The Tycoon's Marriage Bid

But that was years ago.

Nikki had gone on the sleigh ride alone. It was the last thing she remembered. Sitting on the thickly padded seat, the morning air bright and crisp on her face.

Or was that a dream, too?

She couldn’t seem to concentrate on more than one thing at a time, and the elusive details slipped away.

Would it be easier to deal with Alex than her foggy memory?

Probably not.

What was he really doing here?

She’d already removed herself from his life once.

This was backtracking in the worst of ways.

“How…how are things at the office?” She couldn’t seem to prevent the question from emerging any more than she could prevent the nerves jangling through the muzziness fogging her brain.

“Had to let another admin go last week.”

“Another one?” She’d heard the rumblings, of course, about Alex’s difficulty in hiring a permanent replacement for her. No matter how well she’d thought she’d excised Huffington from her life—and the man who’d taken one small Wyoming clinic and turned it into an innovative network spread across the United States— she’d still heard that, after she’d left, he’d gone through his first three administrative assistants in as many weeks. “What number was she?”

His lips pursed a little. It only made her notice them, which she had no business doing. “Six.” His gaze slanted from the window back to her bed.

She braced herself. Even though he’d never really seemed to notice her, it had always given Nikki a jolt whenever he’d looked at her.

She’d almost not taken the administrative assistant position in the first place, as a result of that. She hadn’t wanted to feel any sort of jolt from anyone. Not when Cody was still in her heart.

The jolt was there. As usual.

A dip, a sway, a leap. Deep inside her.

More than three and a half years since the April day she’d sat across from Alex’s desk and accepted the position, and it was as bad—or worse—than ever.

“How’s, um, how’s everything else with the clinics, then?” Her voice was a little breathless. She hoped he’d think it had something to do with whatever had put her in the hospital.

Knowing Alex, he knew more about those details than she.

His expression didn’t change. “You think I came here to discuss business?”

“You called me nearly five times a week at first to discuss business.” He’d stopped calling after that first month, though.

She’d breathed easier, but grieved a little harder for the job she’d really loved.

“I wouldn’t have had to make those calls if the personnel department had a clue about hiring someone competent.”

“It’s your personnel department,” she replied mildly. Huffington was entirely Alex’s baby. There was no higher authority in the company.

She had a fanciful image of herself hovering around the ceiling of the hospital room, watching this particular exchange. Discussing business?

The baby kicked again and she dragged her split persona down from the ceiling. “So…you came here to… what? Ask me to come back to my job?”

“You still consider being my administrative assistant your job?”

She shifted her shoulders. “No.”

“Then you’re employed elsewhere now.”

“I start a job very soon.” She hoped, desperately wishing she knew how long she’d been in the hospital. She’d been living on her savings for months, and her pride simply refused to let her take handouts from her family, no matter how easily they could have afforded it.

She was Nikki Day. She stood on her own two feet.

The practice had kept her together when she and

Belle were only fifteen and their father died, and it had kept her together again when Cody died just as unexpectedly.

She needed the job she was supposed to begin after this trip to Montana.

“A job.”

She had to gather her scattered thoughts again. It was about as easy as gathering up sand with a sieve. “Yes.”

“Where?”

His disbelief wasn’t at all flattering. “It’s none of your business, Alex.” She’d have prided herself on the statement if her voice hadn’t trembled.

He looked disbelieving, but let it slide. Probably out of whatever pity had motivated him to come to the hospital. Then he glanced at his watch. Not overly noticeably, except that she knew him so well, having worked fifty -to sixty-hour weeks for him for three years.

She’d taken one week of vacation during her second year with Huffington. She and Belle had gone to Florida. If she hadn’t made the mistake of taking her cell phone with her, she might actually have managed to leave work behind. Instead, her sister had come back far tanner than Nikki, with a little album full of pictures of herself scuba diving and parasailing.

Nikki had come back knowing the room service menu by heart.

She hadn’t bothered trying to take a vacation again. “Don’t let me keep you,” she said now. She was desperately eager for him to leave, and painfully aware that she was doing a miserable job of hiding it.

He lifted one slashing eyebrow. “What’d I do to piss you off, Nikki?”

“Nothing!”

“Right.”

His dark gaze drifted downward from her face and she felt the heat of a fresh flush. She had to look as washed out as she felt.

She was used to being in control of things. Of herself.

Now, adrift in a tangle of pale blue sheets, she felt completely at a loss.

“Did you quit because of your pregnancy?”