The Tycoon's Marriage Bid

She knew her pulse was racing, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with the doctor, who’d already withdrawn his cold stethoscope and transferred his attention to feeling along her jaw and neck, for heaven only knew what.

His mmm-hmming kept on until he stepped back to the foot of the bed, flipped open the chart and made a few notations. The same nurse came into the room then and gently shooed Alex out long enough for the doctor to do a pelvic exam.

When he was finished, the doctor scooted back on his rolling stool, disposing of his sterile gloves. “Looking good. Spotting has stopped.”

The nurse finished deftly adjusting the bedding and retied the back of the deplorable gown, since Nikki was too busy staring at the doctor to deal with it herself. “I was spotting? How long have I been here?” She would remember if she’d been spotting!

“Four days now,” the nurse said calmly. “You were brought in on Sunday. It’s Thursday. Your Mr. Reed has stayed by your side since he arrived Tuesday. Half the nurses in the hospital are pea green with envy, I can tell you.”

Four days?

She’d been thinking maybe four hours.

Distress gnawed at her.

The doctor was still sitting, and the overhead light glinted off his glasses as he waved Alex in when the nurse opened the door once more. “As I was telling Nikki, the spotting has stopped. There’s been no evidence of any more contractions.”

“More?” Her voice rose at that.

Just what had been going on while she was unconscious?

The nurse patted her arm. “Try not to get excited, hon. Your blood pressure was through the roof when the ambulance brought you in. It’s only begun to stabilize in the last twelve hours.”

News that was not helping Nikki become any calmer. “The baby’s been moving,” she said nervously. Alex had told her she and the baby were fine. “So what’s wrong?”

“Nothing that bed rest won’t cure, I believe,” the doctor assured her. He adjusted his glasses, making them glint again. “Frankly, at this point, the baby is healthier than you are.”

“Then I can go home?”

“I’d prefer to keep you here in the hospital. I want you off your feet for the next three weeks.” He glanced at her chart again. “You’ll be in your third trimester then.”

Nikki’s stomach dived down to her toes. Her new job came equipped with medical insurance coverage—which she would desperately need by the time her delivery date arrived—but not until she’d actually been working there for sixty days. Working being the operative word.

If she was here in this Montana hospital for weeks, she couldn’t very well report for her first day at Belvedere Salvage & Wrecking on Monday, now could she?

“But that won’t do,” she said faintly.

“I’m afraid it’s going to have to do,” Dr. Carmichael said, unperturbed. He patted her foot through the blanket. “Don’t worry. The food here will grow on you.”

The knot in her throat had become a vise, and it seemed to be forcing every bit of liquid inside her up behind her eyes.

The doctor wasn’t entirely oblivious to her upset. “It won’t be so bad. After the first week, we’ll reevaluate. And Dad can stay with you as long as he wants, same as he’s been doing.”

Nikki eyed Alex. His long form wavered. The doctor figured he was telling her things that would make her feel better.

But Alex wasn’t the expectant father. How could he be when there had never been anything remotely personal between them?

But he wasn’t disputing the doctor’s assumption, either. “I can’t afford to stay three weeks in the hospital.” She pushed out the words, trying to pretend that he wasn’t standing there listening. “I have to get home. I have to work.”

The doctor looked at her over the rims of his glasses. “I can’t force you to stay, of course. But I promise you that you’ll be endangering your pregnancy if you do not have complete bed rest.”

Endangering.

The word rocketed around inside her like some bizarre pinball machine running amok, setting off small explosions wherever the ball hit.

“She could get the bed rest elsewhere, though.” Alex finally spoke up. “Correct?”

The doctor didn’t look particularly happy about it, but he nodded. “If she can promise me that she’ll remain in bed. And I mean lying in bed. Knees elevated. She can sit up for a few minutes at a time, but that’s it.”

“I’ll go to my mother’s,” Nikki said thickly. Her family would welcome her with open arms, without question. And she’d feel like she was failing them by not being able to stand on her own two feet the way she always had.

“Your mother lives here in Lucius?”

“No. Wyoming.”

Before she’d finished speaking, the doctor was shaking his head. “No travel. Not even an hour.”

“But—”

“Don’t argue, Nikki.” Alex’s voice was smooth. “We’ll do whatever is necessary to protect the baby.”

“We?” Her hands clutched the blanket, bunching it frantically. The monitor beside her began bleating like an angry lamb, and spewed out a stream of narrow paper.

“Ms. Day.” The nurse gently nudged her back against the pillows. “Please. Don’t excite yourself.”

Nikki waved her hand at the doctor. “You just sentence me to bed rest for the better part of a month and I’m not supposed to get excited?” A sharp pain tore through her midsection and she exhaled loudly, drawing up her knees, doubling over.

The nurse and Dr. Carmichael were suddenly all business. Blood pressure cuffs. Syringes.

Nikki didn’t much notice what they did, since panic was rocketing through her, keeping company with the grappling hook that was twisting her insides into a knot.

The baby had been a complete accident.

But that didn’t mean she didn’t want it.

Oh God oh God oh God.

Alex slid his hand into hers.

She stared blindly at him. The pain was excruciating. “Nikki…” His voice was soft. Insistent.

She blinked. Focused. The panic retreated a hair. She was hardly aware of the death grip her fingers had on his. “It hurts,” she gasped.

His intense gaze was steady. Calm.

Familiar.

“I know. Relax.” His voice was almost hypnotic. “Everything is going to be fine.”

She was twenty-seven years old. A modern, competent, independent woman. She didn’t need anyone to tell her that everything would be fine.

She was the one who usually made certain that things were fine.

Only none of that amounted to a hill of beans right now. She was glad he was there. Glad. Pathetically glad.

THE TYCOON’S MARRIAGE BID

Her tears slipped out, streaming down her cheeks. She’d never once cried in front of her boss.

No. He wasn’t her boss any longer.

He was just Alex.

A man she still couldn’t manage to get out of her head.

“Breathe,” he told her. She was vaguely aware that the nurse had been repeating the same thing.

She drew in a slow breath.

“That’s it,” he said encouragingly. “Slow and easy.” The grappling hook was slowly, infinitesimally, loosening.

“I don’t want to lose the baby.” Her voice was thick.

His brown gaze didn’t flicker. His hand never let go of hers. “I won’t let that happen,” he promised.

It made no sense. But she believed him.

“Try and lie back, Ms. Day.”

She felt woozy. Incapable of making herself uncurl. Focusing on Alex’s face was getting harder. But when he leaned over her, gently settling her back against the pillows, she could still make out the subtle variations of brown in his eyes.

Dark, clear coffee rimmed by a narrow circle of chocolate Kisses.

“Melted,” she corrected. Melted chocolate. Rich. Thick.

Addictive.

He was still so close. “Melted what?”

She frowned a little. Had she said it out loud? “My head feels funny.”

“It’s the sedative,” the nurse stated. She unwrapped the blood pressure cuff from Nikki’s arm and tucked the contraption back in its holder beside the bed. “Don’t worry. It won’t harm the baby. You’re just both going to have a little nap.”

“I don’t want a nap. I have to go back to Cheyenne.”

“Not today you don’t. You’ve been out of it for four days, remember?” Alex let go of her and straightened, moving away from the bed.

She wanted to call him back. But the idea took too much effort.

Later. She’d call him later.

No, she wouldn’t call him back later.

Later she’d have to call human resources at Belvedere and see if she could salvage the job she was supposed to start.

Salvage.

She felt an amused giggle rise in her, but it never seemed to make it out.

She’d have to do lots of things.

She just couldn’t put her finger on what they were at the moment….

Alex watched Nikki’s eyes close. The stress wrinkling her forehead smoothed out. Her lips softened.

“She’ll sleep for a few hours,” the nurse told him quietly.

Alex nodded. He followed the doctor outside the room. “You’ve been running tests on her since I got here. I want details.” He wasn’t a physician himself, but he came from a long line of them, and he employed a fair number himself. If he wasn’t satisfied with the doctor’s answers, he’d have Nikki under someone else’s care in a heartbeat.

“We can talk in my office,” the doctor said easily. “I wouldn’t mind getting some medical history on you, as well.”

Alex smiled noncommittally. It suited him to let the doctor believe he was the baby’s father. If the other man knew just how nonpersonal his relationship with Nikki Day was, Alex would have a harder time getting the information he wanted.

He’d still get it.

He just preferred to get it as expediently as possible.

He should have done it all when he’d arrived at the hospital. Instead, he’d sat by Nikki’s bedside.

It was unfathomable even to him.

Two hours later, he’d obtained all the details of Nikki’s and her baby’s health that he wanted. He’d even called his uncle, who was head of obstetrics for RHS Memorial, the Philadelphia flagship hospital of Reed Health Systems, who concurred with Dr. Carmichael’s plan of treatment.

Alex had plenty of disagreements with his family. But when it came to basic medical care, there were few minds finer.

So he sat now in the recliner in Nikki’s room, watching her sleep. There was a little more color in her face than there had been when he’d first arrived.

His first sight of her had hit him in a way he was still trying to figure out. When she’d worked for him, he’d never seen her with a hair on her auburn head out of place, and he’d never seen her lose her composure. Not with temper or tears. She’d been efficient as hell. The best assistant he could ever have wanted. She’d kept his hectic life in order, and he was still reeling all these months after she’d left him flat.

It wasn’t a fact he particularly liked admitting, either. He didn’t like depending on anyone. Not when they invariably failed you.

But he’d depended on Nikki.

Right now, she seemed miles away from that fearsomely competent young woman who’d often beat him to the office in the mornings, and generally outlasted him at the end of the day. Aside from the swollen soccer-ball-size mound her slender arm was curled protectively over, she seemed too thin, and ridiculously young.

Vulnerable.

Her hair waved across the white pillow in a fiery river, looking more red than brown. There were no cosmetics to make her ivory complexion perfect, and it was smooth as velvet anyway. Her lips were softly parted and her oval chin was relaxed, missing its typical no-nonsense tilt.

Nikki Day was beautiful.

He supposed that wasn’t really a news flash to him. The vulnerability, though. That was as unexpected as finding her pregnant.

Which didn’t explain, even to him, what he was doing here.

Nikki was right to be surprised. Suspicious, even.

He had a dozen things—give or take a hundred—to deal with regarding Huffington. He hadn’t been exaggerating about the competence of the assistants that HR had been sending his way. And having a barely tolerable assistant just now was worse than having no assistant.

Nikki shifted, turning on her side, and tucked her hand against her cheek. Beneath the thin blanket, her leg moved, and the bare tips of her toes sneaked out from beneath the covers. Her toenails were painted a soft peach color.

His favorite fruit had always been peaches.

Annoyed with the thought, he looked back at her face.

Her eyes were open. Dark blue. Slightly unfocused. But they cleared almost instantly.

“It’s not some bad dream?” Her voice was little more than a soft sigh.

He shook his head and hoped to hell those blue eyes didn’t fill with tears again. Seeing Nikki Day in tears unnerved him. It wasn’t a sensation he welcomed. “No. How’re you feeling?”

“Woozy.” One slender arm was still crossed protectively over her abdomen.

“The baby’s okay. And Carmichael has been in contact with your OB in Cheyenne.”

She looked distinctly discomfited at the news. “I probably don’t want to know how you know that, nor how Dr. Carmichael even knows who my doctor there is, do I?”

Since that was true, he kept silent.

She turned on her back. Started to fold her arm over her eyes but didn’t, giving the IV taped to it a baleful look. “Belle and Cage got married before Christmas. They put off their honeymoon until after the holidays. If I call them now, they won’t have a chance to get away again until summer, and then…”

Calling her sister was the logical answer. Yet she sounded miserable over it.

“Where’d they go for their honeymoon?” he asked.

“The Caribbean.”

Her eyes were wet. Damn.

“Belle was so excited. Not just because it’s her honeymoon, but because she’s always dreamed of traveling to places like that. But at least they’re probably reachable.” Nikki’s voice went a little hoarse. “My mother and Squire are floating somewhere on the Mediterranean. I know they can be reached in an emergency, but—”

He lifted his hand. He really didn’t like seeing tears in her eyes. “You don’t have to reach anyone.”

She shook her head. The tears glinted. “I can’t afford one week in the hospital, much less three.”

He could tell reiterating the admission cost her. Not that he hadn’t figured it out for himself. She hadn’t been working anywhere in Cheyenne—not that he’d been able to discover, anyway. And to his chagrin, he’d tried. He knew her mother’s husband had money, but he also figured that asking for help was not Nikki’s particular forte.

Since he was generally more in the position of cleaning up other people’s messes than being in need of cleaning in his own life, he figured that was something they had in common.

When had Nikki had time for any sort of personal life?

The thought kept coming to the forefront.

He’d kept her too busy for a personal life.

Or so he’d thought.

He marshaled his thoughts. “I’ve rented you a place.”

Silence descended on the room as she absorbed his statement. Then her eyes widened. Color touched, then just as quickly fled from her cheeks. “Excuse me?”

“I took care of it while you were sleeping. The sheriff’s office recommended a few places. Someone from the inn packed up your stuff, and it’s been moved to the rental.” He figured just about any place would be better than the Lucius Inn, which didn’t even possess a proper suite.

“How…efficient.”

“Then it’s settled.”

Her eyebrows rose. She pushed herself up on her elbow, and there was nothing dazed in her eyes now. Incredulousness shone clear and sharp.

“No, it’s not! How am I supposed to afford—” she waved her hand, a brief motion conveying a wealth of frustration “—this place you’ve arranged? And I’m still going to need help, if I’m supposed to have bed rest. No matter what, I’m going to have to call my family.”

“Hold it.” He sat forward, resting his arms on his knees. “First of all, I said I rented you a place. Period. As for calling your family, you can if you want. I’m just telling you it’s not necessary, if you really want to go this alone.”

Her brows drew together at that. “Are you going to hire me a nursemaid, too?” She looked everywhere but at him. “I wasn’t that perfect of an assistant, Alex. You cannot possibly be so desperate for me to come back to work for you that you’d go to these lengths. I don’t want to owe anyone!”

“Anyone, or just me?”

Confusion and pride tangled in her eyes. “Does it matter?”

Did it?

He didn’t like owing favors, either. “I’m not hiring a nurse,” he said evenly, scrapping the plan to do just that. “I’ll stay with you myself.”

Chapter Three

Nikki saw Alex’s lips move. She heard the words he spoke. But they still made no sense. “You’ll stay with me,” she repeated slowly.

He nodded once.

“Here. In Lucius.”

Again, the single nod.

“At this place you’ve rented for me.”

A third nod.

She pressed her fingertips to the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes, then opening them again. “That sedative they gave me is really messing with my head.”

“No, it’s not.”

No. It wasn’t. If it had been, she’d at least have an explanation. She dropped her hand to her lap, her palm upward. “I don’t want your pity.”

His jaw hardened. “You’re not getting it. You’re an intelligent woman, Nik. This is the easiest solution all the way around.”

On the surface, maybe. But spending time—personal time—with Alex? There wasn’t anything easy about that, at all.

“What about Huffington?” she asked, determined to keep her tears at bay. She cried far too easily these days. It was maddening.

“What about it?”

It seemed unfathomable, but she could tell by his bland tone that he wasn’t going to talk business.

Yet business was the only thing they’d ever had between them.

So what sort of business was he up to?

“No,” she said abruptly, stomping down on the panic that rose in her at the very thought of him staying with her. “Thank you for the offer, but I really can’t accept.”

“Why not?”

Her hands flopped. “Because it’s not…appropriate!”

His eyebrows rose a little. A muscle twitched at the corner of his lip. “Appropriate,” he mused. “Sounding a little virginal there, Nik.”

Her face went hot, but she managed to keep her chin up. “I don’t care what it sounds like. It’s true.”

“Definitely more agreeable when you worked for me,” he observed. He unfolded from the chair. At six foot four, he was the only man she knew who rivaled her stepbrothers in sheer physical presence. “I have a room at the Lucius Inn. Call me when you change your mind.”

“I won’t.”

His head tilted slightly in acknowledgment. Then he picked up his coat again and left the room. The hospital door swung shut behind him, leaving her alone with nothing but the lingering hint of his aftershave and the rhythmic ticking of the stark round clock hanging very high on the wall.

Maybe the hospital administrators were afraid their patients were likely to abscond with the ugly, utilitarian thing if they hung it at eye level.

She slowly smoothed her hands over the thin blanket, removing every bump and wrinkle. The baby moved. Only a few weeks ago, it had felt more like butterflies darting around inside her. Now, the motions were more distinct. More…real.

She folded her hands over her belly.

Eyed the closed door through the tears that wouldn’t be held back no matter how hard she tried, or how desperately she focused on everything around her except her situation.

She would not call Alex. She could get through this in the same way she’d gotten through every other painful episode in her life.

On her own. One aching hour…day…week at a time.

Twenty-four hours later, Nikki called Alex at the Lucius Inn.

Twenty-six hours later, she left the hospital—and very nearly the last chunk of savings she had in her bank account—behind, and was sitting beside him in the luxurious, spacious SUV he’d rented.

She stared out the window beside her as they drove through town. Lucius was a small community, like a dozen others. It had a main drag where most of the businesses seemed to be located. An older, clearly residential area at one end of town. Fortunate evidence of continued growth—a bustling discount department store, apartments, the Lucius Inn, a medical plaza—at the other end of town. She got a good look at all of them when Alex continued driving right on past, leaving the town behind.

She closed her fingers around the softly padded armrest. “Where is this place that you’ve rented?”

He flicked a glance her way. “Another few miles.”

She wanted to ask how few, but didn’t. Instead, she turned and stared blindly out the window again.

After a disappointing but unsurprising phone conversation with the salvage company that confirmed they would be unable to hold open the position for her, she’d actually started to call the Caribbean resort where Belle and Cage were staying, but hadn’t been able to bring herself to dial the number. What was worse? Calling back her twin from her honeymoon or accepting Alex’s inconceivable offer?

If Belle and Cage returned, the entire family would be bound to find out about it, and she hated worrying them. Hated it. It was bad enough that she knew they’d been worrying over her since she’d announced she was pregnant. They’d harped in the most loving of ways to get her to Weaver or the Double-C, where they could take care of her.

But she took care of herself.

She always had.

But to choose Alex now…that was a different kettle of fish entirely.

Instead of calling Belle, Nikki had left a voice mail message for Emily, one of her stepsisters-in-law, that she’d decided to stay in Montana for a few more weeks, and would call when she got back.

Then she’d hurriedly called Alex.

She still wasn’t sure she’d made the right choice, either.

The cadence of the tires on the highway deepened and she looked ahead as Alex slowed and turned off on a narrow road. It had recently been plowed, judging by the freshly turned snow neatly mounded at the sides. Not even a thin layer of white powder marred the single lane, which seemed barely wide enough to accommodate the SUV’s bulk.

After another ten minutes or so, the pavement ended, but the SUV took the graded gravel in stride. And before long, Alex pulled to a stop in front of a sprawling cabin.

Enormous logs. Stone foundation. A lone window that would let in only twelve square inches of sunlight at a time.

The place looked as if it had been built as a miniature fortress about a million years ago, and for a moment Nikki found herself longing for the confining hospital room.

Alex propped his wrist over the top of the steering wheel as he peered through the windshield at the structure before them. His long, blunt-tipped fingers slowly drummed on the dashboard.

“The sheriff recommended this place?” Nikki finally asked. It was the only glimmer of hope she held.

“He gave me a list of three places. This was the only one available right now. Owner’s name is Tucker. Spends winters in Arizona.”

“Maybe I should just go back to the boardinghouse.” Not that she knew how she’d pay for it.

She realized she was nibbling at her thumbnail, and hurriedly dropped her hand to her lap.

“Can’t.” Alex was still looking ahead at the dwelling. He seemed as enthusiastic as she was to actually look inside it.

But then Alex lived on the top floor of the Echelon, the finest hotel in Cheyenne. Well, the entire state of Wyoming, for that matter. The Echelon wasn’t enormous, but it was “quality.”

“Has she already rented out the room I was using?” Nikki’d had the room reserved for a week, Sunday to Saturday. It was only Friday.