Her Pregnancy Secret

“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 researched 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.

Tears misted her eyes. How could so much change so fast? How could they both be gone?

“It’s Tony,” she said

“The driver? He was Will’s best friend who died at the scene? He was Will’s roommate, too?”

“And our best man,” she said.

And so much more.

Michael slowly set the picture back on the piano beside the others of Tony and Will with different friends. “Tell me again why you married Will.”

She backed away. “Do we have to talk about this?”

“You asked me about my love life.” A dangerous edge had crept into his soft voice. “Did you want him, my brother, as much as you wanted me?”

It made her sick to remember how much she’d wanted Michael; sick to think that even now he wasn’t entirely unattractive to her. She wanted to believe he wasn’t the man she knew he was, wanted to believe he cared, at least a little. But he’d told her in no uncertain terms how he felt about her, so she steeled herself.

“I married him, didn’t I?”

“Why?”

Because of what you did to me. Because your wonderful, caring brother wanted to help me and take care of me, which was something he knew you’d never do. Because I didn’t know what else to do.

He seemed to sense her vulnerability. Her heart skittered as his large, tanned hand closed over hers, making escape impossible. His dark eyes flashed with alarming passion as he drew her to him.

She averted her gaze from his handsome face. He’d been so cruel, and she’d fought so hard to forget him. Why couldn’t she? He’d only had to walk into her hospital room this afternoon to make her remember how he’d dazzled her.

Then he’d accused her of being a gold digger and worse.

“I’ve thought about you,” he muttered. “Thought about that night, about everything we did and said, even though all I wanted was to forget you. Even now—when I know you were lying about your relationship with Will all along, you still get under my skin.”

Ditto.

Feeling on the verge of a meltdown, she tried to wrench free. It was clear that he’d hated his involvement with her, that he wanted nothing to do with her. And it still hurt—more than it should have, even now when she knew how cold and cruel he was.

When his burning eyes stared into hers, she began to shake because she was terrified he would see her pain and understand how gullible she still was.

He held on to her and drew her closer. “How the hell could you marry my brother?”

Her pulse thrummed. As always when she was in his arms, he aroused forbidden needs.

She had to remember he’d deliberately used her, not caring how he hurt her. He still despised her. She couldn’t trust anything he said or did.

Michael certainly did not deserve the truth.

“Why did you marry him?” he asked again.

“It’s complicated.”

“I’m good at complicated, so tell me. Or better yet, show me,” he whispered.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Don’t you?”

Suddenly his hands were in her hair, stroking the dark silken gold that fell against her nape. His fingertips followed the sensuous curve of her neck before he cupped her chin and lifted her slender face to his, his touch as gentle and seductive as it had been that night.

Frantically, because it would be so easy to lose herself to the emotions that blazed in his eyes, she fought to resist him.

If only he had a real heart. If only she could truly depend on him and didn’t have to be afraid of how she felt. But she knew, and even so, he aroused her.

Her skin burned and her knees went weak. He had only to touch her to make her yearn for his tenderness. Had there been a night since she’d seen him last that she hadn’t ached to have him hold her like this and make her feel loved again? To look at her as he was looking at her now, with eyes that devoured her, adored her?

The craving for all the things only he could make her feel became too much to resist. Without thinking, she arched her back and opened her lips, inviting his mouth to claim hers. His tongue entered her. In an instant, the rightness of his searing kiss, and her hunger, were a thousand times stronger than what she’d experienced before.

She had to fight him. She knew what he was about. But the room was spinning and she was clinging, melting, falling. As he pulled her closer, every feminine cell pulsed with the desire to surrender to him in the hope he felt something deeper than he could admit.

All that mattered was that she’d longed for him, and he’d returned. She felt him, erect with a fierce masculine need he couldn’t hide as he pressed against her. No matter how he’d denied his feelings, there was a raw, elemental truth in his kisses. In that moment she believed he was as helpless as she to fight the explosive chemistry between them.

Again and again he kissed her, leaving her shaken from the bittersweet joy of being with him again. His tongue dipped deeply inside her mouth and sent a tremor through her. When his grip tightened around her waist, she realized he was trembling even more than she was.

Time seemed to slow as he made love to her with his mouth and tongue, as his hands moved down her curves. She’d missed him, though she’d denied it.

She couldn’t deny it now as his hands slid downward to cup her bottom and bring her closer to the powerful, masculine heat of his arousal.

Throwing caution aside, her hands traced over his hard body before sliding inside his waistband. In her desperation she ripped his shirt out of his slacks. But when she caressed his hard abs, he shuddered, let out a savage cry and then tore his lips from hers.

Cursing her softly, he took a step backward, even as he retained a grip on her arm to steady her when she began to sway.

“What’s wrong?” she whispered, aching for more.

“You answered my question,” he said, his cold, flat voice reducing the tenderness and warmth that burned inside her to ashes. “You still want me—which means you married Will for cold, calculating reasons. You are every bit as low as I thought. I’ll never forgive you for using my brother like that. You didn’t care how you were going to hurt him, did you? Not as long as you got what you wanted.”

“What?” In shock, her wild eyes met his icy ones.

Who was using who? How could Michael kiss her like that and then shut her out again just when she felt so passionately aroused and open to him? Just when she believed there might be feelings beneath his passion. Had he really kissed her like that only to prove a point?

She swallowed and fought to find some control within herself, but she was too close to the edge, too vulnerable. She had been through too much today. She wanted Michael, and he despised her.

“I don’t want you. My resistance must be low because they gave me painkillers. I—I didn’t know what I was doing.”

“Well, you can believe that if it makes you feel better,” he began with a calm disdain that chilled her to the marrow. “But you want me, all right.”

Because I’m a human being, and I thought you cared.

“So, do you need help undressing or running a bath?”

“What?” His curt, dismissive change of subject hurt.

Surely she would lose all self-respect if he stripped her and touched her and made her even more aware of him as a man while he regarded her with such cool contempt.

Never again would she let him arouse her deepest feelings and play her for a fool. Never again.

“I can take care of myself,” she snapped, furious. She was weak and injured tonight and that had made her highly susceptible. He’d taken advantage of her.

“Then I suggest you get started,” he said.

“I don’t want to bathe with you here.”

“Then pretend I’m not here.”

“Impossible.”

“The only reason I’m looking after you is because I made a promise to my brother. Trust me, I’ll leave you alone. I didn’t kiss you because I wanted to. I kissed you to find out if you wanted my brother, the poor bastard. You didn’t. So, go in the bedroom, shut the door and get ready for bed.”

How could she stay here with him? How could she pretend he wasn’t here while she undressed, when awareness of him still buzzed in her blood despite his icy disdain?

“While I’m waiting for my turn to shower, I’ll see what there is to eat and make some business calls.”

“Right—the all-important CEO who’s always so busy looking after the North fortune he doesn’t have time to be human.”

“Damn you, I’ve got other things to do besides babysit you. I’ve got work,” he growled. “Lots of it.” Turning his back on her, he pulled out his phone and sank down on the couch.

Infuriating man.

Whoever answered on the other end must have begun by offering his or her condolences immediately because Michael lowered his voice and hunched over the phone, his expression haggard as he talked about Will. So, he wasn’t totally unfeeling. He just didn’t care for her.

Her heart constricted as she heard him going over some checklist about funeral arrangements, and Bree imagined he’d forgotten her. Surrendering to his will, partly because she couldn’t bear to listen as he finalized the details of Will’s memorial service, she padded softly toward Will and Tony’s bedroom.

As she entered it, Michael cupped the receiver. “Don’t lock the door,” he ordered. “If you faint, I’ll need to get in. If I can’t open the door, I’ll break it down. Do we understand each other?”

Exhaustion and frayed nerves and what was left her desire had her so close to the edge she felt like screaming. Or weeping hysterically. “You’re such a brute! I don’t want you here. And I don’t have to do what you say. I don’t! I can’t stand you!”

“We’ve already had this discussion. The doctor released you on the condition you’d remain under my care until your checkup next week because you were spotting. You agreed.”

As if he cares about the baby, she thought dismally.

“Next week!” she moaned aloud. “I was in so much pain, I was out of my mind to agree to a week with you.”

“Bottom line—you agreed,” he said. “So, you’ll damn well do what I say, or I’ll make you!”

She shut the door. Then, thinking about the way he’d kissed her and rejected her—as if she was nothing—she opened the door and then slammed it so hard its frame shook. Not that the childish action gave her any satisfaction.

Her gaze ran over the guys’ bright, modern bedroom. Being in Will and Tony’s private space brought the loss she felt for them to the surface again. They’d been so sweet to her. Feeling confused, grief-stricken and concerned about her unborn baby, she went into their bathroom where she stared at her white, bruised face in the huge, carved mirror they’d told her they’d bought on a recent trip to Oaxaca.

Cuts and purple bruises covered her gray skin. Blood stiffened several locks of her hair. How could she have imagined Michael desired her?

He didn’t want her. He never had, and he certainly didn’t care about her. No, he disliked her. He’d seduced her to drive a wedge between her and Will. Tonight he’d kissed her and used his expertise at lovemaking merely to prove that he had her where he wanted her. His only interest in her had always been using her to protect the North fortune. For that same reason, he was interested in the baby. The baby was his heir.

If only she hadn’t agreed to Will’s plan. Then Michael wouldn’t be here, and she wouldn’t have kissed him again and relearned how powerfully she still felt about him. Nor would she have had to endure realizing how much he despised her.

Choking back a sob, she began to strip.

* * *

Michael couldn’t stop thinking about Bree alone in Will’s bedroom.

Had she and his brother been happy in that bed together? Even though a part of Michael hoped she’d made his brother happy, another more selfish part resented any connubial bliss, however short-lived, she might have shared with Will. Because the idea of her in any other man’s bed, even his brother’s, felt like sacrilege.

She was Michael’s. He wanted her. Kissing her again had taught him how much.

Why was he always attracted to users like her? God, what a mess.

How many endless, bleak hours had passed since she’d slammed the door? With his arms pillowed under his head, he felt restless on this couch from hell that was too short for him. He stared up at the bar of moonlight shifting on the ceiling.

Michael had promised his brother he’d look after Bree. He’d come here intending to honor his promise. What had he done instead? He’d mauled her just because he’d had to know if she still desired him.

She did. Her molten response had almost brought him to his knees.

He had no right to touch her. No matter what else she was, she was his brother’s widow. She’d been injured in a car wreck that had claimed three lives. She was pregnant, and her condition was precarious. For her protection and the baby’s, he had to keep his hands off her.

His eyes grew heavy, but just as he was about to shut them, she screamed. His heart racing with fear, Michael bolted to his feet and raced across the shadowy apartment.

He pushed the door open. “Bree?”

She’d kicked her sheets and blankets aside and was shivering. When she neither cried out nor answered him, he realized she was having a nightmare. His fault, no doubt. She’d been through a lot, and he hadn’t made things easier for her.

His anger forgotten, he rushed to her. The masculine, long-sleeved dress shirt she’d chosen to wear had ridden up to her knees. When he saw the paleness of her bruised face and the dark shadows under her eyes, his concern and the self-loathing for his callous treatment of her grew.

Instead of awakening her, he pulled the covers over her gently. When she continued to tremble, he went to the living room and grabbed his jacket. He draped it over her shoulders. Then, unable to leave her, he sank down onto the bed beside her. After a long moment he began to stroke her hair.

Asleep, she looked young and innocent and completely incapable of deceit. He remembered the blood on his sheets that first night and how virginal she’d seemed when he’d made love to her. He’d never been with anyone who’d seemed so young and fresh and eager for him. Although he’d told himself she’d been a clever actress, he’d been enchanted. He’d almost forgotten that he’d ever considered her opportunistic and out to deceive his naive brother.

When she cried out again and then, drawn by his warmth, cuddled against him, he hardly dared to breathe for fear he’d startle her.

Then her hand slid across his thigh and a flame went through him. In an instant he was as hard as granite.

With her soft body lying against him, it was much too easy to forget why he should dislike her, much too easy to remember the heat of her response.

“Michael,” she whispered. “Michael.”

“I’m here,” he said, worried that he’d awakened her somehow.

“I’m...baby...I’m having a baby. Wanted to tell you...but didn’t know how.”

“It’s okay.” He looked down at her.

Her lashes were shut. He relaxed when he realized she was only talking in her sleep.

“I know about the baby,” he said. “It’s all right.”

“I wanted you to be happy about it.”

“I am happy about it.”

He was happy his brother had left something of himself behind. At the same time, illogically, he wished she’d never been involved with Will.

Unable to resist the temptation to touch her and reassure her, he placed his hand on her shoulder. Then very gently he brushed his lips to her forehead.

“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered. “I won’t let anybody hurt you...or your baby. I swear.”

In her sleep, she smiled. “I know. You just pretend...to be mean and awful and greedy.”

The wistful tenderness in her voice touched his heart. As before, she smelled of strawberries, making him remember how slick and tight she’d been, how she’d cried out at his first stroke—just as a virgin would have—but then had refused to let him stop. She’d felt so perfect. She’d been so sweet.

The memories had him burning up. His every muscle felt tight. The blood on his sheets had been real. He’d been her first. She hadn’t been lying about that as he’d tried to make himself believe. No matter what she was, that had to mean something.

He wanted to pull her closer, to hold her, to ask her why she’d never slept with anyone before him. But more than that, damn it, he wanted to make love to her again.

What was he thinking? Why did he care so deeply for this woman who’d only wanted his brother’s money?

He had to get up and separate himself from her before he lost all control and kissed her and woke her...and risked jeopardizing her health and the baby’s.

Gritting his teeth against the pain of leaving her, he eased himself to the other side of the big bed. Then he got up and went to the window where he stood for a long time, staring down at the glittering rooftops of the Village. Not that he really saw the sparkling lights or the buildings in the moonlight.

He couldn’t let himself feel so much for this woman.

When his breathing eased, he walked over to Will’s easy chair beside the bed and sat down. He intended to stay only a minute or two, but Bree’s sweet nearness eased the savage demons that rode him.

No matter what she was, no way could he leave her alone to deal with her nightmares.

Before he knew it he was fast asleep.

* * *

An alarm buzzed in her ear. When she moaned and rolled over onto soft, downy pillows, her throbbing head felt foggy. Every bone in her body, indeed every muscle she had, screamed in pain. Where had this headache from hell come from?

She let out a smothered cry and sat up. What was wrong with her? Why did everything hurt?

“You okay?” growled a deep, protective voice from above her.

In confusion she blinked up at the tall, broad-shouldered man towering over her. “Michael?”

What was he doing in her bedroom?

Confused, she scanned the bright paintings on the walls. No, she was in Will and Tony’s bedroom.

As Michael’s black eyes continued their blazing appraisal, she blushed at the intimacy of awakening in yet another bedroom with him.

How long had he been watching her? What was she doing here with him?

In the next instant his tense, brooding expression had her flashing back to him sitting beside her in the hospital. She remembered the SUV careening across the median straight at her. Tony had been unable to maneuver into another lane. They’d been hit and had rolled. Will’s limp body had crushed hers.

He hadn’t made it.

The loss of Will, as fresh as yesterday, slammed into her anew. Sinking into Will’s pillow with a shudder, she groaned and buried her face in her hands. Dear, dear Will, who’d become her best friend after Johnny’s death, was gone.

Will had been closer to her than most brothers were to their sisters. And now, because desperate circumstances had forced her to agree to marry him, she was stuck with his brother.

“It was so nice before I saw you and remembered...about Will and Tony and everything that’s happened,” she said. “Reality sucks,” she said mournfully.

Michael’s black eyes darkened, if that were possible. “I know. There’s always that first moment when you wake up...before you remember. Before the horror hits you.”

“I don’t want to get up and face a day without them,” she said. “I don’t want to be in their apartment.”

“Their apartment?”

“I...I mean Will’s apartment,” she corrected quickly. “Ours. I don’t want to remember...any of it or try to go on. It’s too hard.”

“Tell me about it. But we don’t have any choice. We have responsibilities.”

He sounded nice, almost human. But he wasn’t. She had to remember that.

Michael must have grabbed her phone from the nightstand and shut off her alarm because the noise suddenly stopped.

“Do you want coffee?” he asked abruptly.

When she nodded, he vanished.

She was rubbing her eyes when he returned a few minutes later with a steaming mug. “What time is it anyway?”

When he held out the mug, she sat up straighter, causing something to fall from her shoulders.