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The Tycoon's Marriage Bid
Allison Leigh
HAD SHE FALLEN DOWN A RABBIT HOLE?Self-sufficient Nikki Day didn't know what to think when she awoke to find herself in a strange hospital staring at the man who was unknowingly responsible for her current "situation." And even though she'd tried–apparently unsuccessfully–to put some distance between herself and her ex-boss, she and her unborn baby now depended on Alex Reed's care. Besides, any hopes Nikki had of maintaining a professional relationship crumbled when she saw the "honeymoon cottage" he'd rented. And if the heart-shaped whirlpool tub didn't shift her hormones into high gear, Alex's mere touch certainly did. But when the tycoon made his marriage bid, Nikki faced her toughest task yet. Could she turn a proposal born of duty into one of desire?
“Don’t presume to think you know me so well,” Nikki said stiffly.
“Oh, I know you.” Alex stopped pacing. Stared at her in the firelight. “And I know that out of all the women in my life you’re the only one I ever counted on. And you walked out without one single reason that I can accept. Was I really that impossible to work with, Nik?”
“You didn’t do anything.” Nikki’s voice was husky.
“But someone did. Was it the father of your baby?”
“Just…leave it alone, please.”
“You’re just letting this yahoo walk. Without taking any responsibility at all for the baby.”
“It doesn’t concern you!”
He inhaled. Exhaled more slowly. “Then why does it feel as if it does?”
Nikki didn’t answer.
And Alex knew he was right. If he weren’t, she would have said so. But knowing it with more certainty than ever didn’t make him feel any better.
Dear Reader,
Well, it’s September, which always sounds like a fresh start to me, no matter how old I get. And evidently we have six women this month who agree. In Home Again by Joan Elliott Pickart, a woman who can’t have children has decided to work with them in a professional capacity—but when she is assigned an orphaned little boy, she fears she’s in over her head. Then she meets his gorgeous guardian—and she’s sure of it!
In the next installment of MOST LIKELY TO…, The Measure of a Man by Marie Ferrarella, a single mother attempting to help her beloved former professor joins forces with a former campus golden boy, now the college…custodian. What could have happened? Allison Leigh’s The Tycoon’s Marriage Bid pits a pregnant secretary against her ex-boss who, unbeknownst to him, has a real connection to her baby’s father. In The Other Side of Paradise by Laurie Paige, next up in her SEVEN DEVILS miniseries, a mysterious woman seeking refuge as a ranch hand learns that she may have more ties to the community than she could have ever suspected. When a beautiful nurse is assigned to care for a devastatingly handsome, if cantankerous, cowboy, the results are…well, you get the picture—but you can have it spelled out for you in Stella Bagwell’s next MEN OF THE WEST book, Taming a Dark Horse. And in Undercover Nanny by Wendy Warren, a domestically challenged female detective decides it’s necessary to penetrate the lair of single father and heir to a grocery fortune by pretending to be…his nanny. Hmm. It could work.…
So enjoy, and snuggle up. Fall weather is just around the corner.…
Happy reading!
Gail Chasan
Senior Editor
The Tycoon’s Marriage Bid
Allison Leigh
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For my family.
Always.
ALLISON LEIGH
started early by writing a Halloween play that her grade-school class performed. Since then, though her tastes have changed, her love for reading has not. And her writing appetite simply grows more voracious by the day.
She has been a finalist in the RITA
Award and the Holt Medallion contests. But the true highlights of her day as a writer are when she receives word from a reader that they laughed, cried or lost a night of sleep while reading one of her books.
Born in Southern California, Allison has lived in several different cities in four different states. She has been, at one time or another, a cosmetologist, a computer programmer and a secretary. She has recently begun writing full-time after spending nearly a decade as an administrative assistant for a busy neighborhood church, and currently makes her home in Arizona with her family. She loves to hear from her readers, who can write to her at P.O. Box 40772, Mesa, AZ 85274-0772.
GRANDMA’S 20-MINUTE BROWNIE RECIPE
2 squares unsweetened baking chocolate
½ cup butter
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
¾ cup flour
½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp vanilla
1 cup chopped nuts
Preheat oven to 350° F.
Melt chocolate and butter. Cool. Beat eggs 5 minutes. Add sugar and beat again. Sift dry ingredients and add to egg mixture. Add melted chocolate mixture. Add vanilla and nuts. Spread in a greased 9"x13" pan and bake at 350° F for 20 minutes. Can dust top lightly with powered sugar. Cut and remove from pan while hot.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Epilogue
Chapter One
Nikki Day didn’t want to open her eyes. Not when doing so would confirm that yes, she was very much in a hospital bed, and now she was losing her mind, to boot. Because there was no way on earth that he would really be sitting there in the recliner next to the bed as if he belonged there.
Which meant she was seeing things.
Hallucinating.
As if she didn’t have enough worries already.
Her arm curled protectively over her abdomen as she felt another hard kick. At least that movement assured her that whatever was happening and why ever she was here, the baby was now gunning for kicker of the year. Nikki was in her sixth month. She figured by the time she made it to nine, the baby would be leaving behind permanent footprints—her own personal Hollywood Walk of Fame.
She gingerly shifted to her side, pushing a pillow against her abdomen, trying to find a more comfortable position, and regrettably opened her eyes as she did so.
He was still there.
Dismay shot through her and she hurriedly closed them again.
Tightly.
“Nice to see you, too,” the apparition said in a low voice.
It appeared that when Nikki hallucinated, she could do it with as much accuracy and precision as she’d done most things in her life.
The realization made her want to laugh. Was she hysterical?
She shifted again, wishing she could escape the ache in her back as much as she wished she could escape the rabbit hole she’d fallen down.
“Careful. You don’t want to yank out that IV line.”
She nearly came out of her skin when those long, capable…warm fingers settled over her hand.
Definitely not a hallucination.
She jerked back, sitting up so abruptly the pale blue sheet fell to her waist, displaying a limp, blue cotton hospital gown. The pillow teetered on the edge of the bed, then slid over.
He still held her hand, though. He was evidently concerned about the thin tubing snaking from beneath the adhesive on the back of her hand, because there was no other reason he’d have held her so.
He. Alexander Reed. Alex.
The man who was—inadvertently and completely unknowingly—responsible for the baby that was even now kicking the life out of her kidneys.
He’d been her boss for three years, until she’d resigned last summer.
Nikki’s heart pounded so hard she felt faint.
“Easy there,” he murmured, casually reaching for the button that hung from a cord near her shoulder. “Don’t upset yourself. You’re fine. The baby’s fine.”
She swallowed, his assurance calming the panic roiling inside her. The baby. Concentrate on the baby.
She carefully pulled her hand from beneath his. “How did I get back to Cheyenne?”
He shook his head. “You didn’t. You’re still in Montana. Lucius Community Hospital.”
“You sure are,” the nurse entering the room agreed. “And we’re happy to see you’re awake.” She smiled comfortingly as she bustled around the bed, checking machines and making notes. “The doctor will be right in,” she told Alex as she deftly wrapped Nikki’s arm in a blood pressure cuff. “We’re a little busy today. Two babies on the way.” She finished with the cuff and made some more notes. “How are you feeling, hon?”
Nikki couldn’t formulate a coherent answer. But the nurse seemed to understand. “Just remain quiet,” she told her. “The doctor won’t be long.”
When the nurse departed, Nikki eyed Alex again. “What are you doing here?” Never mind what she was doing there. Not even the nurse had helped to answer that question.
Alex’s dark brown eyes were as unreadable as ever. “They called me when you were brought in.”
“They?”
He moved his shoulders slightly as if he were impatient with the question. She wasn’t surprised. When she’d worked for him, Alex had depended on her to handle the details. The man wouldn’t remember his own birthday if she hadn’t reminded him to check his calendar.
“The woman who owns that inn you were staying at,” he said. “The only phone number she had, other than your home, was your work number. The hospital called me, too.”
Her former work number. “Hadley Golightly?” Nikki wasn’t only trying to get details out of him. She was trying not to betray the fact that she was desperately trying to recall what had happened. “Tiff’s is a boardinghouse. Not an inn.”
“Fine. A boardinghouse.” Alex’s sharp gaze had strayed to the window. Narrow blinds covered it, slanted so the sun wouldn’t shine directly into the room. Not that there was any sun, from the looks of it. Just gray skies, heavy with snow. Typical January whether she was home in Wyoming or vacationing in Montana.
Her temples throbbed. “The baby,” she whispered. “You’re sure about the baby?”
“I’m sure.” He looked back at her, and the steadiness of his gaze eased her as much as his words did.
“I still don’t understand what you’re doing here, though.” Why hadn’t Alex called her family rather than come to Montana himself? It wasn’t as if he didn’t know who they were. Her sister, Belle, had worked for him at Huffington Sports Clinic, too. For a while, at least.
The whispery details of a blue, horse-drawn sleigh straight out of a fairy tale drifted in and out of her mind, as insubstantial as a curl of smoke.
Cody had promised her a sleigh ride for their honeymoon.
