Her Pregnancy Secret Read online

  “I’m sure you were never nothing.”

  “Well, I felt like I was. My father, who worked in a refinery in Baytown, died when I was a baby. So, I never knew him. My mother was a masseuse and earned just enough for us to scrape by. She had boyfriends. Too many boyfriends. I didn’t like them or the gifts they gave me to bribe me into accepting them. I was in the third grade when I got my first job—on the docks. Not long after that I bought a used lawn mower and started mowing lawns. I had to put myself through junior college and the University of Houston. My life was tough until my mother married Jacob North.”

  “How in the world did she meet him?”

  “He was a client. I was nineteen and just out of college when they married. I asked him for a job, and he hired me as a stockbroker. I didn’t know much back then, but I guess he saw something in me because he took me under his wing.

  “With his help I advanced rapidly, which a lot of people resented, including most of his family who disliked my mother. Right before my mother died, perhaps to please her, Jacob adopted me legally—because he said he needed somebody strong he could trust to run his businesses and look after the family interests. He said Will, his only son, was too weak because he’d been spoiled. Strangely, Will, who had no interest in the business, took to me in a brotherly way, and I took to him.

  “When Jacob died, Will was all I had. The rest of the Norths tried to get rid of me. They sued, tried to break Jacob’s will—but they lost—big-time.” His grim expression should have warned her.

  “At least they’re not blood kin, so there’s a reason you don’t fit in.”

  He’d smiled and pressed her slim fingers tightly. “Except for Will, I feel like I’ve been alone my whole life.”

  “That’s sad.”

  “It’s just the way things are.”

  When he’d drawn her closer, she’d felt powerfully connected to him when he’d said, “It’s a little hard for me to trust anyone.”

  Why hadn’t she listened? Too late she’d learned the man annihilated those he didn’t trust.

  The waiter had come, and they’d elected to share crème brûlée and raspberries. The combined flavors of caramelized sugar, crème and tart berries had proved to be sheer perfection. Looking back, she couldn’t believe she’d let Michael spoon-feed her. The memory of how warmly she’d felt toward him that night, of how deftly he’d used the sensual delight of food to seduce her, chilled her. Now she knew his interest in her had been based solely on his desire to destroy his brother’s feelings for her.

  Pushing back from the excruciating memories, she stiffened and marched ahead of him toward the kitchen. Even though it was still too early for lunch, her mother had already done most of the prep work, so the rich aroma of sautéed onions and garlic and other herbs flown in from Provence lingered in the air.

  “I’ll make you a soufflé,” she said.

  “You don’t have to.”

  “Cooking relaxes me.” Better than that, it would distract her from him and the reality that she was moving in with him.

  She put on her apron and took four eggs out of the refrigerator while he wandered about, opening her drawers and investigating her cupboards. Just when she was about to object to his nosiness and tell him not to touch anything, his phone rang. Instantly, he was all business as he left the kitchen to discuss stock trades and a real-estate project in Mumbai.

  He didn’t return until she told him the soufflé was done. Then they sat down together to enjoy it with warm, buttery croissants thick with fresh, homemade raspberry jam and rich black coffee.

  As always the lush flavors of even such simple fare put her in a better humor—which meant, she’d better be on her guard. She was eating with him again.

  “Thanks for letting me come here,” Bree said as he sank his fork into her luscious soufflé. “I needed to see that Marcie and Bijou have everything under control.”

  “Where’s your chef and waitstaff?”

  “Bijou’s here. Mark’s running late because he has some family issues, but he’ll be here in a few minutes to cook. We do a lot of takeout orders, and we don’t need waiters for that.”

  “Your mother can cook?”

  “Yes...and no. She loves to cook, so she cooks. But... no! Z and I were lucky to survive her cooking. Some of her guests were once hauled away from our house in ambulances after a family dinner when I was a child. We used to watch her in the kitchen, so we’d know what dishes to avoid.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I wish. She used to throw anything that was about to spoil into a casserole or soup and then invite people over.”

  He laughed.

  “We only let her start working here when she promised not to cook. Since Z died, she says she feels his spirit here. We need her, and when she’s busy helping us hold Z’s dream together, she feels better. Z was her favorite, you see.”

  “And you know this how?”

  She wasn’t about to tell him she was the reason her parents had felt obliged to marry, or that her mother had blamed Bree for the loss of her career as a concert pianist as well for her unhappy marriage.

  Instead Bree said, “Z was their long-awaited son. The only thing my parents agreed on was how perfect Z was and how much they loved him. After he was born, I sort of ceased to exist.”

  There was a bread crumb on his lower lip. She clenched her fingers to resist the impulse to brush it away.

  “Did you hate him for that?” Michael licked his lips, and the tempting bread crumb vanished.

  Just the opposite. She’d felt relieved. “Z was just always so gifted, so charming and confident. He looked up to me and adored me, so how could I hate him?”

  “So, when you were younger, you wanted to be an editor.”

  She wished she hadn’t told him that, wished that he hadn’t asked her so many personal questions. Her secret longings were none of his business. But talking to him like this touched her somehow, made her think that if they tried, they could have a normal relationship.

  Unable to resist opening up to him, she began to babble. “I loved reading. Stories offered a safe escape from our family dramas. I wanted to do my own thing, though I hadn’t figured out what that was. But when Z became famous and had to go shoot shows in foreign lands or do book tours, he needed someone to run the restaurant, and he asked me. None of us could ever say no to Z. Mother would have helped, too, but she broke her hip and was down for six months.

  “The busier Z became, the more he needed me here. And I liked being needed. Unfortunately, he died at a very bad time for the business. He’d just expanded and taken on a lot of new investors.”

  “Like Will,” Michael said in a grim tone that made her wish she’d avoided that topic.

  “Will was already an investor.” She took a bite of soufflé before continuing. “The restaurant is saddled with debt. If I fail, my family will never forgive me any more than I could forgive myself. To them, closing Chez Z would be the end of Z’s dream. For them, he’s still alive here, you see. I feel the same way.”

  “I know a thing or two about dealing with family issues and business,” Michael muttered as he sank his fork into the airy perfection of her soufflé again. “It’s rarely easy.”

  “But I’ve got to make it work, now more than ever, and not just for my family. I need to pay off the debt and earn a decent income so I can support my baby.”

  “Your baby’s a North. You must know you won’t have to worry about money. You’re Will’s widow. I’ll take care of you.”

  “Do you think that, knowing what you think of me, I want to be dependent on you or the illustrious North money?”

  His eyes hardened. “Will’s dead and you’re his pregnant widow. We’re stuck with each other whether we like it or not.”

  With a coldly withering glance, he
shut down on her.

  He was impossibly controlling. How would she endure living with him for a week? He was an arrogant beast who thought awful things about her and was determined to control her life and her child’s. Why the hell had she cooked anything for him? Why had she talked to him, told him about her family, shared her dreams?

  Steamed, more at herself than at him, she stood up. Just as he was about to sink his fork into her soufflé again, she grabbed his plate.

  “Hey!” he cried.

  At his yelp of dismay, she grinned wickedly. When he leaped to his feet, she whirled and scraped the last of his soufflé into the sink. While he sulked, she turned on the faucet to wash it down the drain.

  “That was cold,” he said.

  “You deserved it. We’ve wasted enough time on idle chitchat. I have a bistro to run. Why don’t I pack, so I can get back here?”

  “The doctor said you’re to take the week off.”

  “I will. I’ll just sit around here and supervise, juggle a few bills.”

  “The hell you will. If you think I’m going to let you stress yourself and endanger your baby just because you’re stubborn, you don’t know me at all.”

  “Look—you stress me out more than anyone or anything here ever could. I need a break from you. Okay? The last thing I need is a bullying babysitter. Don’t you have an empire to run, or someone else to boss around?”

  “I have quite a lot to do—as a matter of fact—but nothing matters to me more than Will’s child.”

  “The North heir.”

  “My heir.”

  “Exactly,” she whispered. She felt her stomach twist. “The only reason your heir matters is because he stands to inherit your precious fortune. Money is all you care about.”

  “You know me so well.”

  * * *

  As Michael’s gaze followed the steep, Victorian staircase up several stories into the gloom, he heard Bree struggling to get her key out of the heavy interior door that had closed behind them.

  When she caught up with him, he whirled on her. “You are not climbing these stairs.”

  “I promise, I’ll take it very slowly.”

  “Not in your condition! Your doctor said no to subways because of all the stairs, remember?”

  “I don’t remember all that.”

  “Well, I do, so you’re to sit down on the stairs and make me an itemized list of everything you’ll need for next week.”

  “Michael, it will be so much easier if I just go upstairs and grab—”

  “You’re going to give me your key, and wait here while I go up and pack for you.”

  “You couldn’t possibly find—”

  “I run an empire, remember.”

  “Hey, maybe I don’t want you going through my things.”

  “You prefer to risk the baby?”

  “You’re making me feel like a child.”

  “The sooner you stop acting like one and start writing that list, the sooner we get out of here.” He pulled a pen and a pad out of his pocket.

  Sulkily she sat down and scribbled out a list. Then she told him that she hid her key outside her door in the bowl of potpourri. As he climbed the stairs, she dutifully stayed where she was.

  Three Victorian flights were more like five modern flights, he thought as he let himself into her apartment. It was tinier, messier and much shabbier than he’d imagined for someone who had such a flair for color. He had to call her cell to ask her where her duffel bag might be when it wasn’t in its proper place. Once he found it, he charged into her bathroom and pulled panties and bras and a transparent nightgown off hooks where they’d been drying. Next he scooped up toiletries and a large bottle of prenatal vitamins. Then he made his way to her bedroom so he could rummage in her chest of drawers and closet.

  With an eye for what he thought would look best on her, he chose several outfits and pairs of shoes. When he was through packing he even watered her plants, a task she’d forgotten to put on her list.

  “You’re very bossy,” she said after he’d rejoined her at the bottom of the stairs and she’d checked the contents of her duffel bag.

  “I get that a lot. Mind if I take that as a compliment?”

  “No. And you’re fast. What you picked out...will do.”

  “That last’s definitely a compliment.”

  “You’re grasping at straws.”

  “With you, I have to. So—how come you didn’t have a single picture of Will in your apartment?”

  She paled. “They...they’re all on my computer. I needed to print one and frame it. I just hadn’t gotten around to it, I guess.”

  When she lowered her eyes, he sensed there was more, way more.

  But what? What was she hiding?

  * * *

  Michael stared at his lawyer before flipping another page of the legal document in disgust. What had he expected?

  Feeling acute betrayal on behalf of his trusting brother, Michael flung the papers down onto his desk.

  Nothing like a legal contract in black-and-white to spell out the truth.

  No doubt about it, just like his own ex-wife Anya, Bree’s sole motive for marrying Will had been getting her hands on his money.

  “You’re saying the day Will married Bree, on his wedding day, he signed documents to set up a million-dollar trust fund to care for her baby? And his new bride was with him in this office when he did it? She cosigned?”

  His attorney ran a hand through his shock of silver hair and then nodded. “I wasn’t there when they came in, but that’s her notarized signature. They had new wills drawn up, as well.”

  When inspired, a conniver like her sure worked fast.

  “You knew about all this, and you didn’t tell me?”

  “I didn’t draft the documents myself. You were still dealing with that mess in Shanghai when Will told me he’d hired an independent attorney who would be sending the documents over for me to review before Will and his bride signed them.”

  “Can we break them?”

  “You can take anything to court, but if she puts up a fight, which she probably will, it will cost you more than it’s worth,” Roger said. “I don’t have to tell you that family lawsuits are very unpleasant emotionally as well as financially. When I expressed my concerns about these documents, Will made it very clear that this was what he wanted. In fact, he insisted that I promise to tell you that very thing if anything should happen to him. He seemed very anxious to take care of his child.”

  “He mentioned me, did he?”

  “He did. As for the new will, he left the bulk of his estate to his friend Tony. But in the event of Tony predeceasing him, which is what has happened, you still get everything as in his old will.”

  Now that was odd. Michael would have thought a man anxious enough to sign his will on his wedding day would have left his brand-new wife everything.

  “Except Bree gets her million dollars,” Michael said.

  “Not exactly. He left her nothing. She’s merely the trustee of her baby’s fund.”

  “Which means,” Michael said, “that she can do exactly what she wants with the money.”

  “There will be a second million deposited into the trust when the baby’s a month old.”

  “Thanks for clarifying where things stand,” Michael said coldly.

  “Anytime. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  “Do you know how much my brother had sunk into Chez Z?”

  “I have it here.” Roger handed him another document. “My best guess is, he’d given her close to a quarter of a million dollars.”

  Michael whistled as he studied the document.

  “Anything else?”

  Michael shook his head. “I can’t thank you enough for
coming by.”

  When the other man stood, Michael arose and extended his hand. He didn’t sit down again until the older man shut the door behind him.

  Bree made Will sign the documents on their wedding day. On their wedding day. And she’d called Michael cold.

  On top of the will, his brother had given her bistro nearly a quarter of a million dollars.

  Michael found the whole situation oddly disturbing. Why had his brother left everything to Tony, a man he’d never even bothered to introduce to Michael or to the rest of his family, instead of to his new wife? And how had Bree felt about that?

  Still puzzled by the documents, Michael buzzed Eden, his secretary, who filled him in on his various meetings for the day. Before ending their conference, she reminded him that he was having drinks at a midtown bar with a Mr. Todd Chase at 6:00 p.m.

  “Oh, that’s right. Todd.”

  “Who’s Todd?” she asked.

  “An old friend from the University of Houston,” Michael said. “I completely forgot he was in town.” Todd had taken a job as the CEO of a huge investment-banking firm that needed a genius at the helm, and Michael had invited him for drinks to celebrate.

  “You had me make a notation that he’s bringing his wife, and you’re taking a date. Someone named Natalia.”

  Damn. The last person he felt like dealing with was Natalia. Although she was beautiful, she was extremely high-maintenance. A model, she always made sure the media knew her every move. He’d seen her a couple of times before he’d left for Shanghai, mostly to send Bree a message that he was through with her.

  He’d forgotten all about his “date” with Natalia tonight. Knowing her, she’d have a media event planned.

  “Do you want me to call and remind her for you?” Eden asked.

  “No.” There’d be hell to pay with the needy, supersensitive Natalia if he didn’t make the call himself—especially since he hadn’t been in touch with her for nearly a month.

  Even though she was one of the world’s most beautiful and celebrated women, she was riddled with self-doubt. A perfectionist, she saw only her imperfections and needed vast amounts of reassurance. Strangely, disillusioned as he was with what he’d discovered today, he would have much preferred to go home early to Bree.