He was staring, he realised, and ran a hand over his eyes.
Missy pushed on, remembering finally the reason she’d come all this way. “Would you care to tell me what the hell these are?” She fumed, thrusting the pictures at him angrily.
Nate instinctively took the papers between his fingers without looking at them.
At the door, his receptionist hovered uncertainly. Nate threw her a cursory smile. “It’s fine, Janine. Thank you.”
Once his assistant had left, Nate looked at the pictures, the incriminating images of his lover and another man, and then at her angry little face, and he felt his temper rise, yet again.
He turned to his brother. “BJ, would you mind excusing us? We’re about to have one of our patented battles, and they’re better in private.”
Missy reached up and slapped him hard. “Don’t you dare joke about this,” she raged, not caring that BJ had stopped in his tracks and was watching them, gob-smacked. Apparently, he’d never seen his older brother being put in his place and it held a very real entertainment value. “Where the hell did you get these pictures?”
Nate thrust them back at her. “Where do you think? I hired a PI. Something about you didn’t add up, Missy, and I wanted to know what it was.”
She stomped her foot angrily. “So you hired an investigator rather than just talking to me?”
“I tried talking to you. But you’re a fucking genius secret keeper.”
It hurt. It really hurt. She rubbed her chest, wounded. With a quiet dignity that would have touched his heart had he not been so pissed off, she said, “I have told you more than I’ve ever told anyone. We’ve only known each other a short while.” And then, with a finality that terrified him, “You should have asked me.”
He would not let her con him. Angelique had also been the mistress of illusion. Once bitten, twice shy. He was not going to let Missy do the same thing to him. He’d learned from his mistakes. Hadn’t he? Dismissively, he said, “We agreed that this was exclusive. I merely asked the investigator to discover if there were any other men in your life. That is all. If you’d had nothing to hide, then we wouldn’t be having this discussion.”
“Well, Nate, for a basquillionaire, you sure hired a crappy investigator,” she shouted, turning her back and stalking back to the door. “I do love the man in those photos. I love him with all my heart, and would do anything to make him happy. You better believe he’s another man in my life. He’s someone I wouldn’t give up for anything or anyone.” She actually enjoyed watching the hurt expression sear across his face. He looked like she’d pulled the rug from under his feet by confirming what he already thought of her. When she felt he’d soaked in her words, she put him out of his misery. “He’s my brother, Nate. My twin brother. You jackass.” She shook her head sadly, whispered, so quietly he almost didn’t hear. “You should have just asked me.”
She slammed the door shut and ran across the reception, trying not to cry.
Nate was behind her in an instant. As the elevator arrived, he bowled her into it. They were alone. He pushed against the mirrored wall and collapsed his head against the cold glass panel.
“Missy, I’m sorry.” He was not a man to readily apologise, and the gesture did mean something to Missy. But she was still mad as hell.
She glared at him. “You should be. Do you realise how violated I feel?” She shook with anger.
He dipped his head, his emotions hidden from her. “I’m a rich man and I’ve been lied to before. I needed to know I could trust you. Can you really blame me? After how we met? You lied about your name, your experience, and then you ran off and disappeared into the night.”
Missy didn’t want to acknowledge that he had a point. She was too furious to be reasonable. “I didn’t owe you anything then, and I don’t owe you anything now. Our business relationship does not include full disclosure.”
“Business arrangement,” he spat, and if Missy didn’t know better, she would have said that he was actually upset by her terminology. “Is that really how you’d describe what we have?”
“We have sex.” She shrugged, being deliberately coarse. “None of that gives you the right to pry into my life. Let’s be honest, Nate. You’ll be heading back to America soon, and we’ll never see each other again. Why is anything about me relevant to you at all?”
His face was expressionless, perfectly frozen. She was testing him. In her heart, she desperately wanted him to contradict her assertion. To say that he wouldn’t go yet. That he wanted to see her again. That would at least explain why he’d got her looked into.
But he didn’t. “You’re quite right, Missy.”
Missy felt the burning sting of tears in her eyeballs, but she wouldn’t let them fall. She dug her fingernails into her palms to replace sadness with sharp pain. At least now, when she told him they were going to be parents, she wouldn’t be looking for an emotional response from him. He was apparently very willing to let her walk away, and even with a baby in the mix, they wouldn’t need to see each other often.
The future she saw for them hollowed out her insides. She felt utterly desolate to contemplate that life, but it was for the best.
The elevator reached the ground floor and Missy stepped onto the flagstone tile floor of the foyer.
“Missy?” He called, slamming a hand into the elevator doors to hold them open. Her heart stilled. Maybe it wasn’t too late for them. Maybe he was going to make everything okay again. “We have dinner tonight, with Chuck and Mary.”
She stared at him blankly.
“BJ’s birthday dinner. I expect you to work your ass off making everyone believe we’re a happy couple. You might be mad as hell, but you’re also bought and paid for, and I expect what I’m owed.”
He removed his hand and the doors slammed shut. Missy stared at her reflection in the brushed aluminium and sighed. There was no way she could put off telling Nate indefinitely.
They’d get through tonight, and then she’d have to tell him the truth.
CHAPTER SEVEN
It was a beautiful home, in a small town caught in the bend of the Thames. The house itself was right on the banks of the river and enjoyed beautiful views in both directions. Mary had given her a guided tour when they’d first arrived, explaining that though they lived in New York, they were in London often enough to make a real home a necessity. She knew it was all lovely, but Missy could hardly do justice to the splendour of the house. She was too pent up with tension after her spat with Nate. He sat beside her, looking as calm and in control as ever. Only his reticence to meet Missy in the eye signalled to her that he was still mad as hell.
Mary and Chuck had assembled a small group for the party; BJ, Missy and Nate, and another couple, who BJ introduced as head of the Anderson Corp’s UK office. Their names were Christopher and Fiona, and they very friendly, obviously keen to make a good impression on the woman they thought had won Nate’s heart. Christopher had that diffidence that all British men of a certain privileged background had, but Fiona was pure salt of the earth. She immediately befriended Missy, making a point to hover near her throughout the evening.
When main course was served, it had sounded delicious: a pheasant and quail terrine. It sounded lovely, but Missy found one bite made her stomach clench with nausea. She pushed the rest around her plate, whilst listening to Fiona’s animated conversation, hoping no one noticed that she was forking air into her mouth.
Nate noticed. Of course. Missy looked up and found his black eyes trained steadily on her. BJ was telling a long and involved joke about a recent flight he’d had to Spain, but Nate was staring daggers at Missy. “EAT!” he mouthed silently, angrily. She stonily turned her face away, and pretended to listen to the conversation.
Once BJ’s story had finished, Fiona asked, “Tell me, Missy, what do you do for work?”
If it was possible, Missy felt even more uncomfortable. She looked at Nate, whose eyebrows were raised challengingly at her. Oh, how she would have lov
ed to tell them all just what she was currently employed as. Show them what a uncaring bastard the wonderful Nate Anderson really was.
“I’m a doctor,” She said finally, tamping down on the desire to wink at Nate.
“Oh, a doctor!” Fiona cooed. “How clever you must be!”
Missy demurred shyly, but Fiona wouldn’t be deterred. “Where did you study?”
“Oxford,” she avoided looking at Nate, and so didn’t see the stillness that overtook him. “I was lucky enough to win a full scholarship.”
“Lucky!” Fiona’s husband Christopher spluttered. “There’s no luck to it. Those entrance exams are some of the hardest in the world. You must be very bright indeed.”
“We saw Missy in action!” Mary chimed in excitedly. “She was quite brilliant, wasn’t she, Nate? Saving that woman’s life like that.” Nate raised his wineglass in a silent toast. Only he could make such a gesture seem condescending somehow.
“Truly, I was mostly just fortunate.” Missy hated being made a fuss of. Perhaps because her parents were so phenomenally disinterested in both of their children, she rationalised, praise didn’t please her. It just made her feel a bit sick, a bit nervous, like she was then waiting for it to evaporate. “Actually, my brother’s the genius in the family. He graduated from Oxford with a degree in advanced mathematics and first class honours. He’s very bright.”
She flicked her eyes to Nate at the mention of her sibling, and saw the reference had hit its mark. Almost indiscernibly, his cheeks had darkened. Beside him, BJ was grinning rakishly.
“Are you close to your brother, Missy?” Mary asked kindly.
Missy’s smile was bright. “Oh, yes. He’s my twin, and we’ve always had a special bond.” Her eyes held a challenge to Nate, one that he resisted taking up.
“Where’s your brother now?” Fiona asked.
Missy took a sip of mineral water to buy time. She was still so angry at Nate for not having just asked her the simple questions, that she decided to show him how easy it was to find information out just by asking. Resolutely ignoring her fake-boyfriend, she addressed Fiona, “Unfortunately, when our great aunt passed away – she took over the raising of us once my parents died – my brother took it terribly hard.” She grimaced. “He was a mathematical prodigy, and was approached by some dodgy character to get involved in gambling. To start with, Robbie – that’s my brother – just loved the numbers. Playing the odds. It was a whole new challenge to him. But when Petunia died, he got in too deep. I was able to get him a spot in a rehab facility to help him deal with the addiction. He’s there now. That’s why we’re currently in London.”
The whole table was silent, listening to her story. Nate, she saw out of the corner of her eye, was expressionless.
“Missy doesn’t really like to talk about it though. It’s understandably upsetting to her.” His voice was affable enough, but Missy had no idea what he was feeling beneath that civilised exterior.
“Well, anyway, having seen you go into action, Missy, I know you’re just who I’d want on hand in an emergency. When your brother is, er, better, will you return to your job?”
Missy hadn’t thought that far ahead. How the hell would she manage her work, and two babies? “I love being a doctor, it’s what I’ve always wanted to do.”
Dessert appeared, and coffees and teas, and livelier conversation ensued. After sweets, the Nate disappeared with Charles, Christopher and BJ to go and look at some business papers in the home office and Mary, Fiona and Missy were left to sit comfortably and chat.
“You know, dear, it’s wonderful to see Nate with someone like you. You’re such a sensible woman; just what he needs. Don’t you agree, Fiona?” Mary asked the third lady.
Fiona lent forward enthusiastically, “Oh, yes, Missy. Truly, I’ve never seen him like this. He couldn’t take his eyes off you all night. It’s such a relief after that dreadful Angelique.” Fiona mock-shuddered. “She was a piece of work.”
Mary left the room briefly to check on the kitchen staff. Missy hated gossip, but Mary’s departure had given her an opportunity. She was insatiably curious about Nate and his ex, and here was a perfect opportunity to learn more. It hit her that this was no better than engaging a PI to learn secrets someone didn’t want to share. After all, Nate had had every opportunity to enlighten her as to his marriage, and the reason for the breakdown of it. But he hadn’t. Hating herself for being so curious that she ignored her own moral beliefs, she asked, “There doesn’t seem to be much affection left between Nate and Angelique. He must have taken the breakup very badly.”
Fiona snorted. “He was thrilled to be rid of her.” She took another sip of her white wine. “You have to understand, he only married her cause of the baby.”
“Baby?” Missy heard herself ask, and couldn’t believe how normal her voice sounded.
“Yes, the baby. Angelique pretended to be pregnant to con Nate into a quickie marriage. He’s awful traditional. For all their business success, those boys were raised in the deep south and have the manners to prove it. So he married her, but once it was official, she told him she’d miscarried. Only a few months ago, Nate learned she’d never even been pregnant at all. Talk about a manipulative you-know-what.”
Missy gasped. “That’s awful.” Her hand instinctively went to her own stomach and she thought of the little one cocooned inside her belly.
“Did he love her?”
“Heck, no. Lust, perhaps. She’s very beautiful. But he loved that baby. It was like he realised how badly he wanted to be a daddy. She took it away from him and he still tried to make it work. I think there were other men as well. She was a real piece of work.”
Missy was a crucible of emotions at this revelation. Oh, she felt sorry for him, and marginally less angry with him. After all, it showed his character, how much he put up with for the sake of trying to do the right thing. But he had a doozy of a secret all of his own, and he hadn’t told her. And she had asked! He should have told her about his marriage, before he set an investigator riffling into her private life.
And he’d insisted on marrying Angelique. The knowledge made her temperature skyrocket. What if he wanted to marry her, Missy, just because he was traditional? She couldn’t bear that. She couldn’t marry someone like him. She was so desperately in love, and he was clearly not. Every minute would be an agony, and no children should be raised in that environment if it could be helped.
She had only a minute to get her feelings under wraps before they all reassembled. Nate stood on the opposite wall, leaning against the hearth of the fire, and now it was Missy who found she couldn’t look at him. She was a torrid raging mess of feelings and thoughts.
“It’s all business with you four, all the time!” Fiona complained good-naturedly
“Not all the time, darling,” Christopher said with a laugh as he came to sit on the other side of his wife. “It’s just been two years of work to get this deal through, and it looks like we’ve done it. Nate and BJ will be able to get back to the States finally. I know Nate’s been champing at the bit to get home. Just this morning he was saying how much he was looking forward to getting out of bleak old London.” Oblivious to the pain he was causing Missy, he leaned towards her, “He’s not much of a fan of our weather, you see.”
Missy knew she must have drained of colour. She felt it. She felt her face grow wan as Christopher’s innocent words hit her. Of course Nate would leave. He’d never misled her on that score. What had he said originally? A month or two. Well, it was coming up on almost three months now, so he was overdue to go.
“It sounds like you can’t wait to leave, Nate,” she said quietly, refusing to show how much this affected her.
His face was unreadable. “I can never be away for long. BJ does a great job with the business, but it’s my baby.” The word hit her like a sledgehammer. His baby. Oh, if only he knew.
“Yeah, right, bro.” BJ rolled his eyes at Missy conspiratorially. “That’s just his way of say
ing that he’s a big fat control freak. Though I saw this afternoon that you’ve got him well enough under your thumb. Somehow I don’t feel like he’s controlling you at all.”
The reference to their spat earlier, conducted in front of BJ had her swallowing a wave of embarrassment.
“That’s true,” Nate said with all the appearance of good-humour. “Where Missy’s concerned, I’m a lost cause.”
Fiona clucked excitedly, apparently delighted at this declaration of affection. She wasn’t to know how insincere it was.
Two could play at that game. “Ah, well, that’s mutual.” Missy simpered, pretending to look coyly at her boss, for that was all he was.
By the time they left the party, Missy was exhausted. Being pregnant was hard work, but all the lying that came on top of it was seriously strenuous.
Missy sat quietly, letting the revelations of the evening swirl around her over-worked brain.
“Is that what you needed money for?” Nate asked after they’d been driving for some time.
“What?”
“Gambling? Addiction centres?”
Missy sighed in her seat. Tiredness made her forget her usual reserve. “Yes. Robbie is a great kid but he got in over his head. He borrowed from some shifty loan sharks and they’d become very threatening. I emptied my savings and paid what I could, but it was nowhere near enough. We ran away in the middle of the night, left everything behind, to start afresh. I was hoping that I could save up enough to placate them, and then start a payment plan or something. I don’t even know if loan sharks do such things!” She laughed humourlessly at her own naivety. “That night that you, er, hired me, for want of a better word, my room had been ransacked.” She saw him clench his jaw beside her but he said nothing. “I knew they would hurt me or worse if I didn’t pay them back.”
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