The Tycoon's Marriage Bid. Allison Leigh

it was all she could do not to attack the soup with him standing right there watching her. But as soon as he saw her scoop up a spoonful of slippery noodles, he went back to the kitchen.

      A moment later, she heard him talking on his cell phone.

      At least that was typical behavior for him. Alex and his cell phone had always been nearly surgically attached. The man was a serious workaholic.

      Somewhat comforted by this small piece of normalcy, she devoured the soup. There was also a banana and two rolls on the tray, and she ate them, too.

      Her gaze kept straying to the slice of kitchen she could see. Alex’s voice was a low murmur, too indistinct for her to make out words. Given the coziness of the cabin, she knew he was deliberately keeping his voice low.

      A personal call?

      Alex was forty-two and the epitome of tall, dark and handsome. He was also extremely wealthy.

      Women always flocked to him.

      She brushed a bread crumb from her chest and leaned her head back against the arm of the couch. It was no business of hers whatsoever who Alex was speaking to.

      Was it Valerie?

      Still?

      She closed her eyes. But while she could block out the sight of the cabin for lovers, she couldn’t block out the low ebb and flow of Alex’s voice. And she couldn’t block out the thoroughly unwelcome fact that, while it was none of her business, she couldn’t pretend that she didn’t care.

      She scooted down farther in the couch, wishing she could burrow beneath the red cushions and erase the past week.

      Erase the past year, for that matter.

      If she could, then Alex would still be the guy who changed women almost as often as he changed shirts. She’d still be working at his side, doing a job she really had loved, and keeping her own feelings for him sternly under wraps, because she was definitely too smart to think seriously about a man who sent nearly every woman off with some tasteful gift that Nikki had arranged for him.

      If she could wish away the past year, Alex’s ex-wife, Valerie, wouldn’t have come back into his life, and Nikki wouldn’t have had to quit her job because of her own foolish behavior.

      She wouldn’t be lying here now in this rabid honeymooner cabin, pregnant with the child of a man whose only appeal to her had been his strong resemblance to Alex.