The Tycoon's Marriage Bid

He lifted his shoulder. “Called over there this morning and some girl answered. Said Tiff’s is more or less closed for a while. The owner—Hadley—had some personal stuff to take care of.”

Nikki was chewing her thumbnail again. “I hope she’s okay.” Hadley was a nice woman, about Nikki’s age. Tiff’s hadn’t been booming with business by any stretch, and Nikki had felt as if Hadley was more a taker in of strays than a dedicated innkeeper. Still, Nikki had had a reason for wanting to stay at Tiff’s. And Hadley had been more than accommodating.

“Town’s small enough,” Alex murmured. “Gossip would have gotten around fast enough if she weren’t okay.”

True enough. Her mother’s family, the Clays, all lived in or near the small town of Weaver, Wyoming, and Nikki knew how effectively gossip could travel there.

Alex’s fingers stopped drumming on the dashboard. “Don’t move. I’ll take a look inside.”

Nikki propped her elbow on the armrest and dropped her chin in her hand. “I’m not going anywhere,” she murmured to his back as he got out of the vehicle.

How could she?

She’d been lifted from the hospital bed into a wheelchair to exit the hospital, and then lifted from the chair into the SUV that had been idling, warm and cozy, at the curb outside the hospital entrance.

And Alex had done the lifting.

The doctor’s instructions had been adamant. The only thing Nikki was allowed to do was sit up for very brief periods of time every few hours. And use the bathroom more or less under her own steam.

She was embarrassingly grateful for that particular mercy.

Her thumbnail found its way between her teeth again. She watched Alex go up the rickety-looking steps. The security system consisted of a door key hidden inside the ancient metal mailbox affixed to the wall alongside the door.

He glanced back at the SUV for a moment, then went inside.

Nikki wondered what he was thinking.

When she’d been in his employ, she’d believed she’d been able to anticipate his thoughts.

But now she couldn’t. The uncharted waters were too vast for her to navigate.

He’d left the door open, but she could see little inside because of the shadows from the steeply pitched porch roof. Assuring herself that the sheriff would not have recommended a place to Alex that had crumbling floorboards and other hazards he could be encountering in there alone, she focused instead on the landscape.

Dozens of winter-bare trees dotted the land around the cabin. And there were evergreens that seemed to reach a mile into the sky.

She suspected that during the rest of the year, the beauty of the landscape compensated for the stark log cabin. Now, though, the place seemed terribly barren.

And her eyes were burning all over again.

She blinked rapidly and sniffed hard. Enough with the waterworks, already. This was just another unexpected challenge to work through. It wasn’t as if it were the only hitch in life she’d ever encountered.

As long as she followed the doctor’s instructions, the baby would be fine. As long as she concentrated on that, she’d get through this. And when the doctor sprang her, Alex would go on his way again, and she would get on with her life.

Nothing all that different than what she’d been doing since last summer, anyway.

The door beside her opened and she jumped.

Alex released her safety belt. “I’ll take you in.”

She wasn’t sure she wanted to leave the warmth of the SUV, where she could entertain fanciful notions of wriggling behind the wheel and driving off. “Is it as ancient inside as it looks outside?”

“Not exactly.” He slid his arms beneath her.

The third time to be carried by him.

She buried her face from her chin up to her nose in the ivory scarf wrapped around her neck, and tried not to breathe. Tried to pretend she wasn’t fifteen pounds heavier with baby weight, and tried not to justify just how smoothly Alex traipsed across the snow to the cabin.

Yes, he was a large man. But he was a tycoon, not a lumberjack. Carting her—carting anything—around wasn’t really his style.

Yet he managed it with as much style as he did most everything else.

She stifled a sigh, only to hold her breath a moment later when he went up the steps, which creaked ominously. He turned sideways to go through the door, then kicked it shut behind them.

The solid slam seemed to echo inside Nikki’s head as she stared in disbelief at the interior.

“Oh…my…word.”

Alex didn’t comment. He merely crossed the gleaming, wood-planked floor that was partially obscured by a massive leopard-print shag rug, and set her on an enormous sectional couch upholstered in racy red leather. “There’s a shed of some sort on the other side of the cabin. I’m going to move the truck there after I bring in the groceries. Then I’ll get you some lunch. You okay here for that long?”

She nodded weakly and tucked her hands deeper into the pockets of her ivory coat. Anything that would occupy him long enough for her to regain her composure—scrambled from the unlikely interior of the cabin, as much as the unlikely prospect of Alex cook-ing—was a good thing.

He shut the door behind him when he left, preserving the little bit of warmth that the interior possessed. Her gaze settled on the soaring stone fireplace that dominated the center of the room. She had little doubt the cabin would warm up considerably when a fire was lit in it.

The cabin would warm.

The mammoth, circular bed that she could see through the empty fireplace had velvety pillows mounded against an enormous black, leather headboard. And it would warm.

The heart-shaped whirlpool bathtub that took up a chunk of floor space near the couch would warm.

The kitchen and intimate dining nook with its satiny pine table and chairs would warm.

When she and Cody had been planning their wedding, she’d seen advertisements in the bridal magazines of honeymoon cottages that weren’t as blatantly sexual as this place. But sweet Cody had only had one place in mind for their honeymoon. Tiff’s. Where his parents had spent their honeymoon together.

She jumped a little when Alex entered again, his arms loaded with grocery bags, and she dragged her eyes away from the empty bathtub, feeling as if she’d been caught doing something…scandalous.

There was little in the cabin that couldn’t be seen from where she sat on the couch—everything seemed oriented around the fireplace—and she watched him dump the bags on the kitchen counter, then stride back outside.

He hadn’t done any shopping personally, of course.

He’d merely stopped outside a grocery store after picking her up at the hospital, and as if by magic, a young clerk had dutifully trotted out with the bags, loaded them in the back of the SUV, collected some bills from Alex and disappeared again.

The world according to Alex Reed.

There were a few closed doors in the cabin, and plenty of windows running along the back side of the structure. Unlike the miserly one she’d seen from the outside, there seemed to be a dozen of them. All large and un-adorned and overlooking more trees and a narrow, winding stream.

By the time Alex returned after moving the truck, Nikki hoped she’d managed to wipe most of her shock over the cabin interior from her expression.

Not that he’d have noticed, anyway.

He went straight to the kitchen again and began rummaging around. Opening smooth, walnut-planked cupboard doors. Pushing items into the sleek, stainless-steel-fronted refrigerator.

“Alex?”

His head lifted. He looked at her. She could see him through the slice of space between one corner of the fireplace and a bulging green ficus that stood guard over the far end of the sectional couch.

“Do you actually know how to cook?”

His teeth flashed in a surprisingly amused grin. “I can punch a microwave button as well as anyone.”

She hesitated a moment. “Um…Alex? That’s what you said about using the coffeemaker at Huffington.” He’d punched buttons on the commercial-style appliance and the repairman had actually been forced to install a new machine when he’d been unable to fix it. After that, Alex had wisely stayed away from the employee break room.

“We’re going to have to take our chances,” he said dryly. “This microwave is built-in. Don’t think I can move it over there next to you so you can do button duty.”

She heard the microwave door shut, followed by a few beeps. Alex rummaged around a little longer, then approached her, extending an opaque glass toward her.

“Here.”

She took it. Looked inside the squat rim. “It’s milk. I don’t drink milk.”

“You’re pregnant. You’re supposed to drink gallons of it, aren’t you?”

She’d managed not to so far, courtesy of the prescription she took daily, which her obstetrician vehemently assured her were actually prenatal vitamins and not horse pills.

Alex’s expression was much the same as it always was: a hint of amusement underlying his otherwise impervious calm. There was no particular reason for her to take the glass. Certainly not because she wanted to please him or something.

That would be ridiculous.

She was pregnant, so he gave her milk.

She needed to stay off her feet, so he made sure she was able to do so.

Why?

She took the glass and began drinking. He pushed the mirror-topped, iron coffee table closer to her end of the couch before returning to the kitchen. Several minutes later, he was back again, tray in hand. The mirror reflected his image as he leaned over to set the tray on the table.

“Interesting decor,” he murmured as he handed her a chunky white mug filled with soup. “Hope you like chicken noodle. It’s salt free,” he warned. “Carmichael said your sodium intake needed to be minimal.”

Considering she’d just drunk nearly an entire glass of milk, she suspected she’d have eaten the soup, too, even if she didn’t like it. “It’s fine,” she said truthfully.

In fact, she was suddenly starving, and it was all she could do not to attack the soup with him standing right there watching her. But as soon as he saw her scoop up a spoonful of slippery noodles, he went back to the kitchen.

A moment later, she heard him talking on his cell phone.

At least that was typical behavior for him. Alex and his cell phone had always been nearly surgically attached. The man was a serious workaholic.

Somewhat comforted by this small piece of normalcy, she devoured the soup. There was also a banana and two rolls on the tray, and she ate them, too.

Her gaze kept straying to the slice of kitchen she could see. Alex’s voice was a low murmur, too indistinct for her to make out words. Given the coziness of the cabin, she knew he was deliberately keeping his voice low.

A personal call?

Alex was forty-two and the epitome of tall, dark and handsome. He was also extremely wealthy.

Women always flocked to him.

She brushed a bread crumb from her chest and leaned her head back against the arm of the couch. It was no business of hers whatsoever who Alex was speaking to.

Was it Valerie?

Still?

She closed her eyes. But while she could block out the sight of the cabin for lovers, she couldn’t block out the low ebb and flow of Alex’s voice. And she couldn’t block out the thoroughly unwelcome fact that, while it was none of her business, she couldn’t pretend that she didn’t care.

She scooted down farther in the couch, wishing she could burrow beneath the red cushions and erase the past week.

Erase the past year, for that matter.

If she could, then Alex would still be the guy who changed women almost as often as he changed shirts. She’d still be working at his side, doing a job she really had loved, and keeping her own feelings for him sternly under wraps, because she was definitely too smart to think seriously about a man who sent nearly every woman off with some tasteful gift that Nikki had arranged for him.

If she could wish away the past year, Alex’s ex-wife, Valerie, wouldn’t have come back into his life, and Nikki wouldn’t have had to quit her job because of her own foolish behavior.

She wouldn’t be lying here now in this rabid honeymooner cabin, pregnant with the child of a man whose only appeal to her had been his strong resemblance to Alex.

Chapter Four

Alex couldn’t sleep.

He couldn’t blame it on the couch, though. It was comfortable enough, for a leather sectional large enough to host a cocktail party. No. It was the fact that he was listening for every sound that came from the massive bed on the other side of the fireplace.

He’d built a fire earlier that evening, but the logs had burned way down now. The only thing left of it was the warm scent and orange glow from the embers, which did nothing but illuminate the foot of the bed.

He wished the embers would die. Then he wouldn’t be lying here peering through the firebox at the way the dark bedspread spilled partially off the rounded foot of the bed. It’d be better if Nikki would just kick it all the way off, he decided blearily. As it was, the velvety red fabric clinging tenuously to the mattress made him think of the way a woman’s dress would cling to her shoulders as it was nudged off by her lover.

A woman?

He turned on his back, scrubbing his hands down his face.

Clearly, he’d been alone too damn long when he was thinking of his young former assistant in that way.

From the other side of the cabin, he heard a soft sigh. A rustle of bedding.

He slanted his gaze sideways.

Had the bedspread slid another perilous inch?

Annoyed, he swung his legs off the couch, knocking his ankle on the tacky coffee table. He cut off the none-too-quiet oath midsyllable.

What the hell was he doing here?

“Alex?” Nikki’s voice was soft and husky from sleep. “Are you all right?”

His jaw tightened, along with every other part of him. “Yeah.” It came out more of a grunt. Good to know his Ivy League education was so useful. He gingerly rotated his foot. “Are you? What’s the matter?”

Again the rustling bedding.

God. He was something. The woman was having a crisis with her pregnancy and he was having visions of her peach-tinted skin draped in red velvet.

He should be asking what the hell was the matter with him.

“Nothing’s wrong,” she assured him. “You’re the one who’s over there swearing.”

“You feeling more pain? Dizziness?”

“No.” But she’d hesitated just a moment before answering. He reached over and grabbed his pants, hitching them up his hips as he rounded the fireplace.

There was a skylight above the bed, but the sky was so dark it didn’t help illuminate the bedroom. There were only those orange embers casting their glow, softly enough for him to see the shape of her lying in the center of the round bed. “This isn’t going to work if you’re not honest about how you’re feeling,” he told her.

She moved, and the rustling sound made Alex feel as if something was brushing against him. He shook off the sensation and stepped closer. He could see the way the sheet draped over her knees. She’d sat up against a mound of pillows at the padded leather headboard.

Details he could’ve done without.

“Well?” he demanded.

She exhaled. “I don’t lie.” Her voice was tight.

Another few steps and he was at her bedside. He wasn’t certain, but the sheets didn’t look exactly white. More like silver. With a sheen.

He’d slept on five-hundred-dollar sheets that were smoother than silk, and five-dollar sheets that were as rough as sandpaper.

He’d never slept on satin sheets covering a round bed. There probably wasn’t a single member of the Reed family who had.

You’re not going to be the one to change that.

The voice inside his head was mocking.

“Okay. So you don’t lie.” Truth was, when she’d been in his employ, Nikki had been unfailingly honest, even when it meant tactfully telling him he was acting like an arrogant jerk. “But you can’t hold back things, either.”

Her hands flopped on the mattress and he realized she hadn’t just drawn up her knees, she’d been hugging her leg. “I had a charley horse.” Even husky from sleep, her voice managed to convey embarrassment.

He sat on the bed and stifled a sigh when she practically jumped six inches back. “Relax.” He reached over and caught her leg through the sheet.

Satin. Definitely.

“What are you doing?”

“Where’s the cramp?” His hand slid down her shin. Circled a very narrow ankle. He couldn’t say he’d ever noticed before how delicately formed they were.

She’d usually been dressed from head to toe in very conservative, very tailored pantsuits.

She twisted her foot, trying to brush his hands aside. “It’s gone now.”

“And you wouldn’t admit where it was if it weren’t gone. It’s not a crime to accept help, you know.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Yeah, but you don’t want to be.”

Her foot stopped moving. “And you do? Pull the other leg. It’s got bells on.”

He reached a little farther and caught the leg in question. “Nope. No bells ringing there.” Just a cacophony of warning buzzers going off inside his head. He let go of her and stood. Shoved his hands in his pockets. “Is the bed comfortable, at least?”

“Yes. Except I feel like I might slide off the edge if I’m not careful. The sheets are pretty slippery. And I’ve, um, never slept on a round bed. It’s a little…”

“Kinky?”

“Odd.” Her voice sounded strangled. But she moved her feet again, and again he felt the sound like a physical thing. “I, um, I really could have taken the couch, you know. I didn’t mind.”

Shortly after lunch, he’d carried her from the couch to the bed, over her protests. “I’d mind.”

She made a soft murmur that seemed distinctly female, and as such, was completely incapable of interpretation.

“Do you want some water or something?”

She reached out and picked up the glass he’d given her already. “Still full.”

“Well, you should be drinking it,” he murmured. Her arms were bare. When he’d put her to bed, she’d been wearing a long-sleeved sweater.

“If I were drinking glasses of water all night long, I’d be constantly going back and forth to the bathroom,” she said huskily. “And since you’ve been dogged about carrying me there, too, you would get no more sleep than I would.”

“Be glad the doctor said you didn’t have to stay put so much that you needed a bedpan.”

He couldn’t see it, but he knew that she was blushing. Ornery bastard that he was, it made him smile.

“I’ll drink it later,” she assured him, holding up the sheet with the other hand. Making him wonder what she wore beneath it. He’d put her suitcase on a chair within reach of the bed. Presumably she’d had a nightgown in there or something.

“Let me know if the charley horse comes back.”

“Fine.”

“I mean it, Nikki.”

“Or what? You’ll fire me?” The tart comment seemed to surprise her as much as it did him. “I’ll let you know.” She slipped down to her side.

At the foot of the mattress, the bedspread gave up the ghost and sighed to the floor.

Alex’s hands fisted inside his pockets. He returned to his side of the fireplace, but didn’t bother lying down on the couch. He wasn’t going to sleep.

He went into the kitchen and turned on the small light over the stove. At least here, there was a wall separating the space from the bedroom. The light shouldn’t disturb Nikki.

He quietly carried an iron-backed bar stool from the minibar in the minuscule dining area and set it in the kitchen. His briefcase was already open on the counter next to the toaster, and he pulled out a stack of papers and envelopes—mail that he’d grabbed on his way out the door to the airport days ago and still hadn’t read— and dumped everything on the counter.

Then he poured himself a small measure of bourbon in one of the plentiful glasses the cabin was stocked with.

He sat down, propped his elbows on the counter and swirled the liquor gently in the glass.

The other advantage of the wall between the kitchen and bedroom was that he couldn’t waste any time wondering how long it’d be before a damn bedspread fell off a damn mattress.

He tossed back half the contents of the glass and set it aside. Too bad he didn’t have a handy wall inside his head, cordoning off the question that had been squatting there.

What kind of man could capture Nikki’s attention deeply enough to leave her pregnant?

And why the hell wasn’t the guy with her?

The heavenly smell of coffee woke Nikki the following morning. She didn’t even open her eyes at first. Just lay there still as a mouse, cradled in a soft jumble of pillows, as she slowly breathed in that wonderful, wonderful aroma.

Oh, what she wouldn’t give for a good dose of caffeine-rich coffee. But all caffeinated drinks and any foods that were remotely salty—and therefore flavorful—were now stricken from her allowable list.

So she lay there and savored the smell, and pretended not to notice that she was practically salivating all the while.

But lying there like a bump could only last so long before her back started to ache, so she turned over, stretching out her legs, pointing her toes. When she’d first seen the silver satin sheets, she’d been somewhat appalled. But the fact was, they felt pretty darn nice. Slippery, true. But nice.

So she swished her legs lazily over them a few more times, her head still buried in the pillow.

“I had a dog once who chased rabbits in his sleep.”

Nikki froze at the amused comment. The cool satin warmed beneath her still legs.

“Corkscrew would be nearly snoring, but his legs would be going a mile a minute. That’s what you remind me of.”

Since the earth wasn’t likely to mercifully swallow her whole anytime soon, she lifted her head out of the pillow and eyedAlex. “A dog named Corkscrew. How…flattering.” And trust Alex, the wine connoisseur, to have had a dog named Corkscrew. “What happened to him?”

“Died of old age. Now he’s chasing rabbits for eternity.”

She pushed her hair out of her face and propped her head on her hand. Looking at Alex was dangerous, but she couldn’t very well avoid doing so for the next few weeks.

He hadn’t shaved, but his wet hair was ruthlessly combed back from his face. He’d obviously showered, and the fact that she’d slept right through it gave her a moment’s unease.

She’d never lived with anyone. Not that she was living with Alex, of course. But she’d have thought she’d be more aware of sounds around her that weren’t made by, well, her.

He was wearing a thick, ivory fisherman’s sweater, which made his shoulders look about a mile wide. That wasn’t so odd in itself. Nor was it odd that he was unshaven. There’d been plenty of times when he’d worked all night and in the morning would pull out his electric razor, running it brusquely over his lean cheeks while they’d gone through the upcoming day’s business.

What was odd was that he was wearing blue jeans. Well-worn jeans, in fact. So worn they were nearly white in certain places. A person could purchase jeans in that condition these days, but Nikki had one stepfather, five stepbrothers and a brother-in-law whose jeans all looked remarkably similar, so she recognized the real deal when she saw them.

She wouldn’t have expected Alex to have a pair so broken in. Maybe he’d hired the task out to someone. A surrogate jeans breaker-in-er.

Good grief, did she ever need caffeine.

“Last one I ever had,” he mused, lifting his mug of that wonderful-smelling stuff to his mouth.

She moistened her lips. Was it the coffee that had her mouth watering, or was it the man drinking it? “Last what?”

His eyes crinkled a little at the corners. “Dog.”

She felt her cheeks heat. Corkscrew. “Right. I never knew you had a dog.”