Her Pregnancy Secret Page 3

The older woman took his hand. “I’m Bijou, her mother. Wait! I never forget a face. You’re that handsome rich guy that came to the restaurant looking for her, yes? I thought maybe you gave her some trouble, yes?”

  Heat washed through him. “Yes.”

  “I’m Marcie,” the pretty blonde beside Bijou said. “I wait tables for Bree and Bijou. Bree’s just the sweetest person in the whole world. So is Will. I can’t believe that two such super people...”

  “Marcie! You need to be strong, oui!” Bijou turned to Michael. “We’ll give you a minute with her,” she said. “But only a minute.”

  When they left, Michael moved closer to Bree’s bed. Her thick lashes were still against her bloodless cheeks, so she didn’t see him at first. Dark circles ringed her eyes. More than a dozen bruises and livid cuts covered her arms and cheeks. At the sight of her injuries, he choked on a breath.

  She looked so slim and fragile in her hospital gown, he felt a stab of fear. She was carrying his brother’s child, and Michael had sworn he’d take care of her.

  Despite the money she must have been after when she’d married Will, Michael’s resentment toward her faded. If Will died, her child would be Michael’s last link to his brother.

  “Bree? Can you hear me? It’s Michael. When I got in from Shanghai I heard about the accident. I came at once.”

  “Michael...” Her lashes fluttered weakly, and for an instant her face lit up with pleasure...and with some other more luminous emotion that thrilled him. Her eyes had shone like that when he’d first entered her.

  In the next second she must have remembered what he’d done because her gaze went flat and cold. “Where’s Bijou? What are you doing here? I want my mother back.”

  “Your mother’s right outside. Will asked me to check on you, so I’m here,” Michael said softly.

  “Will asked you...” She let out a harsh sob and turned her face to the wall. “I don’t believe you! He’s as fed up with you as I am! Go away!”

  Michael felt conscience-stricken and confused, which wasn’t like him.

  “I don’t need you here,” she said to the wall, her tone so low he could barely hear her. “Will knows that, so you’re lying if you say he sent you.”

  “He did. He was facing surgery, and I think he was afraid.”

  She sucked in a breath. “Oh, God... I’m being so selfish. Tony’s dead and maybe Will won’t...and he’s in there scared and alone...and thinking of me. He’s so good.”

  “Yes, he is.” Michael’s voice was hard and condemning.

  When she jerked her head around to stare at him again, he noted how the soft blue fabric of her hospital gown molded against her breasts. “They told me how badly Will was hurt. They didn’t want to. But I made them. If he dies, it will be all my fault. He took off his seat belt...right before that SUV shot across the median and rammed us. Will saw it coming and threw himself in front of me...to protect me and the baby. Poor Tony never had a chance.”

  “Who’s Tony?”

  An odd, almost sorrowful expression passed swiftly over her bruised face. Clutching her sheet, she looked away. “Will’s best friend. He was driving.”

  “Funny. I’ve never met him.”

  She chewed her bottom lip. “I imagine you were too wrapped up in money matters to really involve yourself in your brother’s personal life—except when it came to me—because you saw me as a financial threat.”

  Her words hurt more than they should have. “Will said you and he were expecting a baby.”

  Her face went even whiter, if that were possible.

  “H-he had no right to talk to you about the baby. He swore to me he wouldn’t.”

  “He asked me to take care of you...and the baby...in case...”

  She shuddered. “It just gets worse, doesn’t it? You and me—stuck together...maybe without Will?”

  “It’s probably just a precaution. I promised him I would. If...if the worst happens. I intend to keep my word.”

  “Really? Your word?” She tipped her head back and frowned, studying him. “As if that means something.” She took a deep, stabilizing breath. “Just go away.”

  “I intend to honor my promise—whether or not you want me to,” he said.

  “You deliberately deceived me, to get me to do things I find truly humiliating now. How could I have been so foolish?”

  Sensual, erotic things he’d dreamed of her doing to him again.

  “I thought I’d found the one person—never mind!” she snapped. “You made it very clear how you really felt about me at a moment when I was most tender and open and vulnerable to you. I don’t know how all those other women feel, the ones you date for a night or two, but let me be very clear. You are the last person I would ever want in my life, even casually. I don’t care if you’re Will’s brother and my baby’s...uncle, or that you feel a duty to keep your promise. I do not want to see you. I do not want my child to know you. Do you understand?”

  Her words cut Michael deeply. Curiously, he felt guilt, as well. Why should he feel that when he’d been trying to protect his tenderhearted brother who had proven time and again he was too trusting when it came to people who were after his money?

  Not that Michael showed his pain at her words by even the flicker of his dark eyelashes. Having grown up poor, in a rough Houston neighborhood near the ship channel, he’d learned to put on a tough mask whenever he felt the slightest weakness. His mother had barely eked out a living as a masseuse before Jacob North had married her and adopted him.

  Until Jacob, his mother had gone from man to man, taking whatever they offered to survive. Michael had worked on the docks so he wouldn’t be dependent on such handouts. He’d hated having nothing and being treated like nothing and feeling ashamed of how they’d lived. He’d learned early on that when you didn’t have it, money was everything.

  Will, on the other hand, had grown up a rich man’s adored only son. Will had loved everybody, especially his older adopted brother, whom he’d accepted right from the first. Maybe Will was the only person who’d ever loved Michael. He’d promised Jacob, to whom he owed everything, that he would look out for Will. Those feelings of profound responsibility carried over to Will’s unborn child, even if that child’s mother was someone he could never trust.

  “If Will dies, Will’s child—your child—will be a North heir. Then there’s the promise I made to my brother. Whether or not you want me in your life, I intend to take a very active interest in that little person from now on.”

  “So this is about money and control? My child is nothing more to you than the possible heir to the North fortune.”

  Why should he let her know what Will’s child meant to him when she would only use such knowledge against him?

  “A fortune does carry a huge responsibility.”

  “I’ll bet you’re used to getting your way.”

  She was right about that.

  Her eyes darkened. “Well, you won’t. Not with me. Never again.”

  “We’ll see,” he said. Then he let it drop. He fully intended to win this battle, but he wouldn’t bully the pregnant wife of his injured brother.

  “I want you to go,” she said.

  “Too bad.”

  When he sank down into the chair beside her bed, she glared at him. At his thin smile, she shut her eyes and twisted her face away. As he stared at her stiff back, he knew she couldn’t force him out of her thoughts any more than he could force her out of his. Just being in the same room with her, even when she was injured, disturbed him.

  An hour later, she was still rigid and seething when Will’s grim, hollow-eyed surgeon found them.

  “Mr. North? Mrs. North?”

  When she opened her eyes and met Michael’s, she blushed.

  “I’m Will North’s wife,” she said. “
Michael North is my brother-in-law.”

  “I see. Sorry about the confusion.”

  Michael had only to look into the surgeon’s shadowed eyes to know the worst. Will was gone. Slowly Michael stood and shook the man’s hand, listening, asking the appropriate questions, thanking him even as ice closed around his heart.

  Bree let out a hoarse sob midway through the surgeon’s detailed explanation.

  “Your brother lost a lot of blood at the scene....”

  Michael’s vision blurred. He felt himself near some fatal edge. Maybe to steel his own nerves, he concentrated on Bree, whose face had gone as white as her sheets. Leaning over her hospital bed, he took her trembling hand. At his touch, she stiffened. Then, to his surprise, her fingers tightened around his, and she tugged him closer. Grabbing fistfuls of his jacket, she threw her wet face against his broad shoulder and burrowed into it. Clinging to him, she wept soundlessly.

  His suit would be a mess tomorrow, but he needed to hold her, needed it more than he had ever imagined needing anything. Despite his own hideous sorrow and the profound gulf that separated them, he was glad Bree was here, glad not to be completely alone with his grief.

  “Bree,” he murmured. Careful not to hurt her, his arms closed around her. “It’s going to be okay.”

  “You don’t know, so how can you say that?”

  “Time has a way—” He broke off, unable to repeat the usual trite phrases people offered one another for comfort.

  Strangely, holding her seemed to be enough. Never had he felt more powerfully connected to another human being as her tears rained down his cheek.

  After a long time she said, “Tell my mother and Marcie...about Will. Please...” Her voice was choked. “I just can’t.”

  “Anything,” he murmured as he let her go. “I’ll do anything you want.”

  “Really? Excuse me if I find it hard to believe that the man with no heart is now willing to do anything for me.”

  “You’re pregnant with Will’s child, and he’s gone. Everything’s different between us now.”

  “Yes. Will’s child,” she repeated softly.

  “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for Will’s baby, and, therefore, for you.”

  Three

  The pain meds must have made her daft. Why else would she have agreed to spend the night—no, seven nights—at Will’s loft with Michael?

  Because your Victorian brownstone has stairs—three tall flights of them—and no elevator, remember?

  The fact that her building had no elevator had never been a problem before. Okay, so she didn’t like elevators or any small, boxy room. With her history, who would?

  When she’d been a kid, an older cousin had locked her in a closet and left her there while he’d gone out to play. She’d been hysterical by the time her mother, who’d been busy in the kitchen downstairs, had found her. Every time the doors of an elevator closed Bree remembered Jeremy’s gloating smile right before he’d shut the door and turned out the light.

  Bree chewed a nail as Michael jammed the key into the door of Will’s loft apartment in the Village. Maybe if she deliberately goaded Michael, he’d decide looking after her wasn’t worth it.

  “I can’t believe, that as frequently as you saw your brother, you’ve never been inside his place before now,” she said.

  Michael’s mouth tightened. “What do you know about it?”

  She smiled. “Oh—did I hit a nerve?”

  “He used to have me to his place on the Upper East Side all the time,” Michael snapped, “but for some reason he didn’t want me dropping by anymore when he moved here. Usually we met at my penthouse or somewhere in the city. I did stop by a couple of times, but he was either just going out or his roommate was home and they were busy. I didn’t understand why he needed a roommate when he could have easily afforded to live alone. When I asked him about it, he said the guy was a good friend who needed a place to stay.”

  “R-right,” she said uneasily, deciding to back up Will’s lie. “He...he was still living here when we married.”

  “Must have been crowded, you two being newlyweds and all.”

  She didn’t like his tone but refused to comment.

  When Michael finished unlocking the door, he caught her elbow to usher her inside.

  Startled by the fire in even that brief touch, Bree jumped back. How could she feel anything for a man who’d used her and had lied to her? He was the last person she wanted helping her. But he was Will’s brother.

  “This really isn’t necessary,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound as nervous as she felt. “You don’t want to be stuck with me any more than I want you here. Why don’t you make it easy on us both and just leave?”

  “I’m staying,” he said in a tone that was raw and intense. “You can fight about it. Or you can make the best of it. Your choice.”

  The carved lines of his face looked powerful and strong—implacable. She was much too weak, exhausted and woozy from the pain meds to fight him. When he nudged her inside, she let him.

  “Whoa!” Michael said, obviously taken aback by the dramatic design of the apartment and its furnishings. “This is truly amazing, totally different than his other place. I didn’t know Will had something like this in him.”

  There’s a lot you didn’t know about him.

  Strangely, the thought made her feel sorry for Michael.

  Tony, who was a top designer and world-famous in certain circles, had put the apartment together. Not Will. The airy rooms with their skylights and soaring ceilings, and dramatic art collection and colorful, minimalistic furnishings screamed Tony.

  Not Will, and not her. It wouldn’t be long before Michael picked up on the fact that she hadn’t really lived here.

  Maybe there was a piece of paper from city hall that said she and Will were married, but there was very little of her here. A chipped coffee mug or two, a pair of her jeans and panties and a favorite sweater with a cat on it in the single drawer Will had emptied for her.

  She’d slept on their couch for a couple of weeks wondering how she’d ever forget Michael and get clear of the mess she’d made of her life because of him. The only two things she’d been sure about were that she wanted her baby and she wanted to get Z’s bistro back on its financial feet. Will had promised to help in every way he could, both personally and financially.

  “I really think I’ll be fine on my own here.”

  “Hey, we’ve been over that. You heard what the doctor said,” Michael murmured in the same gentle, mesmerizing tone he’d used to seduce her. “You’re pregnant. You have a nasty bump on the head. Your blood pressure is a little low, and you shouldn’t be alone for the next week.”

  He almost sounded concerned.

  Reminding herself that he didn’t care about her, she also reminded herself that she was okay with that. She refused to care about anybody as cold and unfeeling as him. She stepped farther inside, only to feel truly trapped when he slammed the door, stripped off his expensive jacket and flung it toward the sofa.

  “I don’t want you here. You are the last person I want to be with tonight when I feel so utterly miserable.”

  “Understood. Ditto.”

  “Underline ditto,” she cried.

  “But here we are—together.” Grimly, he bolted the various locks from the inside. “It might be dangerous for your baby, my niece or nephew, if I don’t stay. Like you said, your mother has cats, and you’re allergic to them.”

  Why was he acting as though he cared?

  “From what the papers have said lately, I’d think you’d surely have some gorgeous supermodel waiting in your bed to welcome you home from China,” she muttered, dragging her gaze from his wide shoulders.

  After the fund-raiser when she’d been so dazzled by him, she’d resear
ched him online. She’d been dismayed to learn about all the glamorous women he dated. After her one night with him, he’d gone right back to dating those women. How could she have thought he was interested in her that night? The eagerness she’d felt for him and the things she’d done in his bed still mortified her.

  His jet brows winged upward in cynical surprise. “Jealous?”

  Despite her grief and exhaustion, hot indignation that he’d hit a nerve flared inside her. “Only you, who are so arrogant and sure of yourself, would take it like that.”

  “Yeah, only me—the number one ogre in your sweet, innocent life.” His grin was savagely ironic. “You didn’t answer my question, sweetheart. Are you jealous?”

  “Don’t be insane! It’s just that I couldn’t help noticing an item or two about you and several models in the gossip columns. Did you go out with them to destroy them, too?”

  When a muscle jerked in his jawline, she almost wondered if she’d hurt him. Then she remembered he didn’t have a heart.

  After an ominous pause, he said, “There’s no supermodel...if you must know. Hell, there’s nobody waiting, which is pretty normal. So, tell me about you and Will. I was shocked when he told me you were married, especially after you’d told me you weren’t interested in him that way. How did it happen? And when?”

  She turned away to hide her eyes, lest she give something away. “He asked me. I said yes. Unlike you, he’s a really nice guy.”

  “Which made him perfect prey for a woman like you.”

  “You’re wrong. About him and me.” She stopped. There was no way she could defend herself without getting into deeper trouble.

  “Forget it,” she said. “I don’t care what you think.”

  But she did.

  Frowning, Michael paced the length of Will’s dazzling white room with its grand piano and splashes of paintings and sculptures. He stopped abruptly to look at the photographs of Will and Tony on Tony’s piano.

  Panic surged through her when he lifted one.

  “Who’s the big guy in leather?”

  She moved toward the shiny black piano. Not that she had to see the picture up close to know that it was Tony in his trademark black biker attire with rings in his ears. In the photograph, he and Will were toasting Johnny and her at a party at Chez Z. It had been only a few months ago, to celebrate the restaurant’s success. Will had been ecstatic to be part of a successful venture and to share his happiness with Tony.