The Tycoon's Marriage Bid

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  He could tell reiterating the admission cost her. Not that he hadn’t figured it out for himself. She hadn’t been working anywhere in Cheyenne not that he’d been able to discover, anyway. And to his chagrin, he’d tried. He knew her mother’s husband had money, but he also figured that asking for help was not Nikki’s particular forte.

  Since he was generally more in the position of cleaning up other people’s messes than being in need of cleaning in his own life, he figured that was something they had in common.

  When had Nikki had time for any sort of personal life?

  The thought kept coming to the forefront.

  He’d kept her too busy for a personal life.

  Or so he’d thought.

  He marshaled his thoughts. ‘I’ve rented you a place.’

  Silence descended on the room as she absorbed his statement. Then her eyes widened. Color touched, then just as quickly fled from her cheeks. ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I took care of it while you were sleeping. The sheriff’s office recommended a few places. Someone from the inn packed up your stuff, and it’s been moved to the rental.’ He figured just about any place would be better than the Lucius Inn, which didn’t even possess a proper suite.

  ‘How efficient.’

  ‘Then it’s settled.’

  Her eyebrows rose. She pushed herself up on her elbow, and there was nothing dazed in her eyes now. Incredulousness shone clear and sharp.

  ‘No, it’s not! How am I supposed to afford’ she waved her hand, a brief motion conveying a wealth of frustration ‘ this place you’ve arranged? And I’m still going to need help, if I’m supposed to have bed rest. No matter what, I’m going to have to call my family.’

  ‘Hold it.’ He sat forward, resting his arms on his knees. ‘First of all, I said I rented you a place.

  Period. As for calling your family, you can if you want. I’m just telling you it’s not necessary, if you really want to go this alone.’

  Her brows drew together at that. ‘Are you going to hire me a nursemaid, too?’ She looked everywhere but at him. ‘I wasn’t that perfect of an assistant, Alex. You cannot possibly be so desperate for me to come back to work for you that you’d go to these lengths. I don’t want to owe anyone!’

  ‘Anyone, or just me?’

  Confusion and pride tangled in her eyes. ‘Does it matter?’

  Did it?

  He didn’t like owing favors, either. ‘I’m not hiring a nurse,’ he said evenly, scrapping the plan to do just that. ‘I’ll stay with you myself.’

  Chapter Three

  Nikki saw Alex’s lips move. She heard the words he spoke. But they still made no sense. ‘You’ll stay with me,’ she repeated slowly.

  He nodded once.

  ‘Here. In Lucius.’

  Again, the single nod.

  ‘At this place you’ve rented for me.’

  A third nod.

  She pressed her fingertips to the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes, then opening them again. ‘That sedative they gave me is really messing with my head.’

  ‘No, it’s not.’

  No. It wasn’t. If it had been, she’d at least have an explanation. She dropped her hand to her lap, her palm upward. ‘I don’t want your pity.’

  His jaw hardened. ‘You’re not getting it. You’re an intelligent woman, Nik. This is the easiest solution all the way around.’

  On the surface, maybe. But spending time personal time with Alex? There wasn’t anything easy about that, at all.

  ‘What about Huffington?’ she asked, determined to keep her tears at bay. She cried far too easily these days. It was maddening.

  ‘What about it?’

  It seemed unfathomable, but she could tell by his bland tone that he wasn’t going to talk business.

  Yet business was the only thing they’d ever had between them.

  So what sort of business was he up to?

  ‘No,’ she said abruptly, stomping down on the panic that rose in her at the very thought of him staying with her. ‘Thank you for the offer, but I really can’t accept.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Her hands flopped. ‘Because it’s not appropriate!’

  His eyebrows rose a little. A muscle twitched at the corner of his lip. ‘Appropriate,’ he mused.

  ‘Sounding a little virginal there, Nik.’

  Her face went hot, but she managed to keep her chin up. ‘I don’t care what it sounds like. It’s true.’

  ‘Definitely more agreeable when you worked for me,’ he observed. He unfolded from the chair. At six foot four, he was the only man she knew who rivaled her stepbrothers in sheer physical presence. ‘I have a room at the Lucius Inn. Call me when you change your mind.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  His head tilted slightly in acknowledgment. Then he picked up his coat again and left the room. The hospital door swung shut behind him, leaving her alone with nothing but the lingering hint of his aftershave and the rhythmic ticking of the stark round clock hanging very high on the wall.

  Maybe the hospital administrators were afraid their patients were likely to abscond with the ugly, utilitarian thing if they hung it at eye level.

  She slowly smoothed her hands over the thin blanket, removing every bump and wrinkle. The baby moved. Only a few weeks ago, it had felt more like butterflies darting around inside her. Now, the motions were more distinct. More real.

  She folded her hands over her belly.

  Eyed the closed door through the tears that wouldn’t be held back no matter how hard she tried, or how desperately she focused on everything around her except her situation.

  She would not call Alex. She could get through this in the same way she’d gotten through every other painful episode in her life.

  On her own. One aching hour day week at a time.

  Twenty-four hours later, Nikki called Alex at the Lucius Inn.

  Twenty-six hours later, she left the hospital and very nearly the last chunk of savings she had in her bank account behind, and was sitting beside him in the luxurious, spacious SUV he’d rented.

  She stared out the window beside her as they drove through town. Lucius was a small community, like a dozen others. It had a main drag where most of the businesses seemed to be located. An older, clearly residential area at one end of town. Fortunate evidence of continued growth a bustling discount department store, apartments, the Lucius Inn, a medical plaza at the other end of town. She got a good look at all of them when Alex continued driving right on past, leaving the town behind.

  She closed her fingers around the softly padded armrest. ‘Where is this place that you’ve rented?’

  He flicked a glance her way. ‘Another few miles.’

  She wanted to ask how few, but didn’t. Instead, she turned and stared blindly out the window again.

  After a disappointing but unsurprising phone conversation with the salvage company that confirmed they would be unable to hold open the position for her, she’d actually started to call the Caribbean resort where Belle and Cage were staying, but hadn’t been able to bring herself to dial the number. What was worse? Calling back her twin from her honeymoon or accepting Alex’s inconceivable offer?

  If Belle and Cage returned, the entire family would be bound to find out about it, and she hated worrying them. Hated it. It was bad enough that she knew they’d been worrying over her since she’d announced she was pregnant. They’d harped in the most loving of ways to get her to Weaver or the Double-C, where they could take care of her.

  But she took care of herself.

  She always had.

  But to choose Alex now that was a different kettle of fish entirely.

  Instead of calling Belle, Nikki had left a voice mail message for Emily, one of her stepsisters-in-law, that she’d decided to stay in Montana for a few more weeks, and would call when she got back.

  Then she’d hurriedly called Alex.

  She still wasn’t sure she’d made the right choice, either.


  The cadence of the tires on the highway deepened and she looked ahead as Alex slowed and turned off on a narrow road. It had recently been plowed, judging by the freshly turned snow neatly mounded at the sides. Not even a thin layer of white powder marred the single lane, which seemed barely wide enough to accommodate the SUV’s bulk.

  After another ten minutes or so, the pavement ended, but the SUV took the graded gravel in stride.

  And before long, Alex pulled to a stop in front of a sprawling cabin.

  Enormous logs. Stone foundation. A lone window that would let in only twelve square inches of sunlight at a time.

  The place looked as if it had been built as a miniature fortress about a million years ago, and for a moment Nikki found herself longing for the confining hospital room.

  Alex propped his wrist over the top of the steering wheel as he peered through the windshield at the structure before them. His long, blunt-tipped fingers slowly drummed on the dashboard.

  ‘The sheriff recommended this place?’ Nikki finally asked. It was the only glimmer of hope she held.

  ‘He gave me a list of three places. This was the only one available right now. Owner’s name is Tucker. Spends winters in Arizona.’

  ‘Maybe I should just go back to the boardinghouse.’ Not that she knew how she’d pay for it.

  She realized she was nibbling at her thumbnail, and hurriedly dropped her hand to her lap.

  ‘Can’t.’ Alex was still looking ahead at the dwelling. He seemed as enthusiastic as she was to actually look inside it.

  But then Alex lived on the top floor of the Echelon, the finest hotel in Cheyenne. Well, the entire state of Wyoming, for that matter. The Echelon wasn’t enormous, but it was ‘quality.’

  ‘Has she already rented out the room I was using?’ Nikki’d had the room reserved for a week, Sunday to Saturday. It was only Friday.

  He lifted his shoulder. ‘Called over there this morning and some girl answered. Said Tiff’s is more or less closed for a while. The owner Hadley had some personal stuff to take care of.’

  Nikki was chewing her thumbnail again. ‘I hope she’s okay.’ Hadley was a nice woman, about Nikki’s age. Tiff’s hadn’t been booming with business by any stretch, and Nikki had felt as if Hadley was more a taker in of strays than a dedicated innkeeper. Still, Nikki had had a reason for wanting to stay at Tiff’s. And Hadley had been more than accommodating.

  ‘Town’s small enough,’ Alex murmured. ‘Gossip would have gotten around fast enough if she weren’t okay.’

  True enough. Her mother’s family, the Clays, all lived in or near the small town of Weaver, Wyoming, and Nikki knew how effectively gossip could travel there.

  Alex’s fingers stopped drumming on the dashboard. ‘Don’t move. I’ll take a look inside.’

  Nikki propped her elbow on the armrest and dropped her chin in her hand. ‘I’m not going anywhere,’

  she murmured to his back as he got out of the vehicle.

  How could she?

  She’d been lifted from the hospital bed into a wheelchair to exit the hospital, and then lifted from the chair into the SUV that had been idling, warm and cozy, at the curb outside the hospital entrance.

  And Alex had done the lifting.

  The doctor’s instructions had been adamant. The only thing Nikki was allowed to do was sit up for very brief periods of time every few hours. And use the bathroom more or less under her own steam.

  She was embarrassingly grateful for that particular mercy.

  Her thumbnail found its way between her teeth again. She watched Alex go up the rickety-looking steps. The security system consisted of a door key hidden inside the ancient metal mailbox affixed to the wall alongside the door.

  He glanced back at the SUV for a moment, then went inside.

  Nikki wondered what he was thinking.

  When she’d been in his employ, she’d believed she’d been able to anticipate his thoughts.

  But now she couldn’t. The uncharted waters were too vast for her to navigate.

  He’d left the door open, but she could see little inside because of the shadows from the steeply pitched porch roof. Assuring herself that the sheriff would not have recommended a place to Alex that had crumbling floorboards and other hazards he could be encountering in there alone, she focused instead on the landscape.

  Dozens of winter-bare trees dotted the land around the cabin. And there were evergreens that seemed to reach a mile into the sky.

  She suspected that during the rest of the year, the beauty of the landscape compensated for the stark log cabin. Now, though, the place seemed terribly barren.

  And her eyes were burning all over again.

  She blinked rapidly and sniffed hard. Enough with the waterworks, already. This was just another unexpected challenge to work through. It wasn’t as if it were the only hitch in life she’d ever encountered.

  As long as she followed the doctor’s instructions, the baby would be fine. As long as she concentrated on that, she’d get through this. And when the doctor sprang her, Alex would go on his way again, and she would get on with her life.

  Nothing all that different than what she’d been doing since last summer, anyway.

  The door beside her opened and she jumped.

  Alex released her safety belt. ‘I’ll take you in.’

  She wasn’t sure she wanted to leave the warmth of the SUV, where she could entertain fanciful notions of wriggling behind the wheel and driving off. ‘Is it as ancient inside as it looks outside?’

  ‘Not exactly.’ He slid his arms beneath her.

  The third time to be carried by him.

  She buried her face from her chin up to her nose in the ivory scarf wrapped around her neck, and tried not to breathe. Tried to pretend she wasn’t fifteen pounds heavier with baby weight, and tried not to justify just how smoothly Alex traipsed across the snow to the cabin.

  Yes, he was a large man. But he was a tycoon, not a lumberjack. Carting her carting anything around wasn’t really his style.

  Yet he managed it with as much style as he did most everything else.

  She stifled a sigh, only to hold her breath a moment later when he went up the steps, which creaked ominously. He turned sideways to go through the door, then kicked it shut behind them.

  The solid slam seemed to echo inside Nikki’s head as she stared in disbelief at the interior.

  ‘Oh my word.’

  Alex didn’t comment. He merely crossed the gleaming, wood-planked floor that was partially obscured by a massive leopard-print shag rug, and set her on an enormous sectional couch upholstered in racy red leather. ‘There’s a shed of some sort on the other side of the cabin. I’m going to move the truck there after I bring in the groceries. Then I’ll get you some lunch. You okay here for that long?’

  She nodded weakly and tucked her hands deeper into the pockets of her ivory coat. Anything that would occupy him long enough for her to regain her composure scrambled from the unlikely interior of the cabin, as much as the unlikely prospect of Alex cook-ing was a good thing.

  He shut the door behind him when he left, preserving the little bit of warmth that the interior possessed. Her gaze settled on the soaring stone fireplace that dominated the center of the room. She had little doubt the cabin would warm up considerably when a fire was lit in it.

  The cabin would warm.

  The mammoth, circular bed that she could see through the empty fireplace had velvety pillows mounded against an enormous black, leather headboard. And it would warm.

  The heart-shaped whirlpool bathtub that took up a chunk of floor space near the couch would warm.

  The kitchen and intimate dining nook with its satiny pine table and chairs would warm.

  When she and Cody had been planning their wedding, she’d seen advertisements in the bridal magazines of honeymoon cottages that weren’t as blatantly sexual as this place. But sweet Cody had only had one place in mind for their honeymoon. Tiff’s. Where his parents had spent
their honeymoon together.

  She jumped a little when Alex entered again, his arms loaded with grocery bags, and she dragged her eyes away from the empty bathtub, feeling as if she’d been caught doing something scandalous.

  There was little in the cabin that couldn’t be seen from where she sat on the couch everything seemed oriented around the fireplace and she watched him dump the bags on the kitchen counter, then stride back outside.

  He hadn’t done any shopping personally, of course.

  He’d merely stopped outside a grocery store after picking her up at the hospital, and as if by magic, a young clerk had dutifully trotted out with the bags, loaded them in the back of the SUV, collected some bills from Alex and disappeared again.

  The world according to Alex Reed.

  There were a few closed doors in the cabin, and plenty of windows running along the back side of the structure. Unlike the miserly one she’d seen from the outside, there seemed to be a dozen of them. All large and un-adorned and overlooking more trees and a narrow, winding stream.

  By the time Alex returned after moving the truck, Nikki hoped she’d managed to wipe most of her shock over the cabin interior from her expression.

  Not that he’d have noticed, anyway.

  He went straight to the kitchen again and began rummaging around. Opening smooth, walnut-planked cupboard doors. Pushing items into the sleek, stainless-steel-fronted refrigerator.

  ‘Alex?’

  His head lifted. He looked at her. She could see him through the slice of space between one corner of the fireplace and a bulging green ficus that stood guard over the far end of the sectional couch.

  ‘Do you actually know how to cook?’

  His teeth flashed in a surprisingly amused grin. ‘I can punch a microwave button as well as anyone.’

  She hesitated a moment. ‘Um Alex? That’s what you said about using the coffeemaker at Huffington.’ He’d punched buttons on the commercial-style appliance and the repairman had actually been forced to install a new machine when he’d been unable to fix it. After that, Alex had wisely stayed away from the employee break room.