Her Pregnancy Secret Read online

  “Tell him for all I care. Better—maybe I’ll tell him myself. He needs to know how far you’ll go to control his life. Maybe he’ll resent you even more than he already does.”

  Her reaction caught him off guard. He’d expected her to care more, to bargain, and what she’d said about Will hurt.

  “He can’t afford to resent me,” Michael bluffed. “I write his allowance checks.”

  “So everything’s just about money and control to you? And you think I’m like you—”

  “I know you are! So, leave my brother alone, and I won’t make him think the worst of you by telling him about us. You bet on the wrong horse this time. Pick another. Someone who isn’t naive. Someone more like you and me.”

  “Tell him. I’m not like you, and you can’t blackmail me, either.”

  “You are like me. Greed isn’t the only thing we have in common,” he replied coldly. “If Will didn’t desire you, I’d be willing to set you up as my mistress. I’d keep you and your bistro afloat for as long you excited me.”

  “Do you ever listen? For the last time, your brother and I are just friends. That’s why he won’t care if you slept with me. He was just an investor in the bistro. He already has someone in his life.”

  “Really—who?”

  Michael knew she was lying when she faltered and said, “Maybe you should ask him.”

  If only Will did have someone, then Michael could have Bree for himself. He could afford her a helluva lot more easily than Will, couldn’t he?

  Suddenly Michael reconsidered the situation. Where was the harm in keeping her, if she wasn’t serious about Will? As long as he understood what she was and was willing to be generous to her?

  “Okay, then, if Will doesn’t want you because he has someone else, there’s nothing to stop me from having you. Here’s a new deal for you. If you cut Will loose as an investor and become my mistress, I’ll keep your bistro afloat for as long as you please me in bed.”

  “What?” She stared at him as if she was having a hard time comprehending him.

  “You heard me. Be my mistress, and your money problems will go away for as long as you keep me happy. Like you did tonight.”

  “I can’t believe this. First you sleep with me to destroy an imagined relationship with your brother. And now you want to buy me for yourself? I’m sorry I ever met you.”

  “I’m sure you’ll feel differently after you shop for the right apartment in the neighborhood of your choice and we settle on your generous allowance.”

  “Now you wait a minute!”

  “You want to save the bistro, don’t you? We enjoy each other, so why not?”

  She pushed herself up from the bed. “You can’t just buy people!”

  “You’d be surprised what money buys.”

  “Well, I’m not for sale.”

  “I doubt that. I just haven’t made you the right offer. Tell me what you want, and we’ll negotiate.”

  “I can’t believe I ever thought for one second that you were a decent human being.” Her expression twisted in utter misery. “And I did. I really did. I can’t believe I’ve been such a fool...again.” She sighed. “This just proves what I told you earlier—I don’t have very good instincts about men. I think you’re the worst of them all...and I have to tell you, that’s pretty low.”

  Her rejection stunned him. Too late Michael saw that he should have flattered her, that he should have seduced her into the deal as he had seduced her into his bed. Obviously she was like all the criminals in prison who proclaimed their innocence; she really didn’t see that she had done anything wrong. That’s where they were different. At least he knew when he’d crossed the line and was willing to accept the inevitable consequences.

  “I’ll call my chauffeur,” he said coldly, hiding his disappointment. “He’ll be at the front door downstairs in five minutes to escort you out of the building. He’ll drive you anywhere you wish to go. After tonight I don’t ever want to see you with my brother again. Do you understand?”

  “You can’t order me around...or your brother, who is an adult, and who is, whether you like it or not, one of my key investors. I fully intend to see him as often as I like! He has every right to invest his money where he chooses.”

  “You’re very wrong.”

  Michael turned his back and strode out of the room because the sight of her shimmering, pain-filled eyes, her quivering lips and her bare breasts were more than he could bear. Damn it, in spite of her rejection, in spite of what she was and how she was using Will, he still wanted her.

  Only when he heard her rushing down his spiral staircase to the lower floor—she never used an elevator unless she had to because she was afraid of them—only when he heard his front door slam downstairs, did Michael return to his bedroom.

  For a long moment he stood in the dark and stared out at the city that sparkled beneath a full moon and a starless sky. It was a beautiful night, he supposed, a night made for romance, if one believed in such things. He wondered if his failure to do so was due to the many flaws in his soul.

  Growing bored with the view he left the window and turned on every light. Never had the vast marble bedroom in his penthouse apartment blazed with such cold and terrible brightness.

  Only when he saw the bright splashes of red staining his sheet did he realize that maybe he’d been wrong about at least one thing.

  Had she been a virgin? His heart, which usually felt so solid behind its frozen walls, began to beat with vicious, guilty pain. Surely no virgin would have shown such a wild, uninhibited response. And yet...

  When he remembered her little cry when he’d first entered her, and her sweetness, and the admiration in her eyes when he’d discussed some of his projects with her, he recoiled. What if she had been an innocent? What if he, who’d been raised so roughly, had failed to see goodness because it had been such a rarity in his life?

  “If I could succeed at even one thing, I’d feel so proud of myself,” she had confided. “And look at you—you turned the family investment firm around right after the last global financial meltdown. Now you’re opening banks and hotels in China and power plants in Malaysia. You conquer worlds—and accept such feats as your due. Your family must be so proud of you.” Her shining eyes had warmed him through.

  If he’d been wrong about her virginity, had he been wrong about other things? Had she truly admired his accomplishments? Had she liked him, at least a little? Had he wounded her? And what was she really to Will?

  No.

  Damn it. He was sure of her ulterior motives. With her famous brother dead, his image trashed and their once popular bistro on the Upper West Side in trouble, she’d been after Will for his money. Then she had zeroed in on Michael at the fund-raiser when she’d seen a better mark. The only reason she’d turned down Michael’s second offer was because he’d wounded her pride.

  As he yanked the sheets off his bed, he remembered her radiant complexion and the wonder in her eyes and his own intense pleasure. Sheathed to the hilt, he’d felt all male and powerful and yet happy in a bone-melting way he’d never known before.

  If she was what he believed, why had she turned him down? Why?

  Michael tried and failed to push his gnawing doubts aside. Damn it, he had to know why. But he couldn’t face her tonight.

  They both deserved a few hours to recover from his brutal offer and her rejection. Tomorrow morning would be soon enough to confront her again.

  But by morning she was gone.

  After he bribed the doorman to let him in to her empty apartment, he stomped about flinging her cupboards open while he dialed her cell phone, which went to voice mail. For more than an hour he searched for some clue as to where she’d gone and found none. His texts were ignored. When he went to Chez Z, her steely-eyed French mother, Bijou, had been in a meeting
with the waitstaff.

  “She said she had to go somewhere,” her mother said coolly, when he’d insisted upon interrupting her. “She said it was an emergency. She looked upset. I didn’t pry. Now, I wish I’d asked more questions. Are you the problem? Is she in trouble because of you?”

  “No.”

  “Well! She is no good with men. In fact, that’s an understatement. She’s pathetic. She took after me, you see. Her father did everything he could to ruin my life. If you aren’t going to treat her right, stay away from her, yes?”

  What could he say to that? Despite the circumstances, he envied Bree for having such a mother. He hadn’t been so lucky.

  When Michael went to his brother’s to warn him about Bree, Will refused to let Michael into his apartment.

  “She already told me what you accused her of,” Will said, standing with the door half-closed to keep Michael in the hall. “I don’t know where she is, and frankly, I wouldn’t tell you if I did. You’ve overstepped the line.”

  “She said you were seeing another woman? Are you?”

  Will, who usually had an easy nature, scowled. “Right now, maybe you can guess why I don’t choose to discuss my personal life with you.”

  Then he shut the door in Michael’s face.

  Michael felt guilty and uneasy. What was Will hiding? Not only had Bree rejected him, she’d turned his brother against him. Will wouldn’t even confirm he was dating someone else, so did that mean he was still interested in Bree? If Will was involved with another woman, what the hell had Michael accomplished by bedding Bree other than becoming obsessed with her himself?

  The odds were he was right about her character. Maybe she was gone, but what good was that if Will felt more protective of her than ever? Instead of turning his brother against her, all he’d done was make his brother angry with him.

  Despite everything, Michael burned for her. No matter how hard he tried to bury himself in his work during the weeks that followed, no matter where he traveled or how many glamorous women he publicly dated in the attempt to prove to himself and to her how little she mattered, he couldn’t forget her.

  Even when he left on what proved to be a month-long business trip to Shanghai to solve a crisis at one of his hotels, memories of her sweetness and outraged innocence lingered, haunting him.

  The perfection of their night together drove him mad—especially after he learned that the same day he’d left New York, she’d returned to her bistro and had lunched with Will.

  Had she deliberately remained hidden until he was gone? Was she that afraid of him?

  What was her game? How could he stop her and save Will?

  Two

  Eight weeks later

  Will has to be okay. He has to be.

  As his heart beat in panic, Michael slammed through the heavy steel emergency-room doors with his dripping briefcase. When Pedro, his assistant who’d notified him about the accident, wasn’t at the entrance, Michael had rushed inside and hurried down a crowded hall that was a blur of nondescript floor tiles and pale green walls, beds, patients and visitors.

  Michael had been trying to call Bree from his limo on the drive through thick rain from JFK airport into the city. When all he could get was her voice mail, he’d decided to stop by Chez Z on the way to his office to confront her again. He’d just pulled up at the curb outside the bistro when Pedro had called him to tell him Will had been in an accident.

  “Where’s Will North?” Michael demanded of the nurses in dark scrubs at the nurses’ station. “I’m his brother. I got a call a while ago that he was in an accident and that he’d been brought here by EMTs.”

  “North?” Nurses looked up from their papers and stilled. When they didn’t answer him, maybe because they had to choose their words carefully, he sensed the gravity of his brother’s condition.

  Oh, God. It was bad.

  “Where is he?” Michael demanded in a hoarse voice he didn’t recognize as his own. “What happened?”

  Ask a tough question....

  An older nurse with a kindly face gave him the bare facts.

  A head-on collision in the heavy rain. Tony Ferrar, who was apparently his brother’s friend and the driver, died at the scene. The driver of the SUV that struck them, a twenty-four-year-old woman who’d possibly been drunk or texting, had flown across the median of the interstate and collided head-on with Will’s Mercedes. She’d died at the scene. Will had removed his seat belt and thrown himself in front of his wife. As a result he’d suffered back injuries, head injuries and multiple fractures. He needed immediate surgery.

  The nurse’s words buzzed in Michael’s head.

  “Wife?”

  Was that what Will had wanted to tell him over lunch today? Had he married his secret girlfriend?

  On some level Michael’s numbed brain faced the harsh reality of his brother’s injuries. On another, he refused to accept that his younger brother could be so seriously injured.

  Not Will. Michael had called him from Shanghai last night. When Michael had asked him about Bree, Will had refused to discuss her.

  “I have some big news. I’ll give you an update over lunch tomorrow,” was all he’d said.

  “Can I see my brother...before his surgery?” Michael demanded of the nurse.

  “Of course. But don’t say much or you’ll tire him.”

  Only when he saw Will’s gray face washed of all color, and Will’s body shrunken and as still as death did the gravity of Will’s injuries finally hit Michael.

  “Will. Can you hear me? It’s me. Michael,” he said gently.

  Tubes hissed and gurgled. His brother, whose bruised face was swathed in bloodstained bandages, stirred faintly. His mouth quivered, and he seemed to struggle to focus on Michael’s face.

  “Don’t talk,” Michael commanded.

  “Have to... No time... You know, they’re wrong about your life passing before your eyes.” Will’s voice was so thready Michael had to lean close to his brother’s lips to hear it. “It’s the future you’ll never have...that matters.”

  “Don’t waste your strength trying to talk. You’re young. You’re going to be okay. I swear it.”

  “Not even you can fix this. But you can do one thing for me....”

  “Anything.”

  “Take care of Bree.”

  “What?”

  “Bree... She’s...my wife,” Will gasped.

  “Bree? You married Bree?”

  “She’s pregnant. No time to explain. We didn’t want to tell you like this. Just promise me...that you’ll take care of her and...the baby.”

  “The baby?”

  “She’s pregnant and hurt. I don’t know how badly. We were in the backseat. Tony was driving. Tony’s dead.... Tried...to save her...for you.”

  “For me...”

  “You care about her.”

  Sweat broke out on Michael’s forehead. His hands opened and closed in fists as fury and concern for her and grief for his brother tore at him.

  One thing was very clear. She’d lied about her relationship to Will. They had been involved. After she’d slept with Michael, she’d gone back to Will as easy as you please, gotten herself pregnant by him so he’d marry her. They’d kept it all a secret from Michael until he’d gotten back from Shanghai.

  Will had been so dazzled by Bree he’d removed his own seat belt to protect her.

  Then Michael remembered that Will would receive a million dollars from the North trust when he married, as well as a sizable increase in his allowance. He would receive even more once the child was born.

  Had Will informed Bree about all those benefits? Probably.

  Her treachery didn’t matter right now. Only Will mattered.

  His brother’s glazed eyes read Michael like a
book. “I know you don’t think you like her. And I knew you wouldn’t approve of our marriage, but she’s been through a rough time. She’s a wonderful girl. Not a gold digger like you think.”

  Michael swore silently. His brother was so hopelessly naive.

  “What you did to her...was all my fault.”

  “Whatever I did, I did it for you,” Michael said.

  “Understood. So, promise me...you’ll take care of her. If you’ll do this one thing for me, we’ll be square.”

  No way could Michael promise that.

  “Promise me,” Will insisted.

  The room felt stale and airless. His brother looked so pale—Michael couldn’t say no to him. He yanked at his collar and tore at his tie that was damp from the rain. He wanted to run out of the room, to get outside, to breathe fresh air.

  Through gritted teeth he said, “I promise I’ll take care of your wife.” Carefully Michael took his brother’s limp hand and pressed it lightly. “I’ll even shake on it.”

  “And her restaurant. Help her save it.”

  Michael nodded.

  Satisfied, Will’s heavy eyelids drooped shut.

  A few seconds later an older male nurse in blue scrubs rushed up to the gurney and flipped through Will’s chart. Without a word, he bent over his patient.

  Michael stood in the doorway and watched the man wheel his brother away, watched until they vanished down the long hall. The sounds of people rushing past him died. All he could hear was his own heart. Would he ever see his brother alive again?

  Suddenly he felt very cold, and very much alone, as alone as he’d been as a kid. Since he couldn’t stand forever in an empty hall staring at waxed floor tiles and feeling sorry for himself, he turned and headed back to the nurse’s station where he found Pedro, who took Michael to Bree.

  Two women, probably family, hovered over Bree. She lay on a narrow bed that had been curtained off from the other beds in the large room.

  Michael held out his hand. “I’m Michael North, Will’s brother. Her brother-in-law.”