The Tycoon's Virgin Mistress

by Clare Connelly

  Susanna nodded sagely. “He’s a fool not to grab you with both hands and not let go.” She reached out and took her friend’s pale fingers in her hand. “It will get easier, Missy. You have to focus on what you have. Forget about him. You’re better off.”

  Missy shook her head, knowing that wasn’t true but appreciating the sentiment.

  “Do you want to stay with me for a while?” Susanna offered graciously. “I’m house sitting for some friend’s rich uncle. I’ve got loads of space and it’s all mine until February.”

  It felt a lot like running away, but it also felt like independence. She needed space to clear her mind. She nodded desperately. “Thank you, Susanna. That solves a lot of problems.”

  Susanna had to start work, and she left Missy cradling a peppermint tea at the private table. Missy hunched there, spying out of the window, waiting until a familiar dark head, on an impossibly gorgeous body, left the hotel. Every line of his body radiated with anger. She knew him so well. She knew that storming out like that would have driven him crazy. But she couldn’t have stayed another moment. Every second she spent with him made her afraid of shouting out, ‘I love you!’ Once Nate had climbed into the car and been whisked away, Missy returned to the apartment.

  She stood in her bedroom, agonising over what to take. None of the clothes that she’d bought for evening events. They’d no longer fit her, and she didn’t have any need for them anyway. She couldn’t see her life as a single mother being peppered with glamorous events. She carefully folded each of the gowns, and put them on the floor of the wardrobe, hoping Nate would have the sense to donate them to a worthy charity. It took forever, but she felt each dress got a special goodbye. All of them held memories for her that she would always cherish. In the end she packed mostly just what she’d come with, and a couple of stretchy tops that she needed to get her through the immediate future.

  It was surprisingly hard work for someone pregnant with twins and it took longer than she’d expected. Several hours, in fact, passed before she’d realised it. Exhausted, Missy sat down on the bed to rest for a moment, once she was done, the bag at her feet.

  As she sat there, she felt an unfamiliar pain and this time she realised that it didn’t feel right.

  She instinctively grabbed her stomach, and stood up, feeling warmth between her legs. She lifted her dress and saw blood.

  The doctor in her immediately began speaking platitudes. Blood loss didn’t necessarily mean anything. But the mum-to-be knew it wasn’t good news. Her hands shook, and she sat down again. She had to get her brain into gear, to work out what to do.

  Hospital. Yes. Hospital. She felt woozy.

  Despite their uncertain state, Missy knew she had to call Nate first. She looked around and couldn’t see her phone. She limped, painfully, into the lounge and picked up her handbag, rifled through it.

  Her breath was hurting as she dialled his number. It rang, and rang, and rang. “Pick up, pick up, pick up.” She muttered silently, not caring what he thought of her, just desperately wanting him to come back and make everything all right. “Damn it.” She tried again. It was answered on the fourth ring.

  A woman’s voice. In Missy’s perturbed state, she almost thought the woman sounded familiar.

  “Missy? Is that you?”

  It was Angelique, Missy clicked, finally. “Oh. Yes. Is Nate there?”

  The actress’s voice was husky. “He’s still in bed, darling. You know his stamina. I’m sorry it didn’t work out for the two of you by the way, but your loss is my gain. I can’t tell you how glad I am to have him back.”

  Sharp pain stabbed through Missy and she disconnected the call. Nate could go to hell for all she cared. Missy leant against the kitchen bench and called out, “Rick! Help!” She managed to say those two words and then that was it. She slumped down, passed out on the tiled floor of the hotel kitchen.

  Missy was groggily aware of the door opening. She heard it click, and saw Rick’s face hovering over her, seriously worried. Two other security men appeared, and all the while, Missy was too woozy to speak. Too exhausted to move. Rick lifted her as though she weighed nothing and carried her to the lift. The other men came, pushing people out of the way and bundling her into the back of a waiting car.

  It was a blur of speed, streetlights, and nausea. And above all else, fear. Fear that she was losing her babies. Fear that these tiny life-forms were about to disappear. Rick held Missy’s hand and talked to her comfortingly. He told her about his wife’s pregnancies, how sick she’d been, and how everything had turned out fine. He stroked her head, and tried to make her focus on the positives, not worry about what might happen.

  Missy couldn’t speak. She hardly wanted to breathe. She just hoped against hope that her worst fears weren’t about to materialise. Nate would be as devastated as Missy if the worst happened.

  Remembering the phone call with Angelique, she squeezed her eyes shut. He would be heartbroken, and although she never wanted to see him again, she hated that she was responsible for bringing this pain to him.

  The car swerved suddenly, and stopped. Rick jumped out and pulled open the door. Ever so gently for such a giant of a man, he eased her out and carried her through the front doors of St Mary’s. “We need a doctor, immediately.” His voice was almost as authoritative as Nate’s would have been in the circumstances and Missy patted his shoulder gratefully.

  Missy passed out again and the next thing she knew, she was lying in a bed in a beige hospital room. It reminded her so much of the hospital she worked at that she was strangely comforted by the decor. She reached for her tummy and sobbed. She prayed, and wished, and hoped and dreamed that everything would be okay.

  On the chair beside her, she became aware of a man’s bulky frame and her heart stilled. Nate.

  It wasn’t Nate, of course. It was Rick. He’d stayed with her, bless him. Nate wouldn’t know where she was. Disjointed memories, fragmented by her illness, cleaved together. Nate had been with his ex-wife. In bed. She’d been suffering, and he’d been with Angelique.

  Warm, fat tears rolled down her cheeks and she dashed them away. Beside her, there was a call button, but she reached beyond it. She hooked her hand beneath the bed and felt along the metal length. Halfway along, she found it. The clipboard with her notes.

  She pulled it up and looked over what they’d written. Her brow furrowed. It was inconclusive. That, at least, was a good sign. If she’d lost the babies they would have known immediately.

  Missy clutched the clipboard to her chest and leant back in the bed.

  The sound of the door squeaking open alerted her to a doctor’s presence, but she didn’t open her eyes. She was too fatigued.

  “MISSY!” Nate’s voice, unmistakably anguished, punctuated her slumberous state.

  Her green eyes opened slowly, her face showed her rejection of him and he felt he deserved every ounce of it.

  “Get out.” She said it so quietly that it chilled him to the bone. There was no angst, no anger, just determination.

  He looked at Rick. “Leave us.” He commanded.

  Rick, torn by his affection for Missy, and loyalty to a boss he’d served for almost a decade, eventually stuck to the duties of his job. Only because he thought Nate was a good guy and could make Missy happy again. He patted her foot as he left. “I’m just on the other side of the doors. You call if you need me.”

  Traitor, Missy silently cursed him, refusing to look at either of them. She stared at the waffle weave of the blanket instead.

  “Missy,” Nate’s voice wrenched from the depths of his soul, “Are you okay?”

  “Don’t you mean, are the babies okay?” She threw back at him, affronted by his pretence of caring.

  “The babies, you, it’s all the same thing,” he said, sitting beside her and trying to take her hands in his. She pulled them away.

  “NO, it isn’t,” she said emphatically.

  He rubbed a hand across his stubbled chin. “I’m sorry I w
asn’t with you,” he said quietly.

  “How did you know I was here?”

  “Rick.” Then, with a slight tone of condemnation, “You should have called me, Missy.”

  “I did call you!” She fumed. “You were tied up at the time, but Angelique was kind enough to tell me all about your steamy reunion.”

  He jerked out of the chair. “What? What are you talking about?”

  “No need to pretend anymore, Nate. I called your mobile, and who should answer but your ex-wife. Quite breathless, and giddy with delight that you’d gone back to her.”

  “You can’t seriously believe that.” Nate blanched.

  “Why not? You don’t own me, I don’t own you. Remember? That’s our agreement.”

  He shook his head tersely. “Angelique was lying to you, Missy.”

  “Why would she answer you phone, Nate?”

  “To make trouble. That’s all she ever wants to do. I was picking up some of my things. I was in a different room most of the time I was there. She must have heard my phone ringing in my jacket and taken the opportunity to stir trouble with us.”

  Missy felt a surge of hope but she quickly tamped down on it. “What about Cressida?”

  “Cressida?” He actually laughed. “That’s got Angelique’s fingerprints all over it too. Cressida, my angel, is a very good friend. You’d like her. She’s quite as gay as they come though, and absolutely nothing to worry about. Suffice it to say, she’d find you infinitely preferable to me.” He paused. “I never felt like enlightening Angelique on that score. All the men she dragged into our marital bed while I was away on business, I thought she deserved to have a little insecurity over an old friend of mine.”

  Missy felt her anger slipping away but she didn’t want to let it. She wanted to stay feeling mad, because once she wasn’t mad, she was something else, infinitely more dangerous. “None of that matters anyway,” she said forcefully. “This situation is a farce. At least if I lost the babies, we’d never have to see each other again.”

  His face twisted with pain, and it was such an awful thing to say that she burst into tears and sobbed heavily.

  “I don’t mean it,” she whimpered. “I don’t want to lose them.”

  “I know, I know, hush,” he pulled her against his chest and stroked her hair. “Oh Missy, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for all of this.”

  She sobbed again.

  “Where were you? I hated not being able to find you when I needed you.”

  Guilt perforated his gut.

  In business, Nate had always negotiated on his terms. He’d never entered into negotiations without being reasonably confident of how the other party would react. But now, he was at a total loss. He still decided honesty was his best chance of success.

  “I was with Robert,” he said slowly, grabbing her hands between his and stroking her palms. This time, she let him.

  “My brother?” Her brain was still foggy.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  He sighed. “To tell you that, I have to tell you why I went to America.”

  She frowned.

  “Missy, I realised in Italy how head over heels in love with you I was. I knew that it was more than just an infatuation. If I’m honest with myself, I knew from the first moment I saw you that this was different, more real, somehow, than anything I’d ever felt in my life.”

  She froze, his words penetrating some of her shocked mind.

  “I went to America to get it clear in my own mind. I hoped that while I was gone you might come to miss me, to love me, even.” He grimaced shame-facedly. “But I just ended up missing you, and loving you more. And when I came back, you seemed so indifferent to me, and I thought I had finally lost you. I couldn’t lose you Missy. I lay awake that whole night, planning how I could convince you to give me, to give us, another chance. And then you sledged with the bombshell that you wanted to move out. I’ve never felt anything like it.” He was staring into the distance, his eyes focussed on the wall beyond her. His fingers stroked her wrist.

  “I went straight to Robert. I wanted his permission to ask you to marry me.” He scoffed now at the ridiculousness of the gesture. “I thought that being the person you love most in the world, it was only fair to bring him in on it.” He shook his head. “That’s when I got carried away in all the warm and fuzzy happiness of it all.” His voice was rich with self-criticism. “I went to Angelique to tell her that I intended to propose. I told her that I didn’t know how you felt but that I was determined to win you over.” He paused. “Angelique knows enough of my determined nature to know that having set my eyes on you, I would probably succeed in the end. She must have decided to cast a major spanner in the works for her own amusement.”

  Missy’s face was pale. “Oh.”

  Nate continued. “Missy, listen to me.” His voice held urgency. “I have to tell you this now. I know we have bigger things to worry about immediately, but before the doctor comes I want to tell you that I love you. I love you like I didn’t know it was humanly possible. I would give up everything I am for the honour of having you in my life. You make me want to be a better person. I am in awe of you, and what you stand for. Never in my life did I know such perfect goodness existed until I met you.”

  She gulped, trying to hold back tears.

  “I need you to know that whatever happens now, and I know we both desperately want everything to be okay... but I need you to know that my love of you is separate to this pregnancy. Rain, hail or shine, I want to be by your side. If we never have children, or if we have ten of them, I don’t care. I just want you, and whatever else happens, happens.”

  He was careful not to push it. He wanted to pull her to him, to embrace her with all the love that swelled from his heart, but she was in such a fragile, emotional state, and that deserved space. He daren’t frighten her.

  She opened her mouth to speak, he hoped to put him out of his misery, but a doctor swung into the room at that precise moment.

  “Missy Black?” The doctor said, pushing a small portable scan device in front of his white-coat-clad body.

  Missy nodded, wordlessly, her features drawn with overwhelming worry.

  Nate stood up and extended a hand. “Nate Anderson.” The doctor took the proffered hand, his face registering recognition, and transforming to express admiration. Missy had come to realise that Nate was very well known, and only a complete simpleton – or herself – wouldn’t have recognised him walking down the street.

  “Let’s see what’s going on in here.” Missy recognised his smile. She used it herself. It was the smile you reserved for patients who you suspected you may have to deliver bad news to. You wanted to keep them calm but not give them false hope.

  Missy reached out wordlessly and took Nate’s hand in her own, her face averted from the ultrasound screen. The doctor waved the wand over her belly, pressing down with a pressure that she found unpleasant.

  Nate’s face was made of stone. Missy couldn’t look at him; couldn’t feel what this would do to him.

  “Well,” the doctor said in a neutral tone. “You are going to have very full hands in a few months time.”

  Missy whipped her head around, her blonde hair brushing against her cheeks.

  “Do you mean...?” She whispered urgently.

  The doctor smiled. “Two babies. Good heart beats.” Missy watched the screen, feeling joy burst from her heart. She turned to Nate, her smile radiant, and her tummy flip-flopped at the sight of this alpha-male with suspiciously shimmering eyes. He squeezed her hand but didn’t speak. She saw him swallow, and his obvious depth of emotion made her soul sing.

  The doctor continued to scan her stomach for another ten minutes, and then flipped the machine off. “Everything looks absolutely fine at this stage,” he said, reassuringly. “Did anyone explain to you that twin pregnancies carry a higher risk of loss and cramping?”

  Missy nodded her head. No one had, but of course she knew that.

 
Nate cleared his throat. “But she passed out. When my security guards found her, she was unconscious.”

  The doctor nodded. “Yes, Rick explained all that when he brought her in.” Nate’s heart tightened with guilt. That should have been him. He should have been there. The doctor continued, “It’s not going to be clear sailing, Missy. No pregnancy is, but twin pregnancies are a little higher risk. I’m going to prescribe bed rest for you, for a few weeks, and after that, you must continue to take it easy. Build lots of down time into each day, and be sure to avoid anything strenuous. We’ll also do check-ups fortnightly, just to be safe.”

  Missy nodded, the joy of the news sinking in. After the doctor left, Missy leant back into the pillows, and beamed her happiest smile at Nate.

  His face was guarded but his eyes glittered. “Missy,” his voice, dragged from him as though he were in pain. “If you tell me you want nothing to do with me, I’ll understand. I don’t deserve you. But please, one way or another, give me an answer. Do you think there’s any way you can stay with me? Do I have any hope?”

  Missy didn’t look at him. She couldn’t. She didn’t want to give herself away. She still had questions; still needed reassuring.

  “Where have you been going at night, Nate?”

  He grimaced. “To BJ’s apartment.”

  Missy’s heat soared. “Not to another woman?”

  He visibly recoiled. “No, Missy, of course not. I haven’t thought of another woman since I met you. I haven’t thought of anything but you since I met you.” His voice was laced with frustration. “I know I didn’t handle it well. This is new to me. I have been tormenting myself with recriminations of how I should have behaved.” He sighed heavily. “You are so different to anyone I’ve ever known and where I should have been gentle and kind, I’m afraid I just pushed and took. I treated you like a business I was taking over. It’s all I know.”

  She furrowed her brow, not ready to answer his question just yet. “I still don’t understand why you were going to BJ’s. It doesn’t make sense.”