenty-one years.

She'd been gone twenty-one years, and this place still looked exactly like the photographs she'd found in the orphanage files. The same arrogant sprawl. The same message, carved into every inch of the facade: You don't belong here.

Two security guards detached themselves from the gatehouse. They moved with the lazy confidence of men who'd never been told no. The taller one, blond with a neck like a tree trunk, looked her up and down-taking in the unbranded cotton t-shirt, the faded jeans, the lack of any designer logo that would signal human worth to his limited imagination.

"Private property," he said. His arm shot out, blocking her path. "Turn around. No tourists."

Emilie didn't lift her eyelids. Her voice came out low, bored, carrying the flat vowels of someone who'd spent years in places where English wasn't the first language.

"Burnett Dunlap."

The blond guard blinked. Then he laughed, a wet sound that sprayed spittle into the morning air. "Oh, that's rich. Another one thinks she's Daddy's long-lost girl." He reached for her shoulder, fingers curling to grip and shove. "Beat it, sweetheart. Before I call the cops and-"

His words cut off into a strangled gasp.

Emilie's right hand had moved without her conscious thought-a blur of motion that ended with her fingers locked around his wrist, her thumb pressing into the radial nerve with surgical precision. She applied exactly three pounds of pressure.

The guard's knees buckled. He dropped to the asphalt, mouth opening and closing like a landed fish, a high-pitched whine escaping his throat.

The second guard fumbled for his taser. His hand shook so badly he couldn't get a proper grip on the weapon.

Emilie released the blond guard's wrist with a flick of disgust, as if dropping something rotted. She stepped over his crumpled form and walked to the side entrance-a steel door with a biometric panel that gleamed in the sunlight.

She didn't touch the fingerprint scanner.

Instead, she raised her hand and tapped three times against the metal casing. A strange, resonant rhythm. A moment of silence, and then, with a soft click, the lock disengaged. Green light.

Emilie pushed through, leaving both guards frozen in her wake.

---

The oak double doors swung open without hesitation.

Sunlight flooded the grand hall, illuminating dust motes dancing above marble floors that probably cost more than most people's homes. Emilie stood in the doorway, letting her eyes adjust, letting them see her-backlit, anonymous, utterly out of place.

Hettie William Dunlap was sipping tea on a cream-colored sofa when the light shifted.

She turned, irritation already forming on her carefully maintained