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  Her fingers tightened on the tube of toothpaste, squirting out twice what the toothbrush could hold. ‘I beg your pardon?’ She shoved the toothbrush in her mouth, swishing it violently over her teeth.

  ‘Can’t quite see you going to a sperm bank.’ Anger stirred inside him, out of nowhere. ‘But then again, maybe that would be right up your alley. Decide to have a kid, but don’t want to actually have to involve someone else in the process.’

  She leaned forward and spat. Rinsed her mouth with water and shoved the toothbrush back into the glass, where it rattled against his. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘So tell me.’

  ‘Why? What possible reason could any of it matter to you? I don’t work for you anymore! So if you’re afraid it was someone who worked at Huffington, or a patient, get over it.’ She started to push herself off the bench, as if she wanted nothing more than to get away from him, but froze midway.

  She subsided slowly on the padded seat. She didn’t look at him, but courtesy of the mirrors surrounding them, he could see the glitter of tears in her eyes.

  She’d mentioned the father not being involved with Huffington. Why?

  ‘Does the father know?’

  She lifted her hands in a futile gesture. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And what? He’s not involved. Believe me.’

  Too emphatic, he thought. And didn’t like the fact that it bothered him. A lot. ‘Do you love him?’

  Her lips parted. ‘No!’

  ‘Yet you slept with him.’

  A flood of color rose above the high collar of her sweater and crept up into her cheeks. ‘Be careful, Alex,’ she said after a moment, her voice soft and shaking. ‘Or you’ll be sounding hypocritical. I don’t believe you’re in love with every woman who has gotten friendly with your bedsheets. And since I was usually charged with sending them off with their parting piece of jewelry’ her voice got tighter ‘ I have some sense of how many there were before Valerie reappeared.’

  ‘Yeah, but that’s me.’

  ‘And you’re so great that you get to have a different standard?’

  ‘No. You are.’

  Her lips parted, but nothing came out. Naked vulnerability shone in her blue eyes. ‘Don’t assume that you know me.’

  ‘I guess I figured that out when you left me for no good reason.’ The words held a connotation that wasn’t applicable to the situation. But he didn’t retract them. Didn’t correct them.

  Nor did she.

  Silence ticked between them, and it might just as well have bounced off the mirrors because of the way it thickened. Tightened.

  A tear slid down her cheek.

  His jaw was so tight it ached, and he consciously relaxed. It wasn’t Nikki causing his tension. It was the situation with RHS and Macfield.

  Had to be.

  He leaned down to pick her up.

  She shied away and he froze. ‘Gonna spend the night here in the bathroom?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Her voice was tight. ‘Maybe I’d rather crawl back to bed than be carried again.’

  Only her condition kept him from grabbing her and tossing her over his shoulder. And the fact that he had to struggle not to do just that shook him. ‘You’re a very stubborn woman.’

  ‘Then you must be relieved not to have me in your office!’

  He walked out of the bathroom, leaving her sitting there.

  She wanted to crawl? She could crawl.

  He went into the kitchen. The carafe was nearly full of coffee. The courier pouch hadn’t moved. His father’s letter was still sitting on top of the stack of memos that Miriam had forwarded.

  He rubbed his hand down his face.

  Let out a long breath and returned to the bathroom.

  Nikki hadn’t moved.

  He silently picked her up and carried her back to the bed.

  She didn’t argue. And when he leaned over, still holding her, and whipped back the velvet spread before setting her in the center of all that silver satin, she murmured a quiet, polite, ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Do you need anything else?’

  Her gaze slanted to the nightstand. And even though it was well within her reach, he pulled open the single drawer. A neatly folded jersey was the only thing inside, and he lifted it out, dropping it on the bed beside her.

  Her fingers closed over it, drawing it over her lap in a motion that struck him as protective. She murmured another killingly polite thanks.

  He nodded and rounded the fireplace, skirting the couch and the heart-shaped tub. The kitchen and all of his problems spread on the counter there waited for him.

  He grabbed his coat off the hook and let himself out the front door instead.

  It was a clear, dark night. The moon was just beginning to climb above the tall pines on the horizon, and the light from it gleamed on the snow.

  Appreciating the view was not something he could do just then.

  It was a helluva note to realize that he preferred Nikki’s temper over the politeness.

  When she heard the door close, Nikki turned on her side and slowly lowered herself against the pillows, clutching the shirt to her chest. Neither she nor Alex had shut off the light in the bathroom, and it shone brightly into the bedroom.

  She turned on her other side, away from the light.

  It would serve her right if he got in his vehicle and left her here to fend for herself. What did he owe her, after all?

  Not a single thing.

  And she still couldn’t fathom what had prompted any of his actions, anyway. She had been good at her job, but so were any number of qualified people.

  When the door didn’t sound again, signaling Alex’s return and down deep she knew he would return she finally sat up and slid out of her jeans and turtleneck. Every muscle inside her screamed for sleep, as badly as she’d craved sleep in the first weeks of her pregnancy.

  She dropped the clothes on the floor beside the bed, not even bothering to fold them. She tugged off her bra and felt nothing but relief because the thing had been growing increasingly tight the past few weeks. She needed some new clothes. Up to now she’d managed mostly with oversize sweaters and the few maternity pants and jeans she’d bought. But she wouldn’t be able to scrape by like this much longer.

  If she didn’t earn some money soon to buy more, she’d end up going on a shopping spree with her mother, who would simply insist on it.

  Not that Nikki didn’t enjoy her mother’s company. She did. But she had stopped allowing her mom to outfit her wardrobe when she was a teenager, and the habit was ingrained.

  She tugged the jersey over her head and lay back again, pulling up the sheet. Yet as sleepy as she was, as bone-deep tired as she felt, she didn’t fall asleep.

  If you want your sister here, I’ll find her.

  She believed him. And she struggled against the temptation. She and Belle had never lived in each other’s hip pockets. They’d have driven each other mad if they had. But Nikki couldn’t ever recall missing her twin as much as she did now.

  Not even after Cody died.

  But what would she say to Belle if she were here? Would she tell her sister, finally, the monumentally foolish details of how she’d ended up in her condition?

  That, depressed not only over Alex’s evidently renewed relationship with his ex-wife, but at the passing of another year marking the anniversary of Cody’s death, she’d let herself be seduced by a man who looked remarkably like Alex, yet wasn’t?

  She’d met Alex’s cousin on only three occasions. The first time, he’d walked into her office, propped a hip on her desk and grinned a ridiculously charming grin that hadn’t moved her in the least.

  It wasn’t Hunter Reed’s gregarious, flirtatious nature that had seduced her.

  It was the fact that he looked uncannily like Alex. But Hunter Reed was most definitely not Alex.

  And when she’d felt honor-bound to notify him about the pregnancy resulting from that one miser
able night, he’d let her know in no uncertain terms that he was not going to be held responsible for her brat.

  He’d sent an exorbitant check, along with a ream of legal documents to that effect, in return for leaving him alone.

  She’d tossed the check and the documents in a box deep in a closet, and been grateful that she wouldn’t ever have to deal with any member of the Reed family again.

  Nikki heard the door open and close. Alex was back.

  So much for that belief.

  Chapter Six

  Five days down, too many to go.

  Nikki flipped three more playing cards down on the bed beside her. She’d been playing solitaire for only a few minutes, but it felt as if she’d been at it for hours.

  Days.

  She sighed and glanced over at the television. She had the sound nearly muted. She was tired of listening to endless weather reports of a storm that was supposed to blow in sometime that day.

  She wasn’t worried about a storm. Alex had cut enough wood to last through the millennium.

  He was currently in the kitchen, where she couldn’t see him, but could hear the cadence of his voice.

  He was angry and making no attempt to hide it.

  A courier had delivered another fat package late that afternoon while she was eating a peanut butter sandwich. Alex had been out back near the shed that was visible from one of the windows next to the bed.

  He’d been chopping wood, and she’d been paying far more attention to the sight of him than she had to the lunch he’d prepared for her.

  Who knew that Alex could wield an ax with a wicked swing when he felt compelled to do so?

  When the courier truck had lumbered into view, he’d strode past her windows, the ax propped over his shoulder to sign for the package, and she’d quickly tended to the lunch rather than have him come in and see how little she’d eaten. He would want to know if she was feeling poorly again, and she didn’t want to lie about that. Mostly, she wouldn’t want to admit she’d been ogling him.

  Now there was a mammoth quantity of split logs stacked near the fireplace, and he was inside again.

  Slamming cupboard doors every now and then, particularly when his voice rose. Which it had been doing more and more of late.

  Since the night he’d barged in on her and demanded to know where the father of her child was if there even was a father they’d both gone out of their way to avoid personal matters.

  As much as could be avoided, given the situation. But such careful behavior was a stress all on its own, one that was driving her quietly out of her mind.

  She slapped the queen of hearts under the king of clubs and pitied Miriam Delmar, who seemed to be the focus of Alex’s latest frustration. Nikki was on the verge of begging him to stop yelling at Miriam, when she heard a crash and an oath.

  Her hands scattered the solitaire game as she sat up. ‘Alex? You okay?’

  More clattering. More cursing. Then belatedly, ‘Yeah. Fine.’

  A little information, please? She waited, but none seemed forthcoming. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Dropped the cell phone in the frickin’ dishwater and tipped over the bar stool.’

  She clapped her hand over her mouth to muffle the laughter that sneaked up on her.

  Another oath came from him. ‘Are you laughing in there?’

  ‘Ah no,’ she managed to reply. She barely had time to school her expression before she saw his legs through the fireplace and he entered the room.

  ‘Funny?’ He held up his small cell phone. Soapsuds were still clinging to it, and water dripped down his forearm where he’d shoved up the sleeve of his dark gray sweater. ‘This place doesn’t even have a damn landline.’

  She bit her lip, but her shoulders shook a little with suppressed laughter. She leaned over to the nightstand, which had slowly but surely been filling up with her personal items since they’d arrived. She unearthed her own cell phone from beneath the edge of a decorating magazine she’d found on a shelf in the bathroom. ‘Here.’ She extended it to him. ‘You can use mine.’

  He walked closer. Started to reach for it, but she yanked it back out of his grasp. ‘Wait. One condition,’ she warned.

  He raised a dark, slashing eyebrow. ‘Condition?’

  ‘Barking at Miriam isn’t going to make her more productive. She’s always been terrified of you.’

  The brow lowered, joining the other. ‘Barking.’ His voice was mild.

  ‘Yes. Barking. She’s probably scrambling to keep things on an even keel with you gone, but I’m sure she’s doing her best, and’

  ‘She’s sending me crap that any reasonably intelligent secretary should be able to handle on her own!’

  ‘But she’s not your secretary. She’s not anyone’s secretary. She’s the head payroll clerk!’

  He exhaled sharply. ‘Then you call her and tell her to get a cell phone to me in tomorrow’s courier pouch. At least that will be something useful she can do.’

  He looked so utterly aggravated, and so out of character with his cashmere sweater splashed by soapsuds and water, that Nikki felt as much sympathy for him as she did poor Miriam.

  And she was bored out of her skull because of her enforced inactivity. Boredom that allowed her mind to trip down roads it had no business traveling. ‘Fine. I’ll talk to her.’

  His eyes sharpened. ‘You will?’

  She nodded. ‘And you might as well bring me the courier pouch. Maybe I can take care of some of the routine stuff for you and you can relax a little.’

  He snorted, because they both knew he rarely relaxed. ‘Sure you want to do that? Might smack a little of working for me again.’

  ‘Consider it returning the favor,’ she murmured, with far more blitheness than she felt. ‘For everything you’ve been doing for me. But that’s all it is. A favor. I’m not coming back to work for you.’

  ‘I didn’t ask you to,’ he reminded her.

  ‘Not recently,’ she allowed.

  But he was smiling a little. And she knew better than to trust that faint, corner-of-the-mouth-tilted-upward smile. ‘I mean it, Alex. I am not coming back to Huffington.’ It had taken every bit of strength she’d possessed to leave in the first place. She couldn’t let herself backslide now.

  The baby kicked.

  It felt like agreement to Nikki.

  ‘Don’t get yourself worked up about it,’ he said, which didn’t convince her at all that he took her assurance seriously. He left long enough to retrieve the courier pouch, which he dumped on the bed beside her. ‘And speaking of getting worked up. You’re not to overdo it.’

  As she reached for the pouch, there was an undeniable wave of anticipation building inside her that she hoped to heaven was not apparent to him. ‘How on earth can I overdo something when I’m lying down every hour of the day?’ She slid out a massive amount of interoffice envelopes, correspondence and reports, and tossed the pouch aside. She understood his frustration when she immediately noticed the quantity of junk mail that Miriam had sent.

  ‘Don’t forget the replacement cell phone.’

  Her fingers were already busy, nimbly sorting and prioritizing. ‘I won’t forget. Oh, my.’ She paused.

  ‘Miriam must have stuck this in by mistake. It’s your personal calendar from last year. Had you asked her for your current one?’

  ‘No.’ He held out his hand, and her fingers grazed his when she handed the thick book to him.

  He flipped it open. Fanned through the pages.

  Her hand curled at her side. ‘You, um, well, she should definitely stick that back in your files. You never know when you might need to go back and check the dates of a meeting or something.’ Alex was very technologically minded, but he was old-fashioned when it came to keeping his calendar.

  She’d always thought it was kind of cute.

  But when she eyed him, his smile was tight.

  ‘I’ll call Miriam first thing in the morning,’ she reiterated quickly.

  �
�Thank you. Now, may I still use your phone?’

  ‘Oh. Right.’ She held it out and his hand brushed hers once more as he took it.

  She curled her fingers against her palm, but the tingling remained.

  After a moment, he turned to leave the bedroom. Nikki watched him in the mirror, only to flush when his gaze captured hers in the reflection.

  ‘Don’t overdo it,’ he reminded her, not breaking his stride.

  She looked down at her belly. ‘Hear that?’ she whispered. ‘Mr. Reed has spoken.’

  ‘Mr. Reed has good hearing.’

  She started. Alex was crouched on the opposite side of the fireplace, looking through at her. He set another log in place, then scratched one of the long matches from the metal container there were identical ones on each side of the fireplace and set the flame to the kindling.

  The tiny blaze wavered, then licked. Caught. Spread. And still Alex watched her.

  The warmth from the fireplace was immediate. Or maybe it was warmth coming from inside her.

  She dragged her gaze away from his and blindly reached for the courier pouch again, to pull out another handful.

  When she finally had the nerve to look up again, Alex was gone.

  Her fingers went lax, and the invitations to events, dinners, conferences fell to the mattress. She swallowed. Closed her eyes for a moment, gathering herself.

  After a while, her heart stopped pounding in her ears, and she could hear Alex talking again, this time on her cell phone. His voice wasn’t raised, which didn’t necessarily mean a thing.

  But sitting here wondering if it was business he was discussing, or if it was a personal matter Valerie? was too disturbing. Nikki leaned over, unearthed a pen from the cluttered nightstand and started writing notes to Miriam on the most glaringly important items.