The Pregnant Colton Bride

by Marie Ferrarella

  That she was being framed.

  Just before Mirabella reached the door, fully intending to slam it on her exit as a final statement of both protest and anger, she heard Zane ask, “Then it’s not my father’s baby?”

  Part of her just wanted to keep going, refusing to even dignify Zane’s question with any sort of a response. But there was something in his tone that made her turn around.

  And once she did, she had to answer him.

  “No,” she said firmly, placing one protective hand over the nonexistent bump in her stomach, “this is most definitely not your father’s baby.”

  Chapter 7

  Doing her best to cover up the hurt she felt, that Zane would even think something like this about her, that he didn’t seem to be able to recall all the times they’d worked together, all the times she’d gone above the call of duty to provide the backup he’d needed, Mirabella delivered what she hoped would be the final death knell to the ridiculous theory he’d sprung on her.

  “And to put what you’d just so ludicrously accused me of to rest once and for all,” she informed him crisply, “once the baby is born, I’ll even agree to a paternity test.”

  Zane didn’t reply at first. He remained silent for what seemed like a very long time.

  The awkward moment stretched out, growing more uncomfortable by the second. And then, finally, he said, “I believe you.”

  The hurt inside her refused to abate. Zane’s lack of faith, however temporary, had done a great deal of damage to her emotional state at what felt like almost lightning speed.

  Mirabella looked at him now, not experiencing any sense of even minor relief or camaraderie. Zane had demolished all that and it was going to take time—perhaps a great deal of time—before it could be rebuilt. Right now, the way she felt, she wasn’t even sure it ever could be.

  “I really don’t care if you do or not,” Mirabella told him. “I just don’t want to be caught up in the fallout from a lie.”

  Zane nodded, but even as he did so, he felt compelled to ask her, “Who is the father?” even though he was fully aware he was still stepping well out of the boundaries of a boss-employee relationship.

  Mirabella looked at him, stunned.

  “That is none of your business,” she replied coldly. “But I will tell you—even though I don’t have to—it is not your father and it’s not anyone you need to worry about,” Mirabella concluded.

  Since the father of her unborn child was dead, his name would make no difference to Zane one way or another. His identity was her secret to reveal or keep and she chose to keep it.

  Zane and Mirabella had a good working relationship up until just now and he felt badly about what felt like its apparent demise. He’d been upset and stressed to almost the breaking point, but that wasn’t an excuse to suddenly turn on her and believe the worst. She’d never given him any cause for that.

  He’d just gotten caught up in this storm and had lost the ability to know who—or what—to believe. He shouldn’t have.

  “Mirabella.” He began feeling his way to an apology, something he had very little experience with. “I’m sorry if I offended you—”

  “If?” Mirabella echoed incredulously, her eyes wide with disbelief. “If?”

  He really wasn’t any good at this. Zane tried again. “You’re right. I’m sorry I offended you. But I’ve been under a great deal of stress lately,” he explained, hoping that would be enough to make her understand his rather abrupt, erratic behavior.

  She appreciated the fact that he was trying to make amends, but it was going to take a lot more than that for her to forgive him and come around.

  “Did it ever occur to you that you’re not the only one in that sort of a situation?” she asked.

  Zane blew out a breath. She was right, of course. He’d been so angry, he had never even considered she might have been wrongly accused. He’d just jumped at the logical conclusion—or what he’d believed was the logical conclusion at the time—given the information he had to work with.

  From the look on her face, he wasn’t sure she would ever forgive him. And in all honesty, he couldn’t really blame her.

  All he could do was restate the obvious—and hope for the best. “Again, I’m sorry,” Zane apologized.

  Rather than tell him that she accepted his apology, Mirabella merely nodded in response.

  It wasn’t in her heart to harbor a grudge.

  “All right, I’ll take it under advisement,” she replied, echoing a phrase he had used on several occasions.

  The clipped, detached phrase made him smile. “That’s all I can ask.”

  Joining her at his door, Zane opened it for her, then stepped to the side, the perfect gentleman.

  The moment she walked out of the room, Zane was back on the phone, calling Meyer. The assignment was far from complete.

  Meyer Stanley picked up his phone on the third ring.

  “Stanley,” the IT expert declared.

  “I want you to find out who set up that encrypted account at the bank.”

  It took the man on the other end a moment to realize who was calling him. But even so, he still didn’t understand why. Zane’s request sounded almost redundant to him.

  “I thought we already have the answer to that,” Meyer protested.

  “No,” Zane corrected evenly, then went on to explain the difference. “We know whose account the money was coming out of and supposedly whose it was going into. We made certain assumptions about what was going on, but we didn’t bother verifying those assumptions,” he pointed out.

  He could all but see Meyer squirming in his chair. The oversight was obviously on him.

  “It just seemed self-evident,” Meyer argued weakly.

  He couldn’t very well blame Meyer when he was guilty of the same oversight. Zane went easy on the tech expert. “That’s undoubtedly what the person who set this all in motion thought.”

  “Mr. Colton,” Meyer began in a shaky voice, “I’m so sorry—”

  “Don’t be sorry, Meyer, be thorough,” Zane instructed. “Sorry doesn’t do either one of us any good,” he told him, thinking of his own apology to Mirabella. “And just for the record, we both made the same obvious mistake,” he said. “Now find out, beyond a shadow of a doubt,” he stipulated, “who authorized those transfers.

  “And while you’re at it,” he added, “find out if any money was withdrawn from that encrypted account once it was deposited. If it was—” and he really hoped it was “—I want to know by whom.”

  “Yes, sir,” Meyer was quick to agree. And then he said rather sheepishly, “I guess this isn’t really over yet.”

  Zane laughed shortly. Someone had intentionally misled him and he wanted to know why. “Not by a long shot. And Meyer—”

  “Yes, sir?” the man asked, sounding instantly on the alert.

  “I don’t think I need to tell you all this is to be kept strictly confidential.” There was a warning note in his voice—just in case.

  “No, sir. I mean, yes, sir. I mean—” Tongue-tied, the IT expert was at a complete loss just how to make himself understood.

  Taking pity on the man, Zane let him off the hook. “That’s okay, Meyer. Just get me those results,” he ordered.

  “Yes, sir, right away, sir.”

  Zane could almost visualize the man bowing and backing out of the room, the way servants had done in the presence of a king. He shook his head.

  “Goodbye, Meyer.”

  Terminating the call, Zane replaced the receiver into its cradle and then rocked back in his chair as he stared unseeingly at the multilined telephone. He’d thought his life was complicated before any of this had started. Now the situation was way beyond anything he could even begin to adequately describe.

  A little more than a month ago, all he’d had to deal with were packed schedules and overlapping appointments. And the biggest things he’d had to contend with were disgruntled employees and bored hackers who saw breaking into his com
pany’s system—his company’s secured system—as a challenge and a way to keep their boredom at bay for a few days or, most likely, a few hours.

  Now he was faced with a possible life-or-death situation to resolve.

  Life or death.

  Life, not death.

  He had to believe his father was among the former and not the latter, otherwise, he didn’t think he would really be able to proceed. His grief would get the better of him—not to mention Watkins would probably be hauling him down to the sheriff’s office again for another round of intense questioning regarding his father’s murder.

  Zane knew he couldn’t be Watkins’s only suspect in his father’s kidnapping, but right now, it certainly felt as though he was.

  Zane sighed, glancing out his window at the cloudless sky. He really wanted to go out, to get some air, stretch his legs and his mind, but he knew for the time being, it would be for the best if he just remained where he was and played the part of the good little head of security.

  With effort, Zane forced himself to process some of the paperwork he’d been putting off.

  The work wasn’t going to do itself no matter how much chaos there was around him.

  * * *

  Preoccupied, Zane nearly jumped at the unexpected sound. His landline was ringing. Although his immediate instinct was to pick up the receiver, he looked at caller ID before doing so.

  Meyer.

  It had been almost a full day since he’d given Meyer his instructions about tracking down the name of the person who had authorized the monthly transfers out of his father’s account and into the account with Mirabella’s name on it. This was the first time the man was getting back to him.

  Since finding the information was a top priority, and because it was taking this much time, obviously whoever they were dealing with was good at what he or she did. The perpetrator knew the ins and outs of banking as well as how to successfully manipulate the internet to do his or her bidding. What the person was doing, Zane thought darkly, was in essence taking a good thing and making it do something bad.

  There always seemed to be a real downside to progress, Zane thought as he brought the receiver to his ear.

  “Got anything for me, Meyer?” he asked without waiting for the tech expert to say anything first.

  “You were right, boss,” Meyer declared. “It’s your father’s account, but he didn’t authorize any withdrawals to be made, regularly or otherwise.”

  At this point, Meyer wasn’t telling him anything he hadn’t already suspected, Zane thought impatiently.

  “Who did?” He wanted to know.

  “I can’t say yet,” Meyer admitted, sounding embarrassed. “All I know is whoever did it knew what they were doing. But I’m not giving up, sir,” he quickly added with feeling.

  “I don’t pay you to give up,” Zane reminded him before hanging up.

  Zane was aware that sounded harsh, but right now he wasn’t in a very forgiving, jovial mood. Someone out there was deliberately playing mind games and trying to throw him off the scent. Exactly to what end he had no idea yet.

  He supposed it could be just random maliciousness—or it could be perceived as payback of some sort, with the intent of eventually bringing down the entire Colton corporation.

  Until he had some sort of definitive answers, he had no idea what it was that he was fighting. It put him at a very bad disadvantage, like a prizefighter boxing with one hand tied behind his back.

  A movement on his monitor caught his attention and he turned his chair around to look at it. Just before the call from Meyer had come in, he’d been studying a spreadsheet on his screen, but it seemed to have disappeared.

  In its stead was what appeared to be a company-wide email.

  Colton Incorporated’s logo was at the top, and while the email was addressed to “all Colton Incorporated employees,” the sender did not bear the name of any of the department heads.

  Instead, the email appeared to have been sent by the ever popular—and inaccessible—“Anonymous.” It went from bad to worse. The email’s subject line declared: Zane Colton is the Father of Mirabella Freeman’s Unborn Child.

  Zane felt an icy cold chill run down his spine as he read the words that followed.

  Mirabella Freeman, Zane Colton’s administrative assistant, gives new meaning to the term “fringe benefits.” Apparently, when she found herself (or deliberately got herself) pregnant with Zane Colton’s baby, Ms. Freeman gave as good as she got. Some of you might be interested to know—I certainly was—that company money supposedly in Eldridge Colton’s name—our apparently “kidnapped” founder—is being wired into an account which was just recently discovered to belong to the pregnant Ms. Freeman. This is obviously payoff money from Zane Colton—who’s not even a real Colton! This sort of thing shouldn’t be condoned while good people are slaving away for a company that’s being run by decadent narcissists who are only out for themselves.

  Stunned, Zane read the email again.

  And then a third time.

  He kept hoping his eyes were transposing words or even seeing words that weren’t actually there.

  But his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him. All three readings yielded the same sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  It took everything he had to suppress the rage he felt bubbling up inside of him.

  And then he thought he heard a cry of pain mixed with what sounded like sheer anguish and distress. It was coming from just outside his office.

  Mirabella.

  Something had gone very wrong.

  He was instantly on his feet. Throwing open the door, Zane looked out. “Belle, are you all right?”

  She turned in her chair to face him and he saw her stricken face. “No,” she answered in an almost eerily still voice, “I’m not all right.” And then her voice grew in volume as she asked, horrified, “Who wrote this awful email?”

  Glancing at her screen just to be sure, he saw she had received the same email. “I don’t know,” he told her, “but if I find them, they better hope their insurance is all paid up.” It was as far as Zane would allow his anger to go in front of her. She was already visibly shaken and upset. He didn’t want to add to it by ranting or venting his anger. “Get Meyer Stanley on the phone,” he ordered.

  Before Mirabella could pick up the receiver and comply, her phone began to ring insistently.

  As did his.

  It was as if their phones had suddenly triggered a cacophony of other ringing phones.

  Mirabella’s hand seemed to visibly shake as he watched her pick up her landline’s receiver.

  “Mr. Colton’s office,” she said almost inaudibly, as if afraid of what she was about to hear.

  She wasn’t wrong.

  “Congratulations. You found the secret to sleeping your way to the top, slut,” a voice on the other end snarled.

  Mirabella didn’t bother answering the accusation or defending herself. Instead, she slammed the receiver into its cradle. When it bounced back out again, moved by the force of the slam, Zane returned it to its cradle for her.

  Her hard breathing answered any lingering questions Zane might have had regarding the nature of the phone call she’d just received.

  “Don’t let it get to you,” he advised gently.

  Mirabella lifted her chin in almost defiance. “Easy for you to say. You’re a Colton. You’re not trying to ‘sleep your way to the top,’” she retorted as she repeated the caller’s taunt, tears filling her eyes despite her anger.

  Zane looked past her shoulder at her computer monitor. Emails were coming in at a fast, furious pace. The first one only had one word to it, written in capital letters, employing a sixteen point font so the message wouldn’t be overlooked.

  As Mirabella began to turn back to her desk, he caught her hand and physically stopped her. Drawing her to her feet, Zane suggested with feeling, “Why don’t we get out of here?”

  She could hear the emails coming in. There was no escapin
g them or the sentiments they expressed. “And go where?”

  “A restaurant, a coffee shop. Anywhere but here,” he countered. “It’s almost dinnertime,” he said the next moment, realizing the hour. “Let’s go out and have dinner,” he suggested, looking at her. Still holding her hand as if to coax her into agreeing, he added as a final enticement, “It’ll be on me.”

  She began to glance over her shoulder, but again, he stopped her, directing her line of vision forward and toward him.

  Mirabella offered him a weak smile. The malicious emails were twisting her stomach, making her feel even sicker than she already was.

  She placed her hand on her abdomen, futilely trying to soothe it. “That might be truer than you think,” she warned.

  He lifted a shoulder in a vague shrug. “That’s fine. I’m washable,” he told her with a wink. “Now get your purse. I’m taking you home after this.”

  There was no arguing with his tone. Not that she even wanted to.

  Mirabella could literally hear the number of emails multiplying on her screen with every second that passed. Did everyone hate her?

  She didn’t want to know.

  “I need to shut it down,” she told Zane, trying to turn toward the computer keyboard.

  Zane raised an index finger as if to warn her to remain where she was. The next second, locating it, he pulled the plug out of the wall.

  Her monitor went blank.

  “It’s shut,” he declared, gesturing toward the dormant black screen. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 8

  Dumbfounded, Mirabella stared at the black screen before her eyes shifted to Zane. “You can’t do that,” she cried.

  His expression was unfathomable. “I just did,” he stated flatly.

  She knew this, she had eyes. But that wasn’t what she meant.

  “But if you don’t shut it down properly, you can lose data doing it like that,” Mirabella protested. It was a totally reckless, spontaneous action. She hadn’t thought he was capable of that.