Her Pregnancy Secret

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.”

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.