Free A Forbidden Love (Eligible Billionaires Book 9) by Maggie Marr

chest. She’d always felt alone in the world. She’d always wanted a brother or sister or…cousins? As in more than one? Yes, cousins would do.
    “They’re all around your age.”
    “I…” She glanced around the gallery. Devon, still deep in conversation with Amanda, caught her eye and raised an eyebrow, as if to ask is everything okay ? And everything was okay…except it wasn’t. Her entire world had flipped over. Again. She supposed if you got flipped around enough, you’d eventually get to standing. “I…”
    “They want to meet you, Ilana. I want to meet you. Your aunt wants to meet you.”
    Ilana’s heart cracked. She put a hand to her forehead. Family. She missed her mother, and while Devon was becoming important to her, and was quite possibly her future, Family was something else entirely, something she’d thought she’d never have…an extended family. For decades it’d been only she and her mother. Why had Mama kept all of this from her? My God, what had Mama been trying to hide and why?
    “I…I have to think about it. I need to process all this.”
    “I want you to join us for dinner.”
    “All of you?”
    “I’ll send a car for you. To the Center, tomorrow at six. We’ll eat at our home, in Malibu.”
    Ilana closed her eyes. Malibu? Why hadn’t Mama told her that she had an aunt and uncle who lived so close? Malibu was just a few miles away…what if she’d met her uncle or aunt or cousins before and simply not known they were related to her?
    “You have the address?”
    “Yes, my driver will pick you up. I’m very pleased, Ilana, and your aunt and your cousins will be as well.”
    After her uncle hung up, Ilana put the phone back in her purse and walked toward Devon. He reached out and pulled her close to him.
    He nuzzled her neck. “Who was that? I’ve never seen you look this serious.”
    She wanted to tell him, she did. She trusted Devon, she might even love him, but her mother’s words— Don’t ever tell anyone about your family —echoed in Ilana’s mind. The alarms of her childhood sounding like a firehouse call to an emergency.
    “Just…a thing for the Center. No big deal.” She glanced down. A slick oily feeling curled around her gut. She’d just lied to Devon. But she couldn’t tell him yet. She’d never met these people. What if she didn’t want to have anything to do with them…what if there was a reason that her mother had kept her away from them? She would tell Devon eventually, just not now. Devon planted a kiss on her forehead.
    “Tough being the boss. Work never ends.”
    Ilana nodded.
    “Did you want to go to Nobu with me tomorrow night? After the Center closes?”
    Ilana’s heart thudded. Lie upon lie upon lie. Her lungs filled with a deep breath. “I can’t,” she said, fiddling nervously with the leather tab on the zipper pull of her purse. “I have to…I have dinner plans with some friends already.”
    Not a complete lie, really. She did have dinner plans with her aunt and uncle, and she hoped that they would become friends. Maybe they’d someday even feel like family, although she had a hard time believing that anyone would ever feel like family again.
    “No problem.” Devon pulled her closer to his side.
    She just wasn’t ready to share all the secrets her mother had kept for all these years with anyone, including Devon and Amelia. She needed time to process and understand. Cousins? She had an aunt and uncle and cousins that she’d never met. Tomorrow she’d meet them all. All of them. Tomorrow night, she’d spend with family.

 
Chapter 9
     
    Travati Financial had become a behemoth and Devon and his brothers rarely dealt with real estate agents at this level. People brought TF hundred-million-dollar deals through high-end brokers and holding companies and attorneys, not little real estate offices on the corner. But Devon was doing business differently with this new division. He would handpick the buildings they bought and he would