Nick cleared his throat. “No baby,” he said, as if he still couldn’t believe it. She braved a look at his face. Incredibly, he looked dazed and terribly disappointed.
Disappointed? He was off the hook. “You must be relieved.”
She immediately wished the words back when he swallowed and looked away. “Relieved?” His eyes tracked slowly around each wall of the big room, an excruciatingly slow inspection, before finally coming full circle to her face again. “I don’t know,” he said slowly. “It’s amazing how quickly I got used to the idea, even embraced the idea, of having a baby with you.”
That was unexpected, although finding out recently that he wasn’t who he thought he was probably had something to do with it. While she mulled that over, Nick reached out and lifted her chin, his eyes full of concern.
“How do you feel about it?”
“Sad,” she whispered. She’d already told him she loved him. She didn’t have to hide anything now. “It was something of you, and the most worthwhile and important part of me.” She shrugged again. “So I thought, for a few hours, anyway.”
Nick slid his hands up her arms and around her back to draw her close. It was a relief to hide her face in his chest, to rest against all that clean warmth and solid support. She closed her eyes.
“There’ll be other babies,” Nick muttered into her hair. “It doesn’t change how I feel about you.”
She smiled gently, remembering. “Your luxury.” But she knew she couldn’t go back to what they were. Everything had changed. She wanted to be worth something now. “Our Fridays are in the past,” she said firmly, as if to convince herself. Would she ever feel the same burning need for anyone else? Perhaps companionship and common goals might be a safer gamble next time.
“I agree.” His arms tightened around her. “But I still want to marry you.”
Jordan snuggled in close, mentally saying goodbye to their Friday afternoons. Nick’s words took an age to filter into her woolly brain. Lack of sleep, of food, of anything resembling sunshine since their weekend away on the boat had withered her comprehension.
Had he just said he wanted to marry her?
She leaned back a little, squinting over the crisp collar and blue silk tie, past the strong, square chin and into his piercing eyes. Her heart gave a healthy kick.
No trace of amusement sullied Nick’s serious contemplation of her. Instead, he reached down and curled his fingers around her hand, squeezing gently. “I love you, Jordan, and I still want to marry you, baby or not.”
Her eyes filled, and a lump the size of Gibraltar invaded her throat. She shook her head impatiently. Why cry when she’d just heard the words she wanted to hear more than anything in the world? When she lay encircled in the arms of the man she loved more than anything in the world? When the sincerity and love shone from his eyes, soothing the hurt of the past few days, giving her hope for the future? “Really?” she asked, aware of how inadequate the question was. But her mind hadn’t yet cleared for takeoff.
Nick laced their fingers together and raised her hand to his mouth. “Really,” he murmured. “I really love you, Jordan.”
She shivered—delayed reaction. She could listen to those words all day.
“It was inevitable,” he continued, “once I got to know you, saw how hard you tried, how generous and giving you were. So sexy, you should be illegal.” He kissed her knuckles one by one. “You accepted me, although I gave you little enough. And I hate that it took me so long, and all this upset, to realize how I feel.”
A bit, fat tear escaped and slid slowly down her cheek. “Oh, Nick, I love you so much, it hurts.”
“Perhaps this will ease your pain.” He wrapped her up in his arms and bent his head to kiss her. At the first touch of his lips on hers, she tensed, waiting for the irresistible thrill that never failed to suck the breath from her lungs and sent her heart galloping. But this was a healing kiss, a kiss to say sorry, a tender, nourishing lifeline that she never wanted to let go of. She relaxed into contentment, trying to burrow closer, loving his clean, warm scent and the strength of his arms around her.
“There is still,” he told her a minute later, when he’d stopped kissing her into next week, “the matter of how your father is going to take this.”
She blinked slowly, still dazed by that kiss. “Mom likes you. She’s an amazing woman, my mother.” Jordan couldn’t quite believe Elanor had spied on her. “I’m only starting to realize how amazing—and exactly who wears the pants around here.” She smiled up into Nick’s eyes, feeling quite light-headed with happiness. Her stomach rumbled. It could be hunger. “What about your father?”
“He’ll do anything to stay in my good books at the moment,” he said, planting a kiss on each corner of her mouth. “I told him I was crazy about the devil’s daughter. He said bring the little hussy to his retirement party next week.”
“Will you protect me?” Her smile faded into pensiveness. “Wouldn’t it be great if they could be friends one day?”
“They started that way,” Nick said, nibbling his way around her jawline to her earlobe. “You’d be surprised at the impact a grandkid or two might have. It’s our duty to work on improving relations between the two most stubborn old goats in New Zealand.” He leaned back, his hands sliding from around her back to rest at the tops of her arms, holding her up. “To that end, Jordan Lake, would you marry me in the not-too-distant future? Any Friday will do.”
Jordan caged his face with both hands, unable to stop a huge smile stretching her mouth wide. “Friday works for me.” She leaned in and they touched foreheads, and stayed like that, smiling at each other, basking in a love that was sure to survive.
“Me, too,” Nick murmured. “As long as I can have you every day in between.”
Epilogue
The retirement party stepped up a notch once the formalities were dispensed with. It took Nick an age to get to the bar since everyone wanted to congratulate the new managing director along the way. He looked about for Jordan, thinking he’d barely seen her since the speeches. Randall had taken her under his wing and seemed determined to introduce her to every one of his cronies. With her tucked closely into his side, the old man practically dwarfed her slender form, in her striking, siren-red cocktail dress. He paraded her about proudly, as if she were his escort for the evening.
“Scotch, rocks,” Nick said to the barman, and helped himself to an hors d’oeuvre from the platter on the bar. Jasmine had done an amazing job of organizing the retirement-cum-birthday-cum-promotion party on such short notice. Stunning floral arrangements and clusters of cheery balloons lifted the small former ballroom at the top of the Thorne building into an elegant venue, far removed from its normal function as a conference facility. The food and drink were top-notch, and the two hundred guests seemed to be enjoying themselves. Nick reminded himself to give his trusted personal assistant a decent bonus for her efforts.
“Well, big brother, it’s your night, and not before time.” Adam appeared out of the throng of people and saluted him with his glass. Nick reciprocated, and the brothers leaned with their backs to the bar, surveying the party.
“They look cozy,” Adam commented, indicating their father and Jordan. “When are you going to let the best-kept secret out of the bag?”
Nick and Jordan’s public relationship had sent the press into a frenzy, coming on the heels of the court case. Their expected engagement even had punters at the betting agency jostling for odds. “Soon,” Nick replied. “I didn’t want to steal Dad’s thunder tonight.”
“I suppose I’ll have to come home for the wedding.”
The happy couple wanted to get married as soon as possible, but Elenor confirmed that, even though he technically wasn’t talking to them, her husband would expect the biggest and most flamboyant wedding ever staged in Wellington. They were doing their bit for family relations. It just wasn’t possible to organize such a huge event before Adam left for England.
“You’ll be b
ack in the next few months, anyway.” Nick turned to Adam, but his brother wasn’t listening. He was watching something or someone in the crowd. Nick followed his gaze and, sure enough, it was his personal assistant who held Adam’s rapt attention.
Nick sighed. His brother hadn’t taken his eyes off Jasmine all afternoon. Jordan had even commented on it. Hell, if he honestly thought Adam would ever settle down and take a woman seriously, Nick would be delighted in his choice. But Jasmine was too nice a person, and too valuable an employee, to have her heart broken by her boss’s careless brother.
He took Adam’s arm and turned him slightly. “I’d like to introduce you to a couple of our new corporate executives, Sandra and Melanie.” He indicated two extremely attractive women in their twenties, deep in conversation by the punch bowl.
Adam didn’t even look over. Jasmine had retreated to the corner of the room and slid her jacket off the back of a chair.
“I think I’ll hit the road,” Adam said, and drained his glass.
Nick laid a hand on his brother’s arm. “Adam, you’ll be gone in a day or so. Don’t start anything with her.”
Adam turned his light brown eyes on him. “I can give a woman a good time without breaking her heart, you know.”
Nick knew there was little use in arguing once Adam’s mind was made up. He was devilishly stubborn. Nonchalance might be a better weapon. “I’m only trying to keep you from making a fool of yourself. A woman like Jasmine wouldn’t even give you the time of day. You’re just not her type.”
His brother only smiled, and giving him a look that clearly said, “Wanna bet?” Then he hightailed it toward the exit after the departing Jasmine.
Nick smelled Jordan’s perfume and turned his head as a vision in red walked up to him. “I think your brother has just broken the hearts of every single female here by leaving,” she quipped.
Nick gave her a rueful smile. “I should know by now that saying ‘no can do’ is like a red rag to a bull where Adam’s concerned.”
Jordan raised her brows.
Nick put his arms around her waist and pulled her in close. “Never mind. I have much more important things to think about. Such as—” he nuzzled her ear “—when can we leave?”
“Where are we going?” Jordan picked up his glass and stuck her nose into it, inhaling.
“I have a private function to attend at a certain hotel.” Nick bumped their lower bodies together suggestively.
Grimacing at the smell of his Scotch, Jordan raised her eyes to his innocently. “I thought we were giving up the hotel on Fridays.”
“Now why would we want to do that?”
“Because it’s environmentally unfriendly, all that cleaning and polishing and lighting and so on.”
Nick looked down into her shining eyes and beautiful smile, and silently thanked the Lord for cantankerous old men.
“And anyway,” Jordan continued, “I spend half the week at your place and you spend the rest at mine.”
“We’re not married yet,” Nick told his secret fiancée, “and until we are, you’re my Friday mistress.”
ISBN: 978-1-4268-3054-9
Copyright © 2009 Harlequin Books S.A.
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Copyright © 2009 by Katherine Garbera
Tall, Dark...Westmoreland!
Copyright © 2009 by Brenda Streater Jackson
Transformed Into the Frenchman’s Mistress
Copyright © 2009 by Harlequin Books S.A.
Secret Baby, Public Affair
Copyright © 2009 by Dolce Vita Trust
In the Argentine’s Bed
Copyright © 2009 by Jennifer Lewis
Friday Night Mistress
Copyright © 2009 by Jan Colley
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