Caroline Anderson - The Pregnant Tycoon

No.

Yes!

Stop it. Never mind that, look at him. Look at the changes. He’s bigger—taller, older.

His eyes look tired. Beautiful, still staggeringly beautiful, but tired.

Why so tired?

She wanted to cry, to laugh, to hug him—and because she could do none of them, she retreated, through a door she found conveniently placed behind her, and fled into the sanctuary of another hallway.

She needed time—time to think. Time to get her ducks in a row and her heart back under control before she said or did something stupid.

Oh, Lord. Will….

What happens when you suddenly discover your happy twosome is about to be turned into a…family?

Do you panic?

Do you laugh?

Do you cry?

Or…do you get married?

The answer is all of the above—and plenty more!

Share the laughter and the tears as these unsuspecting couples are plunged into parenthood! Whether it’s a baby on the way or the creation of a brand-new instant family, these men and women have no choice but to be

When parenthood takes you by surprise!

The Baby Proposal

by Rebecca Winters

HR # 3808

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

HAPPY Birthday, Izzy. The big three-O. Terrific.

Izzy felt her smile slipping and yanked it back with effort. Any minute now her face would start to crack. For what felt like hours she’d laughed at the witty in-jokes, picked at the delicate and hideously expensive canapés and now she’d had enough. If she didn’t get out of here in the next five minutes, she was going to scream.

Loudly.

It was her thirtieth birthday, and she was at a party. Not her party, though, although it was in a way her celebration. No, this was a party to celebrate the phenomenally successful flotation on the stock market of yet another company she’d rescued from certain death.

Been there, done that, she thought tiredly, but everyone was on a high, and only a real party-pooper wouldn’t want to celebrate with their friends.

Friends? She gave a quiet, slightly despairing little laugh. Apart from Kate, she hadn’t known any of them for more than a year at the most. Were they really friends? Or were they only there because of who and what she was?

And who was she? She knew what she was, and if she ever lost sight of it, the press would lose no time in reminding her with one of the selection of nicknames they thought so amusing.

The Stripper, The Assassin—Godzilla was the latest in a long line. And all because she went in where angels feared to tread, and restructured ailing companies, turning them around and pointing them in the right direction. And, of course, because she was a woman, and because she was so young, she’d attracted a lot of attention in doing it.

More, really, than was warranted. Plenty of people did what she did, but not many, she was forced to admit, with such startling results. She’d been lucky—very lucky. Her instincts had only let her down once, and the press had loved it.

But not this time. This time it had been another runaway success, and she knew she’d never need to work again.

She would, of course, simply because if she didn’t work, then what would she do with her life? Without work, it was empty.

Barren.

Nonsense, she told herself. You’ve got a great apartment overlooking the river near Canary Wharf, a fantastic assistant in Kate, you can have anything you want—except privacy.

That was the penalty. She had more appearances in the society rags than the average royal, every date she went on was turned into a full-blown affair—which was a joke, because most men were so terrified of her they’d run screaming before they got to her bedroom door—and she was standing there surrounded by people who didn’t even know her.

Heavens, I don’t know me. Where are my real friends? Do I have any?

‘Excuse me,’ she murmured with a vague smile, and headed for the ladies’ loo. A few minutes alone—

‘You OK?’

She glanced at Kate, her right-hand-woman—and the closest thing she had to a real friend—and dredged up a smile. ‘Yes, I’m fine.’

‘Great party. They’re a super bunch—I’ll miss them. Still, there’s always the next lot.’

She fell into step beside Izzy, going with her into the cloakroom, chatting to her over the top of the cubicles so even that moment of respite was denied her.

She was wondering where on earth she could go to be alone when Kate erupted out of the cubicle and joined her at the washbasins. ‘So, how’s the birthday going? I remember being thirty. Shattering. I went on the internet—that website for contacting old schoolfriends and so on. Found out what they were all doing. Weird.’

She chattered on, telling some involved story about a couple who’d rediscovered each other through the internet, but Izzy wasn’t listening any more. Her attention had been caught by the words ‘old schoolfriends’, and she was miles away. Light years.

Twelve, to be exact, up in Suffolk in the long, glorious summer between leaving school and going off to uni, camping by the river in a field owned by Will’s parents, all of them laughing and telling jokes and chasing each other around in the long, sweet grass, full of the joys and without a care in the world.

Where were they all now?

Rob and Emma and Julia and Sam and Lucy—and Will. Her heart lurched. Where was Will?

He’d kissed her there, down by the river in the shelter of the willows. That had been their first kiss—the first of many that blissful summer, and a prelude to more than kisses. Much, much more than kisses, she remembered with a pang of longing.

And then she’d gone to university, driven by the need to get on with her life, and he’d gone away with Julia and Rob and Emma, travelling around the world, and come back at the end of the year with news that had shattered her dreams. Her friend Julia, with whom she’d shared everything—including, apparently, Will—was pregnant with his child, and he loved her and wanted to marry her.

Her world had fallen apart that day. She’d spent the next few years reconstructing it brick by brick, until the wall she was hiding behind was so high nothing and no one could get over it. She hadn’t seen him since.

Where was he now? What was he doing? Was he still with Julia? And the child—a girl or a boy? Had there been others? Little dark-haired boys and girls with his quick wit and sparkling eyes, and a smile that left her breathless…

A familiar ache of longing settled in her chest, and she dragged in a deep breath and forced her eyes to focus.

Her reflection stared back at her solemnly and did nothing to improve her humour. Mouse-brown hair, curly on a good day and like wire wool in the rain, relieved by a few delicate highlights to give it a bit of lift and stop it looking like an old pan scourer, topped a face set with dull grey-green eyes splodged with brown. A kind person would call them hazel. Her mother called them muddy. Small, even features did nothing to draw attention to her, but at least she supposed she wasn’t actively ugly, and her smile, when she could be bothered to produce it, was OK.