Escape for Valentine's: Beauty and the Billionaire / Her One and Only Valentine / The Girl Next Door

“Have you been giving money to random gypsies ever since?”

“It’s not like I come across a lot of them. Alhough …” He pretended to ponder. “I suppose a charitable foundation wouldn’t be out of order.”

“I’m sure they appreciate it.”

Sinclair’s cell phone chimed.

She opened her purse to check the lighted number. “Kristy.”

It chimed again under her hand.

“Better answer it,” Hunter advised. “She’s probably worried.”

“So was I,” Sinclair said over the sound.

His hand covered hers for a brief second. “We’ll talk more.”

Sinclair pressed a button and raised the phone to her ear. “Hey, Kristy.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

“And Hunter?”

Sinclair looked at him. “He’s had better mornings.”

“What was he thinking?” There was a clear rebuke in Kristy’s tone. “Going out on his own. Jack says that Hunter was being dangerously cavalier with the family fortune.”

Some protective instinct leapt to life within Sinclair. “He was thinking it was a good deal.”

Hunter shook his head, mouthing the word, “Don’t.”

Sinclair ignored him. “And they might want to look closely at it before they decide it’s a bad risk.”

Hunter stood to lean over the table, but Sinclair turned away, protecting the phone. The least she could do was come down on his side.

“Are you defending him? Did he try to make this your fault? It wasn’t your fault, you know. You were being honest. He was being underhanded.”

“He was being smart.”

There was a shocked silence on the line.

“Are you sleeping with him again?” Kristy demanded.

“None of your business.”

“That’s it. I’m coming to Paris.”

Hunter lunged forward and grabbed the phone from Sinclair’s hands.

“Goodbye,” she quickly called as he snapped it shut.

“Have you lost your mind?” asked Hunter.

“She said you were being underhanded.”

“You can’t fight with your sister over me.”

Sinclair folded her arms over her chest and blew out a breath. “Sure, I can.”

Hunter handed back the phone. “No. You can’t. She’s your sister. Keep your eye on the long game.”

Meaning Hunter was the short game?

“And she loves you,” he said.

“She’s coming to Paris.”

“You want to go to London?”

Sinclair grinned. “We couldn’t.”

Hunter sighed. “You’re right. We couldn’t.”

She caught a figure in her peripheral vision, turning to see Jack pulling up a chair at their table.

“You okay?” he asked Sinclair.

“You’re as bad as Kristy,” Sinclair responded. “What exactly do you think he’d do to me?”

“What did he do?”

“He invited me to go ballroom dancing. We’re getting ready for the Valentine’s Day ball on Thursday.”

Jack shot his gaze to Hunter. “That true?”

“What if it is?”

“I just had a call from Kristy,” said Jack.

“She’s coming to Paris,” announced Sinclair.

Jack nodded. “That’s what she said.” He was still eyeing up Hunter suspiciously. “You’d better sign us up, too.”

After the day they’d had, Hunter wanted nothing more than to curl up in bed and hold Sinclair tight in his arms. He’d discovered he hated fighting with her. And he hated that her family and his had decided to protect her from him. Even now, across the floor in the Versailles Ballroom, Kristy was scoping them out, staring daggers at him.

A private jet had whisked her across the Atlantic in time for dinner.