The Tycoon's Marriage Bid. Allison Leigh

      “But—”

      “Don’t argue, Nikki.” Alex’s voice was smooth. “We’ll do whatever is necessary to protect the baby.”

      “We?” Her hands clutched the blanket, bunching it frantically. The monitor beside her began bleating like an angry lamb, and spewed out a stream of narrow paper.

      “Ms. Day.” The nurse gently nudged her back against the pillows. “Please. Don’t excite yourself.”

      Nikki waved her hand at the doctor. “You just sentence me to bed rest for the better part of a month and I’m not supposed to get excited?” A sharp pain tore through her midsection and she exhaled loudly, drawing up her knees, doubling over.

      The nurse and Dr. Carmichael were suddenly all business. Blood pressure cuffs. Syringes.

      Nikki didn’t much notice what they did, since panic was rocketing through her, keeping company with the grappling hook that was twisting her insides into a knot.

      The baby had been a complete accident.

      But that didn’t mean she didn’t want it.

      Oh God oh God oh God.

      Alex slid his hand into hers.

      She stared blindly at him. The pain was excruciating. “Nikki…” His voice was soft. Insistent.

      She blinked. Focused. The panic retreated a hair. She was hardly aware of the death grip her fingers had on his. “It hurts,” she gasped.

      His intense gaze was steady. Calm.

      Familiar.

      “I know. Relax.” His voice was almost hypnotic. “Everything is going to be fine.”

      She was twenty-seven years old. A modern, competent, independent woman. She didn’t need anyone to tell her that everything would be fine.

      She was the one who usually made certain that things were fine.

      Only none of that amounted to a hill of beans right now. She was glad he was there. Glad. Pathetically glad.

      THE TYCOON’S MARRIAGE BID

      Her tears slipped out, streaming down her cheeks. She’d never once cried in front of her boss.

      No. He wasn’t her boss any longer.

      He was just Alex.

      A man she still couldn’t manage to get out of her head.

      “Breathe,” he told her. She was vaguely aware that the nurse had been repeating the same thing.

      She drew in a slow breath.

      “That’s it,” he said encouragingly. “Slow and easy.” The grappling hook was slowly, infinitesimally, loosening.

      “I don’t want to lose the baby.” Her voice was thick.

      His brown gaze didn’t flicker. His hand never let go of hers. “I won’t let that happen,” he promised.

      It made no sense. But she believed him.

      “Try and lie back, Ms. Day.”

      She felt woozy. Incapable of making herself uncurl. Focusing on Alex’s face was getting harder. But when he leaned over her, gently settling her back against the pillows, she could still make out the subtle variations of brown in his eyes.

      Dark, clear coffee rimmed by a narrow circle of chocolate Kisses.

      “Melted,” she corrected. Melted chocolate. Rich. Thick.

      Addictive.

      He was still so close. “Melted what?”

      She frowned a little. Had she said it out loud? “My head feels funny.”

      “It’s the sedative,” the nurse stated. She unwrapped the blood pressure cuff from Nikki’s arm and tucked the contraption back in its holder beside the bed. “Don’t worry. It won’t harm the baby. You’re just both going to have a little nap.”

      “I don’t want a nap. I have to go back to Cheyenne.”

      “Not today you don’t. You’ve been out of it for four days, remember?” Alex let go of her and straightened, moving away from the bed.

      She wanted to call him back. But the idea took too much effort.

      Later. She’d call him later.

      No, she wouldn’t call him back later.

      Later she’d have to call human resources at Belvedere and see if she could salvage the job she was supposed to start.

      Salvage.

      She felt an amused giggle rise in her, but it never seemed to make it out.

      She’d have to do lots of things.

      She just couldn’t put her finger on what they were at the moment….

      Alex watched Nikki’s eyes close. The stress wrinkling her forehead smoothed out. Her lips softened.

      “She’ll sleep for a few hours,” the nurse told him quietly.

      Alex nodded. He followed the doctor outside the room. “You’ve been running tests on her since I got here. I want details.” He wasn’t a physician himself, but he came from a long line of them, and he employed a fair number himself. If he wasn’t satisfied with the doctor’s answers, he’d have Nikki under someone else’s care in a heartbeat.

      “We can talk in my office,” the doctor said easily. “I wouldn’t mind getting some medical history on you, as well.”

      Alex smiled noncommittally. It suited him to let the doctor believe he was the baby’s father. If the other man knew just how nonpersonal his relationship with Nikki Day was, Alex would have a harder time getting the information he wanted.

      He’d still get it.

      He just preferred to get it as expediently as possible.

      He should have done it all when he’d arrived at the hospital. Instead, he’d sat by Nikki’s bedside.

      It was unfathomable even to him.

      Two hours later, he’d obtained all the details of Nikki’s and her baby’s health that he wanted. He’d even called his uncle, who was head of obstetrics for RHS Memorial, the Philadelphia flagship hospital of Reed Health Systems, who concurred with Dr. Carmichael’s plan of treatment.

      Alex had plenty of disagreements with his family. But when it came to basic medical care, there were few minds finer.

      So he sat now in the recliner in Nikki’s room, watching her sleep. There was a little more color in her face than there had been when he’d first arrived.

      His first sight of her had hit him in a way he was still trying to figure out. When she’d worked for him, he’d never seen her with a hair on her auburn head out of place, and he’d never seen her lose her composure. Not with temper or tears. She’d been efficient as hell. The best assistant he could ever have wanted. She’d kept his hectic life in order, and he was still reeling all these months after she’d left him flat.

      It wasn’t a fact he particularly liked admitting, either. He didn’t like depending on anyone. Not when they invariably failed you.

      But he’d depended on Nikki.

      Right now, she seemed miles away from that fearsomely competent young woman who’d often beat him to the office in the mornings, and generally outlasted him at the end of the day. Aside from the swollen soccer-ball-size mound her slender arm was curled protectively over, she seemed too thin, and ridiculously young.

      Vulnerable.

      Her hair waved across the white pillow in a fiery river, looking more red than brown. There were no cosmetics to make her ivory complexion perfect, and it was smooth