At the Billionaire's Bidding

by Trish Wylie

  ‘I was smart enough to keep coming back to fight with you. I happen to think that redeems some of my other mistakes.’

  She smiled with a familiar glint of mischief in her eyes. ‘Mmm, you’re still a work in progress, though.’

  ‘You’ll just have to fight to keep me, then.’ He angled his head and kissed her again. This time with the kind of hunger that never seemed sated with her. No matter how many times he kissed her or made love to her. Which was plenty. He took winning her over very seriously.

  But when he lifted his head and her lashes flickered upwards, revealing her familiar eyes, she seemed to momentarily forget she had to keep covering the something and the green shadowed over, even while she smiled at him.

  Connor had been through a dozen scenarios for what was behind that something, some of them too horrible for him to even consider. If someone had physically hurt her, he would kill him.

  ‘You hungry?’

  Connor smiled back. ‘Not for food.’

  ‘I give up—you’re officially insatiable.’

  ‘You love that I’m insatiable, you know you do.’

  Another long, hot kissing session, and they both scrambled to their feet, bedroom bound.

  And Connor’s mind wandered along the way. If somewhere there was a man who had broken her heart to the extent that it held her back from loving again—then Connor was determined to make love to her again and again and again. Until that memory was erased from her mind and her heart. Then maybe she would tell him what had happened, and he would hold her and tell her that it would never happen again. He wouldn’t let it. It was as simple as that.

  Then his phone rang.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ‘HOW IS SHE?’

  Connor’s voice sounded tired on the other end of the line. ‘She’s fine. Doctor’s looked at her again this morning and she’s home now, surrounded by people fussing over her—

  which she hates.’

  Shannon smiled. ‘I bet. You’d hate it too, so that must be where you get it from. And they reckon it was just an angina attack?’

  ‘Yeah, a warning, they say. But that’s the second warning in three years so she has to start and behave. I think the excitement of being a grandmother was maybe too much.

  Cara says she has been running herself ragged buying baby things already. She’ll have kittens when it gets here at this rate.’

  And there it was again—the twisting agony inside her. She wanted so badly to be able to deal better with someone else’s good news—but it had taken every ounce of strength she had in her to smile when Rory had beamed down at her as he’d told her about his baby.

  By the time Connor had come home to her, she had managed to get herself calmer. But she had still had to fight to keep the pain of old from him—and it had been getting tougher to do every day as it was. Each day she spent with him, every night that she spent in his arms, made it more and more difficult to face the prospect of losing him.

  ‘Where’d you go?’

  She smiled, even though she knew she didn’t have to force a smile when he couldn’t see her. ‘I’m here. So you’re at the house now?’

  ‘Nope—I’m on my way back. Should be there in just over an hour.’

  ‘You’re not staying?’

  ‘She’s kicking us all out, one by one. I didn’t get a choice. And anyway—maybe I missed you.’

  Her breath caught. Hell, but she had missed him too—big style. All night long she had tossed and turned, caught between horrible nightmares and periods of staring into the darkness. She couldn’t hold it back from him any longer. Already she had stolen more time from him than she had a right to. And he didn’t need her to remind him of how he used to be any more. He was already the man she had loved ten times over—slipping into the role of property developer with an enthusiasm that had made her so very proud of him.

  But she couldn’t stop herself from digging herself a little deeper in. ‘Well, maybe I missed you too. There was no one here to make coffee first thing.’

  Connor chuckled. ‘Good thing too. No one makes coffee the way I do or wakes you up the way I do.’

  Shannon smiled affectionately. ‘Don’t go over the speed limit, you idiot.’

  ‘Too late.’ He chuckled in return. ‘I can’t miss the lead-up to the big party tomorrow night, now, can I?’

  ‘Not when you’re the guest of honour—no.’

  ‘Well, there you go, then. I’ll see you soon.’

  Shannon stood in the empty pottery room for a long while, listening to the bustle of people in the foyer. The party was the official opening night of the brand-new revamped community centre, but, while she was filled with joy and immense pride for all that Connor had done to make it happen, she also felt physically sick, mentally drained, as if she were carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders at the prospect of finally telling him what she had been holding back.

  That was what someone got for holding back the truth for so long, she supposed. And the truth was she had probably used up all the strength she had trying not to love Connor any more than she already did. Not that that had worked. Because either side of the short bouts of depression she’d been suffering the last couple of weeks she had been ridiculously happy.

  She was still trying to think of when would be the right time to tell him what was long overdue as she got ready for the party, rehearsing the words in her head and trying to keep busy to hide how much even thinking of saying them was hurting her. She was lugging away the last of the boxes and running up and down ladders to put streamers up—hauling one particularly heavy box when she cramped up.

  The pain was sharp, taking her breath away.

  ‘You’ll pull a muscle like that.’ Mario grasped hold of the other end of the box. ‘After three. One, two, three—’

  The second cramp doubled her, her arm automatically circling her stomach as she looked up at Mario’s concerned face. ‘No—’

  He was at her side in a split second, his arm around her shoulders. ‘I told you you’d pull something. You’re a strapping lass, my precious, but you’re no weightlifter.’

  But Shannon could already feel tears welling in the backs of her eyes. Suddenly the way she had been feeling lately couldn’t be put down entirely to her guilt, could it?

  ‘I need you to take me to the hospital.’

  ‘Does it feel that bad?’ He laughed down at her. ‘Everything still looks attached to me—’

  ‘Please!’ She grasped hold of his arm, looking up at him as the tears blurred her vision, her voice an anguished whisper. ‘I think I might be having a miscarriage.’

  Connor stood in the open doorway looking in on Shannon sitting on the edge of the bed, her eyes wide and unblinking, her nose and cheeks red—from crying? And he was torn between wanting to sweep her into his arms or turning round to go for another long walk up and down the disinfectant-scented corridors to get his own emotions under control.

  Instead he stayed frozen to the spot until she took a shuddering breath, reaching up to wipe her eyes again, and she caught sight of him from her peripheral vision.

  When she didn’t speak he walked in and sat down on the bed beside her. ‘Mario rang me.

  I let him go on—said I’d bring you home.’

  ‘Okay.’ She didn’t manage to look him in the eye when he turned his face towards her.

  ‘What did he tell you?’

  ‘He told me.’ Connor had never felt so inadequate, each word taking more effort than he had ever put into talking before, especially with Shannon, and especially after their last few weeks together.

  ‘I wasn’t pregnant.’

  She said the words on that flat tone that he knew meant she had closed off again. And the swift shard of pain in his chest snapped him out of his own thoughts and into action, drawing her into his arms and kissing her hair before he asked in a husky voice, ‘Are you upset you weren’t?’

  A part of him really needed to know whether having his child was so
mething she would want too. It would have been fine with him—she’d have been bound to him then. And he wanted that. He wanted her inexorably tied to him. With no more doubts.

  But he was glad she hadn’t lost their child. It would have hurt unbearably if she’d miscarried and he’d have had to hide that from her while she needed him to be strong.

  That was another part of the man’s job, after all, wasn’t it? Through thick and thin—for better or for worse…

  The thought surprised him. But it shouldn’t have, not really. He’d known for a while.

  With his head turned, his chin resting on the soft curls of her hair, he listened to her choked answer.

  ‘The timing probably isn’t right.’

  ‘Maybe not. It’s something we’ve not talked about either. After this, maybe we should…’

  He let the suggestion hang in the air between them, giving her time to figure out that he was open to the idea of them having a family in the future.

  But she went stiff in his arms.

  ‘Yes, we should. It’s a long overdue talk.’ When she pulled out of his hold and stood up—reaching for her sweater in a room that already felt like a sauna to Connor—he frowned, watching her push each arm into a sleeve, pulling her head through, reaching up to free the long hair she had trapped.

  Was she going to tell him that she didn’t want to have kids with him some day? But Shannon loved kids. She worked with kids every damn day. And if she loved kids and still didn’t want them with him, then did that mean she didn’t love him? Or that she simply didn’t love him enough yet to even think about it?

  And if that was the case then what would it take to get her to feel that way?

  Her eyes rose and locked with his across the narrow space between them. And with a jolt so strong it almost knocked him into next week—Connor suddenly knew.

  He had no reason to know, but he knew—because the something was written on her face as clear as day. Not hidden. Not even an attempt made at hiding it from him.

  He swore. ‘You lost a baby before, didn’t you?’

  Shannon stared at him for a long while, her arms wrapping around her waist as if she was still cold—in a hot room with a sweater on.

  Then she looked over his shoulder. And nodded.

  Connor thrust himself upright, his words coming out on a wave of frustration. ‘What about the baby’s father—wasn’t he there for you? Tell me you didn’t go through that alone!’

  Shannon visibly baulked, stepping back from him so that her back was pressed against the wall, her eyes wide with what Connor immediately recognized as—fear. She tilted her head, pursing her lips together as she stared at him with tears brimming over her bottom lashes.

  This wasn’t the Shannon he knew—the one who had fought him off for so long, the one who had taken on the woes of a building full of people, the one who met him halfway in everything, and then some. Why would she be afraid to tell him? Unless.

  His heart stopped. No.

  But before he could ask the question a nurse appeared through the open doorway, staring at both of their faces with a curious expression before she smiled at Shannon and handed her a slip of paper.

  ‘That’s your prescription, Miss Hennessey. Plenty of fluids as well and you should shift the end of that bug you have.’ She turned her attention to Connor. ‘And make sure she doesn’t go trying to lift something that heavy again too, won’t you?’

  Connor nodded dumbly.

  So Shannon stepped in, filling the silent void with the obvious question. ‘I can go now?’

  ‘Yes, just make sure you visit your GP.’

  ‘I will.’

  Connor stepped back, allowing her to go through the door ahead of him, neither of them speaking until the lift doors swished shut.

  Where he finally asked the question that was burning like acid in the pit of his stomach.

  ‘You didn’t have heatstroke when you were in hospital in the States, did you?’

  He didn’t look at her as the doors opened on another floor, an elderly man stepping in to join them as Shannon managed a small-voiced, ‘No, I didn’t.’

  The elderly man got out a floor before them, where they were joined by two nurses. And Connor frowned at the intrusion. But he didn’t want to hear what Shannon had to say in a lift or in the car park. Taking her back home wasn’t an option either—not with the last of the party preparations ensuring there would be a crowd to hear what they were talking about.

  It was entirely too personal for that.

  So when they stepped out of the lift he grasped her elbow in a firm hold, his calm tone not even hinting at the myriad of conflicting emotions he currently felt.

  ‘We’ll go to my hotel.’

  Shannon nodded in silence, her chin rising so that he knew she was preparing herself for confrontation.

  So, to make sure she was in no doubt whatsoever, he leaned in closer to add, ‘And no more lies—nothing held back. I mean it.’

  Shannon endured the awful silence between them in the car as Connor guided them through Friday-night traffic to the hotel. Her eyes fixed on her reflection in the side window and beyond to the faces of all the smiling, laughing people in the streets heading out for a night of fun in bars and nightclubs. Their lives looked so simple in comparison to where hers was now. Smiling, laughing, happy—the polar opposites of everything she was feeling.

  But she had known this day would come. Hadn’t she?

  ‘No more lies,’ Connor had said.

  The hotel was way too expensive for her to have ever visited before, but she didn’t even glance at the marbled columns or the beautiful bouquets of flowers that scented the air around them. She didn’t even look at Connor as he strode purposefully through the giant foyer, nodding to the concierge who greeted him by name.

  But she was so very conscious of the fact that this was Connor’s new world. It was almost representative of the vast distance between them.

  She, who had been happy, she’d thought, building a simple life, surrounded by warm people who had welcomed her into their lives without any questions or explanations of what had happened before she’d met them. Connor, who, although he was still finding his feet in his new life, had only taken a temporary break in that world, until he found out what had happened before, when he would leave and step straight back into this new world, wouldn’t he?

  She’d been a rabbit in the headlights since he’d come back, hadn’t she?

  Still hugging her arms tightly around her waist, she glanced briefly around the pristinely clean room with its perfectly co-ordinated soft furnishings. Then down at her loose sweater, worn jeans, and tattered trainers.

  ‘Were you ever planning on telling me?’

  She straightened as Connor’s voice sounded close behind her, the strain in his voice clear.

  ‘Yes.’ It was the truth, whether he chose to believe it or not. Finding the right time had been the biggest problem of all even when it had happened—finding the right time in the here and now to right the wrong that had been done so long ago, twice as hard. And letting him go the main reason she couldn’t bring herself to do it since she had had him back again and discovered that how she felt about him was stronger than it had been before.

  So much for the theory she’d had on seven-year cycles!

  ‘What about back then, Shannon? Did it occur to you that I might have wanted to know I was going to be a father?’

  ‘Yes.’ It had more than occurred to her. But the simple fact was, she hadn’t told him, and then it had been too late. Their baby had been dead and she had been alone.

  Connor appeared in front of her, grasping her elbow in a similar hard hold to the one he had used when they had come out of the lift at the hospital. And he looked so angry, so disappointed in her—

  It opened the dam inside her as he swore viciously beneath his breath.

  But what had she expected? It was an echo of the pain he’d felt when he’d found out about his own father. And he’
d been so very angry about that.

  ‘Then why didn’t you? Did you think I wouldn’t care—that I wouldn’t want to know—

  that I wouldn’t be there?’

  She snatched her elbow free. ‘You think I didn’t want you there? As far as I knew, you didn’t even know it was me that night! How was I supposed to call you out of the blue and announce you were going to be a father?’

  ‘By picking up the phone! I knew it was you!’

  ‘I didn’t know that!’ Her voice cracked as tears spilled over her lashes, any semblance of control she had left evaporating. ‘And if you think that I didn’t want you there then you have no idea how much I used to love you! I loved you so much that leaving you almost killed me—but I only thought I knew what it felt like to die inside. I only thought I knew how much one person could hurt to lose someone until—until—the second that—until—’

  She turned away in frustration as words failed her. Because she needed him to understand. And in order to do that she needed to be as clear and lucid as possible.

  Connor was staring at her with what looked like horror on his face when she finally looked at him again. Then he scowled hard, shaking his head as he began to pace in front of her, which gave her time to take deep, shaking breaths while she swiped the tears off her face with her palms.

  When she spoke again, she had almost managed to put the flat tone back into her voice—

  almost. Only the odd word shook when she spoke.

  ‘I was so miserable when I got there. I don’t think I had dealt with my nan’s death, and then there was leaving you—even though I knew I had to leave you—winning the scholarship for that course was my only chance to try and make a life for myself. I just wanted that one night. I wanted to be with you—because I didn’t want someone else the first time. I didn’t want it to be someone I didn’t love.’ She took another long breath.

  ‘And it was, it was—’

  ‘Yes, it was. And yet the first thing you said when I saw you again was how much you’d regretted it. How it had been the worst mistake you ever made.’

  The fact that his tone had changed from frustrated to husky tore her in two inside, so that her attempt at control started to slip again. ‘Because I knew what the outcome of it was. I can never, ever think about that night without thinking of all the pain that came after it.’