The Pregnant Colton Bride

by Marie Ferrarella

  Mirabella wanted to believe Zane when he said all he wanted to do was threaten the man, but she wasn’t a hundred percent certain he could control his temper once he confronted the former IT expert.

  It wasn’t that she cared about Kurtz’s welfare, but she did care about Zane and she didn’t want him doing anything that could have him running afoul of the law. From what she’d gleaned, the sheriff already wasn’t too keen on him.

  “I’d like to go with you,” she said just as he was about to leave.

  “What for?” he asked, surprised.

  She thought fast. Zane wouldn’t react well to hearing her say she thought having her there would keep him in line. “Well, those emails were aimed at me just as much as they were aimed at you. I just want to be there to hear him apologize for what he’s done.”

  He wanted to tell her to stay out of it, that he didn’t want her being around that kind of vermin, but he knew he didn’t have the right to impose his wishes on her. Charade marriage or not, Mirabella was her own person and had as much right as he did to be there when he made Kurtz accountable for what he’d done.

  “Okay,” he reluctantly agreed. “But you’re not to do anything without my say-so. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” she responded quickly.

  He had his doubts, but he had no choice. He took her along.

  Chapter 22

  Howard Kurtz had a gambling addiction that had gone from being a minor nuisance to a major problem in the last eighteen months. A major problem aggravated by the fact that, because of certain underhanded dealings he had engaged in, he had lost his job with Colton Incorporated. Although he had managed to escape doing any prison time for his offenses, his transgressions were a matter of record within the legitimate technical world. It thereby prevented him from getting any sort of gainful IT employment with any other major corporation.

  To support his growing habit—and remain alive—Kurtz was forced to hack into various computer systems, funneling funds into dummy accounts he’d set up for himself under an assortment of stolen identities.

  All the while, Kurtz had been harboring a major grudge against Zane Colton for firing him from a position that had assured him a fast rise up the internal security ladder with the promise of a sizable financial reward waiting for him when he reached that goal.

  As an added insurance policy, Kurtz had thought to get an in with Zane’s office by getting close to his administrative assistant. The little uptight witch had thrown him a curve by turning him down when he asked her out. Frustrated, he doggedly kept after her, thinking to wear her down—only to have everything blow up in his face when Zane fired him.

  Forced to go into hiding to avoid all the people he owed money to, for the last year he’d been living in one motel room after another. And all the while, Kurtz had sworn to get his revenge against the two people who had forced him into this fugitive low-level lifestyle.

  But he was getting frustrated and bored with what he was doing. It all seemed too mundane and pedantic for a man of his intellect and skills. There had to be something bigger, something more damning he could instigate. Slowly, he began to devise a plan.

  Everyone knew the old man had gone missing, which meant Eldridge had either been kidnapped—or maybe someone had killed him.

  Kurtz rather relished the idea. The world would be far better off with one less Colton in it, the former IT expert thought. It would also be better off if another Colton was found guilty of that crime.

  A crafty, oily smile slid over Kurtz’s lips as he began to relish the idea that had started forming in his head.

  Suspicion regarding the old man’s fate, he’d heard, was ricocheting back and forth amid the Coltons, along with several other suspects. Given that scenario, how difficult would it be to frame Zane? He knew Zane had already been brought in for questioning once by the sheriff.

  Orchestrating a second round of questioning wouldn’t take much.

  Staring at his laptop screen, Kurtz had begun to formulate a plan that would get rid of Zane once and for all, when he thought he heard someone knocking on his door. Instantly alert—no one was supposed to know where he was currently holed up—Kurtz felt his adrenaline racing through his veins.

  He’d hidden his tracks so well, the people who were after him couldn’t have found him, not this quickly, he reasoned, doing his best not to allow his panic to take control.

  He heard the knock again. It was more urgent this time.

  “This is the motel manager,” a gruff voice outside his door announced. “Lady downstairs called to say there’s water leaking from the ceiling in her bathroom. I gotta come in and check out the source. If you don’t open the door, I’m gonna have to use my passkey.”

  Grumbling under his breath, Kurtz got up from his desk. He checked his pocket before he shuffled to the door. It was still there, he thought, absently patting the item he always kept close to him.

  “Make this quick,” he ordered, flipping the lock and opening the door.

  “I’ll make this so quick, your head’ll spin,” Zane promised, pushing the door back hard with the flat of his hand.

  Startled, Kurtz’s eyes widened as he stumbled backward, away from his furious-looking former boss. Belatedly, he realized Zane Colton wasn’t alone. He’d brought Mirabella with him. Unlike the expression on Colton’s face, he saw pity in the woman’s eyes. That rankled him more than the anger did. Who the hell was she to pity him?

  Still, Kurtz decided to behave in a subservient manner and feigned ignorance. “What are you doing here, Mr. Colton?”

  Zane wasn’t taken in for a second. “Trying not to fillet you. Drop the act, Kurtz, you know damn well why I’m here.”

  His mind racing, Kurtz continued to cling to innocence. “No, really, why are you here? If you’ve come to offer me my old job back—” he began loftily.

  “Offer you your—” Zane was practically speechless at the other man’s display of audacity. “Wow, you’ve got a hell of a lot of nerve, Kurtz, I’ll give you that. I was too easy on you before and that was my big mistake.”

  Panic got the best of Kurtz. Feeling he would never get a better chance to make good his escape, Kurtz moved fast. One moment he was playing the part of the bowing and scraping, befuddled wronged former employee, the next he was grabbing hold of Mirabella. Pulling Zane’s wife in front of him and turning her into a human shield, Kurtz menacingly held a knife to her throat. The same knife he’d taken to keeping in his pocket for protection since he had turned into a fugitive.

  “No, your big mistake was in coming here and thinking I’d just go docilely with you. Is that why you brought the little woman with you?” he asked in a mocking voice. “To show her what a big man you were, always beating down other people for sport because your stepfather was such a big shot? Well, he’s not around now and I’ve got a knife to your wife’s pretty little throat. So what do you say to that?” he asked, taunting Zane.

  “You’re making a mistake right now,” Zane told him evenly. “Let her go, Kurtz. She’s got nothing to do with this.”

  “The hell she doesn’t,” Kurtz retorted. “She’s got everything to do with this. She was supposed to be my in with you so I could get something to hold over your head and blackmail you with. Instead, she turned out to be as high-and-mighty as you. She had the nerve to turn me down!” he cried. “She kept saying no, no matter how hard I tried to get her to change her mind,” he said in disgust, pressing the tip of the knife against her skin. A trickle of blood appeared.

  Zane could feel his heart beginning to race as he struggled not to panic. Much as he wanted to get his hands on Kurtz, he knew he couldn’t do anything to set the man off.

  “But you’re right,” Kurtz allowed. “I did make a mistake. My mistake was going too easy on you. I should have siphoned off money sooner and then taken it instead of trying to use it to make both of you look guilty.”

  “That was you?” Zane demanded, stunned. “You were the one who set up that dummy acco
unt under Mirabella’s name?”

  Kurtz couldn’t resist preening in the face of Zane’s seemingly helpless fury. “Yeah, pretty clever, wasn’t it?”

  “Pretty twisted,” Zane retorted.

  Kurtz’s eyes darkened. That wasn’t what he wanted to hear.

  “From where I’m standing, I’m holding all the cards, jackass. You don’t want to get me angry, now, do you?” he taunted malevolently.

  Mirabella whimpered, momentarily diverting both men’s attention to her. “I think I’m feeling sick,” she mumbled, swaying.

  “If you’re going to throw up, make sure you aim that pretty little mouth of yours in his direction, honey,” Kurtz ordered.

  Anticipating the man he held responsible for the state of his plight being on the receiving end of Mirabella’s vomit, Kurtz momentarily lowered his blade from her throat in order to turn her head toward Zane.

  Just then, Mirabella sank down, pretending to faint.

  With the knife no longer pressed dangerously against her throat, Zane lunged at the other man, grabbing hold of the assailant’s wrist as he tried to get the weapon away from him.

  The only “muscle” Kurtz possessed which saw regular exercise was his brain. Otherwise, despite his rage, he was impotently weak. He proved to be no match for Zane, who easily overpowered and subdued him.

  Considering his condition, Kurtz did manage to put up some sort of a fight, but it was so short-lived, it was practically nonexistent. Zane was the easy victor, twisting Kurtz’s arms behind his back as he got the man down on the floor.

  “Let me go!” Kurtz demanded, vainly trying to pull his arms away from Zane’s grip.

  “Not a chance,” Zane answered. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mirabella scrambling to her feet to stand out of the way.

  “Let me go!” Kurtz demanded again. “The sheriff’s not going to arrest me for sending out a bunch of emails,” he spat out.

  “No, but he will arrest you for hacking into one of my stepfather’s bank accounts, threatening Mirabella with bodily harm and transferring funds out of it into an account you set up.”

  “An account with your bride’s name on it,” Kurtz countered. “If they arrest anybody, it’ll be her!” he almost shrieked.

  “Your forensics fingerprints are all over it,” Zane calmly informed him. It wasn’t easy controlling his tone when he wanted to shout into Kurtz’s face, but he’d noticed the calmer he spoke, the more agitated it seemed to make the other man.

  There was barely suppressed fury in Kurtz’s brown eyes. “Good luck in proving that,” he taunted, confident in his ability to have hidden his trail.

  Zane merely smiled, like a man harboring a secret. “Meyer said you’d be full of yourself.”

  Kurtz looked at him, confused. “Meyer? Who the hell is Meyer?”

  “Meyer Stanley,” he told the disgraced employee. He’d brought Meyer in from another department when he discovered how good the man was at tracking down hackers trying to get into their system. “That’s the name of the man who can hack rings around you, Kurtz. The man who ultimately took you down.”

  Zane looked over toward Mirabella. He had to admit she seemed none the worse for this ordeal. He realized she hadn’t felt faint, she’d only pretended to be to get Kurtz off his guard. He had to admit, she’d surprised him. Again.

  “You all right?” he asked Mirabella, just to be sure.

  “Never better,” she answered as she took out her cell phone.

  “Get the sheriff on the phone,” he told her. He looked at Kurtz, relieved at least this part of the chaos that had become his life was over. “Tell him Christmas came early this year and we’ve got a package for him.”

  * * *

  “Well, looks like that finally answers the question of who was taking all that money out of your stepfather’s bank account,” Mirabella said with a relieved sigh as she leaned back in the passenger seat of Zane’s sedan.

  It was more than an hour after the sheriff had arrived and arrested Kurtz. They had both given their statements to Watkins and once the sheriff was satisfied he had the story, he had waved them on their way.

  Reviewing the circumstances, Zane laughed drily. “For a hard-nosed guy, Watkins didn’t turn out to be half-bad,” Zane commented. “Some men don’t take kindly to being proven wrong in public.”

  Why was he looking at her as he said that? Mirabella wondered. Was there some sort of a hidden message in that? If there was, it was eluding her.

  What wasn’t eluding her was that with the author of those awful emails uncovered and on his way to jail, the need to continue their charade of a marriage was no longer really necessary.

  It was over.

  The thought filled her with sadness. Telling herself not to cry, she turned her face away and looked out the side window, watching the scenery pass by.

  “You’re awfully quiet,” Zane observed after a few minutes.

  Mirabella had never been a chatterbox, but she did do her share of talking. He would have thought discovering who was behind the emails and the phony bank transfers would have had her voicing her elation and being more talkative, not less.

  When she made no response to his observation, he asked, “What are you thinking?”

  She took a deep breath, then answered, “I’m thinking you’re free.”

  “Free?” he questioned, confused. “What do you mean ‘free’?”

  “Free,” she repeated with emphasis. “Free from having to continue with this charade that we’re married. Now that Howard won’t be sending out any more of those vicious emails pointing a finger at you, you’re free to tell people you’re not the father of my baby—which means you don’t have to stay married to me any longer. You can get on with your life.”

  He slanted a glance at her, trying to read her tone. “Is that what you want?”

  She wanted to shout no, of course not, she wanted to stay married to him. Not just until the baby was born, but forever. But that wasn’t fair and she didn’t want to make him feel guilty enough not to take his freedom. So instead, Mirabella told him, “I want whatever you want.”

  Part of him felt he should just let it go at that. He was a Colton and he didn’t strip his soul bare for anyone. But he also knew this was the best thing that had every happened to him and he risked losing it all because of pride. Pride was poor comfort in the dead of night when he was alone.

  Deciding to take a risk, Zane pulled over to the side of the road, turned off his engine and said, “You want to know what I’m thinking?”

  “What?” she asked hesitantly, afraid of what she might hear.

  “I’m thinking, as strange as it might sound, I’m actually kind of glad I fired Howard Kurtz to begin with.”

  “Because he was unethical,” she said, nodding her head.

  “No, because if I hadn’t fired him, he wouldn’t have been angry enough to try to get revenge by sending out those emails.” He saw her looking at him quizzically, but he pressed on. “And, if he hadn’t done that, then I wouldn’t have volunteered to marry you and give the baby my name. Because,” he continued, taking a breath, “if I hadn’t done that, then I never would have discovered I was only living half a life. More than that, I would have never discovered I was actually capable of feeling happy.” He ran the back of his hand along her cheek, thinking how fortunate he was that she was in his life. “Not just feeling happy,” he finally said, his voice dropping down to almost a whisper, “but feeling love, as well.”

  Mirabella stared at him, certain she was either hallucinating, or had somehow fallen asleep and was dreaming. “What?”

  “You really want me to go through the steps again?” he questioned, amused. “Because I will if you want me to, or I could just go with the shorter version.”

  “The shorter version?” she repeated, confused.

  “Yes,” Zane said. “It goes like this.”

  Taking her into his arms, he brought his mouth down to hers and kissed her. Kissed her as if
he had just discovered she was his salvation and he’d realized there was a real threat of losing her.

  Drawing back just a little, but still holding her, he told Mirabella, “I don’t want to end the marriage, Belle. I want to start it. I want to do it right and in earnest. It’s the best thing that’s come out of the whole crazy, miserable business that’s been going on since Eldridge disappeared. I’ve never felt like this before and I never will again if I lose you. Don’t make me lose you.” It wasn’t a request, it was a plea. “I mean, if you don’t care about me, I won’t make you stay—”

  “Not care about you?” Mirabella echoed incredulously. How could he even think that? “And here I thought you were supposed to be so perceptive.”

  “Then you do care?” he asked, almost afraid to believe he could be so lucky.

  Instead of answering his question, she smiled as she asked, “Could you run that short version by me again?”

  A smile came into his eyes. “With pleasure,” he told her.

  And as he had always maintained, Zane was a man of his word. He went over the short version for her again—with pleasure.

  Epilogue

  Things were getting back to normal. As normal as they could be, Mirabella thought, with the founder of the company, Zane’s stepfather, still missing, presumed kidnapped and just possibly, worse than that.

  But missing or not, work went on, people still had to earn and draw their paychecks and she still had a job to do as Zane’s administrative assistant. Wife or no wife—and she now felt like one in every sense of the word—she was still his multitasking right hand, which meant each day was filled from end to end with things she needed to get done.

  Mirabella couldn’t have been happier.

  Even her body had stopped rebelling against her. She was no longer horribly nauseous, fighting the overwhelming desire to throw up 24/7. Quite the contrary, she had even begun to look forward to eating again, the way she used to.