The Billionaire’s Baby Plan

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  Sara Beth looked surprised. “Well.” A dimple flirted in her cheek. “Good for you.”

  “Yeah. Except it’ll be all my fault if nobody shows up at the birthday party for Dad—” She broke off.

  “It’s okay,” Sara Beth assured her.

  Lisa exhaled. “Only because you are extraordinary.”

  “Stop.” Sara Beth slid her finger beneath her lashes. “You’ll make my mascara run and we’ve got a load of patients today. D’you, um, want to meet for lunch?”

  It was such an ordinary thing. That meant so very much. Lisa nodded, unable to speak.

  And Sara Beth seemed to know it. “I’ll swing by your office then,” she said.

  Lisa nodded. She turned quickly to get back to her office before the dam could burst entirely and she’d start bawling in the corridor where anyone and their mother’s brother could witness the flood.

  But as she turned, the overhead lights seemed to tilt alarmingly. And all she could do was say “Sara Beth?” as the ground slid sideways and she went right along with it.

  “She’s coming around now.”

  Lisa groaned, pressing her hand against the throbbing pain at the back of her head. She opened her eyes and found herself surrounded. Paul. Chance. Sara Beth. Even Wilma, the institute’s devoted receptionist, was hovering over her, looking worried. “What happened?” Her fingers gingerly felt around the knot on her head.

  “You fainted,” Sara Beth said.

  “Nearly gave me a heart attack,” Wilma added. “One minute you were standing there. The next we all heard your head cracking against the floor.”

  “Speaking of which,” Paul said, “an ice pack would be good.”

  “I’ll get it.” Wilma hurried out of the room and Lisa realized they were all crowded into one of Chance’s examining rooms.

  She worked her arms behind her, trying to sit up, but Paul held her in place with a firm hand on her shoulder. “Just be still for a while longer.” He flashed a penlight over one of her eyes. Then the other. “You hit your head pretty hard.”

  “I’m fine now.” She stared at the ceiling lights over his head. No wavering. No nauseating shifting.

  “Sara Beth told us you’re pregnant.” Her brother eyed Chance. “Dr. Demetrios is going to examine you. Just to be safe.”

  “All I did was get a little dizzy. And I know how busy Chance’s schedule is without having to slide me in, too.”

  “I think he’ll manage. Don’t be a bad patient,” Paul advised, his lips tilting. “Sets a bad example.” He stepped out of the way. “Let me know what you find,” he told Chance as he left.

  Her brother was a fine doctor, but she was glad that he wasn’t the one planning to examine her. She looked up at Sara Beth and Chance. “I really don’t want to make a fuss.”

  “It’s here or the hospital,” Chance said. “Your choice.” He smiled faintly when she made a face.

  “Here you go, dear.” Wilma hurried in with an instant ice pack that she was already shaking to activate. She handed it to Lisa and quickly exited again.

  “Help her get into a gown,” Chance advised, and he, too, left the small room.

  “Come on.” Sara Beth pulled a clean gown out of a cabinet and set it on the examining table next to Lisa’s legs. She held the ice pack against the back of Lisa’s head as she sat up and began undoing the buttons on her blouse.

  “How long was I out?”

  “Long enough to have everyone worried.” Sara Beth took Lisa’s blouse and bra when she slid them off and handed her the cotton gown. “You didn’t even come to when I did a blood draw.”

  Lisa stared at her arm, noticing for the first time the little adhesive bandage holding a wad of cotton in the fold of her elbow. An exam maybe wasn’t such a bad idea.

  She slid gingerly off the table and toed off her pumps, then slid off her wide-legged pants. She realized that they were the pants she’d worn the day she’d met Rourke at Fare.

  Her chest squeezed. She finished undressing and yanked the thin gown together, trying not to shiver in the room that, until that moment, had seemed overly warm.

  “I need to get a chart started for you. I’ll be right back.” Sara Beth handed her the ice pack and let herself out of the examining room.

  Lisa sat on the table, holding the pack against the back of her head, and looked down at the cotton crumpled across her belly. “Don’t be scaring us like this,” she whispered.

  Then Sara Beth came back, asking about a hundred questions as she began filling out the medical chart. She took Lisa’s blood pressure. Waved her out into the empty hall between examining rooms and made her stand on the scale. Then back into the room again. “I’ll get Chance.”

  Sara Beth returned with the doctor within minutes and Lisa found herself answering a good portion of the questions that Sara Beth had already asked. By the time Chance finished examining her, she knew firsthand just how thorough the man was.

  “Everything looks good,” he said, when he took the chart from Sara Beth and began scribbling on it. “We’ll schedule you for an ultrasound week after next. I think you’re too early yet to have a good result. You’ll start on prenatal vitamins immediately.” He slanted a stern look at her. “And you’ll beef up your diet. You’re too thin.” He tore off a page from his prescription pad and handed it to her. “I think our biggest concern is the conk on your head. So don’t be alone for the next twenty-four hours. Dizziness. Vision problems. Nausea. Watch for them. And obviously call me immediately if you start spotting or cramping.”

  “I’ll stay with you,” Sara Beth offered even before Lisa could form a protest about the twenty-four-hour bit.

  “Otherwise—” he grinned at her “—congratulations, Mom.”

  Lisa smile weakly. He was clearly aware that his and Ted’s treatment of Rourke had led to her pregnancy. “Thanks.” She folded the prescription into neat halves after he left. “I don’t need help getting dressed, Sara Beth. This place is busting at the seams with patients. Paying ones.”

  “True enough. I’ll just nip next door for a sec. If you get dizzy again, lie down.” Sara Beth closed the file folder and took it with her.

  Lisa slid off the table. The only thing plaguing her was the dull throb in her head but even that had begun to ease. She pushed the gown into the basket in the corner for just that purpose, and began dressing again. She was just buttoning up her blouse when she heard the door crack open. “I’m fine, Sara Beth,” she said, without looking. “Go see your next patient.”

  “It’s not Sara Beth.”

  She started so violently, the tiny pearl button she was trying to slip through the hole pulled off right in her hand. She rounded on her heel to face Rourke.

  He looked dreadful. As if he hadn’t slept in days. His face was lined. His charcoal suit was wrinkled and his tie was hanging askew.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Ted called me. Said you’d fainted.”

  She steeled herself against feeling anything. “Convenient that you were in town, then.” Her voice was cool.

  “I wasn’t.” His gaze was roving over her. “I was at my office.” His lips twisted. “Not that I was doing anything productive there. What happened?”

  She looked at the clock on the wall. If he’d only left since Ted had called him, he’d made the fastest commute from New York to Boston known to man. “I got dizzy.” She turned her back on him to finish buttoning her blouse. It was probably ludicrous, considering the man knew her body even better than she did, but it still made her feel better. “Don’t worry. Your investment is still secure.”

  “Don’t.” His voice was low. Rough. “Don’t act like that’s all this is to me. You know better.”

  The throbbing in her chest outdid the throbbing in her head by a mile. She couldn’t do anything about the missing button just above the low band at the center of her bra, so she left the two above it open, as well. She shoved the silk shirttails into her pants and began fastening the wid
e belt. “I certainly know enough.” She pushed her feet into her pumps and turned to face him, feeling more armored with her clothing intact. “Now, that is.”

  “You don’t know that I fell in love with you.”

  She’d underestimated his ability to hurt her any more than she was already hurting. And the blow of that shook her through to her soul.

  She couldn’t move forward to the door to escape the small room without brushing against him. So she did the only thing she could do. “You don’t have to lie to me now, Rourke. You’ve got what you wanted. You’ve pulverized an Armstrong like you were pulverized and in less than eight months, you’ll have the heir you’d feared you’d never have. All in a day’s work for you. Well. I guess a few weeks more than a day. But still—” her lips twisted “—well done.”

  “I haven’t got what I want. I haven’t got you.”

  Her heart felt as if it was splintering. “What more do you want from us?” The ice in her voice was breaking into chunks. “Derek was right. You own more of the Armstrong Fertility Institute now than any of the Armstrongs do. What else is left for you to take?”

  “I’m not trying to take anything. For the first time in a long time, I’m trying to give something!” His voice rose and he exhaled through his clenched teeth. He yanked an envelope out of his lapel pocket and tossed it on the end of the leather-covered examining table. “There. Take it. Do whatever the hell you want with it.”

  She stared at the envelope as if it was a snake. “What is it?”

  “The prenup.”

  A snake, indeed. But she snatched up the envelope anyway. Pulled out the lengthy document that had outlined the terms of their agreement. She tossed it back on the table. “I’m sure you have copies.”

  “Is there nothing that you can let yourself trust me about?” His voice was tight. “That’s the original. The only copy. You can tear it up. Walk away from me. Take half of everything I’ve ever worked for, but you’re not going to do it without knowing the truth.”

  “Truth!” Her arms lifted. “I learned the truth on the sidewalk outside your building last night! I was the perfect tool for you, wasn’t I? Dedicated-to-the-institute Lisa. Who’d do anything to keep her father’s legacy alive, even though her father turns out to be as fallible as the rest of us. Who was too backward when it came to men to realize just how well she was being played. What an ideal setup it was for you, and you didn’t even have to chase it down. I came to you!”

  “I should have told you about Taylor and your brother. About everything. Including the treatment.” His voice sounded like gravel. “But in the beginning, it didn’t matter. And in the end, it mattered too much.”

  “Stop.” She lifted her hand. “The day we got married, you said I’d at least have respect. So allow me that and stop…pretending…that you feel anything other than accomplishment.” Her vision was wavering again, only this time it was due to tears. She flicked her finger against the wrinkled folds of the prenup. “As far as I’m concerned, everything in there still stands. You fund the institute in exchange for the child we’ll share custody of.” Blocking the door or not, she had to get out of there. She headed past him. “There’s nothing else I want from you.

  He shot out an arm, blocking her. “Too bad,” he said unevenly. “Because you’ve got my heart. And believe me, princess, until you came along, I didn’t know there was one left to give. Maybe we didn’t start out the way we should have. But that doesn’t lessen the way I feel now. I never meant to hurt you. Throw it back in my face if you have to, but I’m not letting you go until you at least believe in that.”

  He was hurting her now, by preventing her escape. And she couldn’t even maintain the pretense that she wasn’t utterly destroyed. “Please,” she whispered. “Don’t do this to me. I…can’t bear any more.”

  “And I can’t bear to let you walk away from me.” His hands closed tightly around her shoulders. “Not again. And that has nothing to do with the baby we’ve made.”

  She closed her eyes. Looked away from him. “If I didn’t look like her would you have ever even agreed to meet with me when Ted asked you to?”

  “I’ve never mistaken you for Taylor.” His voice dropped. “You weren’t a substitute. You could never be a substitute for anyone. I wouldn’t want you to be. You’re entirely unique and the way I feel about you isn’t in the same universe as what I felt for her. The only thing she took with her when I told her we were through was some of my pride. And I may have let that rule me for too long afterward, but I don’t give a damn about my pride now.”

  She could feel his hands shaking as they moved from her shoulders to her face as he lifted it until she had to look at him.

  His eyes were bloodshot. And they were wet.

  “I don’t have any pride that matters when it comes to you.” His voice was as raw as his expression. “What I feel for you isn’t about the baby. Or proving that I’m man enough to give you one. And it isn’t about extracting some revenge that I don’t even care about anymore. It’s about you. And me. And the fact that when I’m with you, the only thing I care about is staying with you. Going to bed at night, knowing you’ll still be mine when I wake up the next morning. Even when we’re in different freaking cities. It’s about sharing what’s in your head and in your heart. It’s about the fact that you’ve crawled inside here.” He slapped his hand against his chest. “And I can’t get you out.” He exhaled roughly. “And I don’t want to.”

  She stared at him, tears sliding silently down her face.

  “Everything my mother raised me to believe that matters— children, family—is what brought us here. Whether I was right or wrong in the process. But right now, if I could take away the baby inside you just to prove that it is you that matters most of all, I would. But I can’t. And I can’t pretend I don’t want our child more than I want my next breath. But it’s because he or she is ours.”

  She sucked in a sob. “Rourke.”

  “All I can do is ask you to believe me. Believe in me. I love you. But if you can tell me right now that you don’t love me, I’ll let you go. Just as I promised the day we got married. But I won’t be able to take back my heart.” His jaw twisted to one side. “Because that is always going to be yours.”

  She stepped back from him. Saw the way the blood blanched from his haggard face.

  Then she deliberately picked up the prenup and tore it in half. Then half again before she let the ruined squares flutter to the floor. “I love you, too.” Her voice was raw. “And I don’t want to go anywhere that would take me away from you.”

  He closed his eyes for a long moment.

  Then he looked at her. Caught her left hand in his and slowly lifted it. He kissed the wedding rings she hadn’t been able to make herself take off.

  She bit her lip, her heart as open to him as the palm of her hand when he slowly turned it over to press his lips there.

  Then he was pulling her to him, lifting her off her feet, his arms nearly crushing her ribs as his mouth found hers.

  And there, in her husband’s arms with his heart thundering against hers, she realized she’d been wrong.

  Fairy tales could come true.

  Sara Beth opened the door behind them, and smiled tremulously at the sight. Just as quietly, she closed the door once again. There was no need for her to worry about Lisa’s next twenty-four hours after all.

  Epilogue

  “Happy birthday, Daddy.” Ignoring the decidedly pinched look on her mother’s face where she stood beside Gerald, Lisa leaned over her father’s wheelchair and pressed a kiss to his lined cheek, very aware of the attention on them from the family members gathered in the drawing room behind her.

  Among them were not only her original siblings, but her newfound one, as well. Lisa had insisted that Sara Beth and Ted join the family for the private dinner they were having before the rest of the guests arrived later that evening.

  Sara Beth had reluctantly agreed, but only after insisting that Li
sa confirm with both Paul and Olivia that they had no objection. Fortunately, her brother and sister had treated the news that Sara Beth was their sibling with more equanimity than Lisa had.

  They’d immediately agreed that she and Ted should be there. And that evening, when he and Sara Beth had arrived at the Armstrong house, it was Olivia who’d beaten Lisa to the punch, giving Sara Beth a hug and pulling her into the study where Emily and Gerald had yet to join them. “Come and say hello to my sons. Your nephews.”

  Lisa smiled and leaned back against Rourke’s shoulder, watching them. She felt the kiss he brushed across her temple, though his present debate with Jamison on some political point didn’t hesitate for a moment. Then Paul and Ramona arrived. And he, too, headed immediately for Sara Beth. “I always did say you looked like that portrait of our grandmother,” he greeted her and tugged her into his arms for a kiss. “Welcome to the family.” He grinned a little crookedly. “For what it’s worth.”

  “Thank you.” Sara Beth’s gaze found Lisa’s. “It’s worth quite a lot, actually.”

  “Drinks, anyone?” Jamison ambled to the bar.

  “Fruit juice for Sara Beth and Lisa,” Olivia inserted, her gaze twinkling. She joined her tall husband, looking up at him with nothing but delight in her expression. “No wine for the pregnant duo.”

  “Ramona? What about you?”

  “Fruit juice will do for me, too.”

  Everyone stopped dead still, looking across at her. She laughed outright, particularly at Paul’s stunned expression. “Don’t worry,” she assured them. “I’m just getting in practice. For after the wedding.”

  Paul let out an audible breath and everyone laughed.

  Until they’d noticed Emily pushing Gerald’s chair through the doorway.

  And the fact that Derek was walking behind them.

  Rourke had stiffened behind her, but he’d said nothing. Nor had Paul or Olivia.

  And Lisa had finally taken the bull by the horns and walked over to her father. “Happy birthday, Daddy.” She straightened and pressed a second kiss to her mother’s cheek. “Mother. You look lovely tonight.”