The Pregnant Tycoon

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.

She practised it fleetingly, and scowled. OK? Just barely.

‘All done?’

Her eyes swung across to meet Kate’s in the mirror and she summoned that elusive and barely OK smile. ‘Yes, I’m all done. Let’s go back to the party.’

Steve was waiting for her—suave, sophisticated, and relentless—and for some reason totally unable to light her fire.

Not that he was alone. Nothing and no one seemed to light her fire these days, either personally or professionally. She’d lost interest in everything, and she was filled with a strange restlessness that made her snappy and short-tempered.

‘I thought you’d deserted me, Isabella,’ he said with a smile that made her skin crawl.

She gave a brief, humourless laugh. ‘No such luck,’ she said, and he gave her a rather peculiar look, as if he couldn’t quite work out if it was an insult or not. Her head was starting to ache, and she knew it would be at least another two hours before she could get out of there.

‘Are you OK, Bella?’ he asked her, apparently genuine concern showing now on his smooth, rather characterless face. He was probably just looking for an excuse to take her home, she reasoned, but repelling his advances yet again was absolutely the last thing she needed. Knowing her luck there’d be a photographer lurking, anyway, and she didn’t believe in the old maxim that there was no such thing as bad publicity.

There was, and she’d had enough of it to last her a lifetime. A single glimpse of her on the arm of the very recently divorced CEO would be enough to put another notch on the imaginary bedpost that the gutter press had dreamed up out of thin air, and there was no way she was adding any more fuel to that particular fire.

‘Just a bit of a headache,’ she said, digging out that smile again. ‘I’ll be fine—and don’t call me Bella. You know it’s not my name.’

He laughed, quite unmoved by her reprimand. He seemed unmoved by most things, she thought, and not for the first time she wondered what made him tick. Money, probably—lots of it, and preferably somebody else’s. Still, he wouldn’t need to worry about that now, not since her makeover of his company. She’d made him rich beyond his wildest dreams, and women would be all over him like flies on a muck heap.

He trailed a finger up her bare arm, pausing thoughtfully at her shoulder before slipping his fingertip under her strap and toying with it absently. ‘We ought to get together, you know, Isabel,’ he murmured, getting her name right for once. ‘How about Friday evening? We could do dinner—somewhere quiet.’

‘Quiet sounds good,’ Izzy muttered under her breath, not really referring to his suggestion, but he pounced on it like a terrier with a rat, and she couldn’t be bothered to argue. Before she could draw breath he’d arranged the venue, the time and told her what to wear. If she hadn’t had such a headache coming on, she would have told him what he could do with his quiet night. As it was she just stifled a sigh and nodded.

She persevered until midnight, then, excusing herself, she took a taxi home and let herself into her cool, tranquil apartment with a sigh of relief. This was quiet. This was what she needed.

She heeled off her shoes, padded over to the kitchen and filled a glass with iced water from the cooler in the fridge door, then dropped gratefully into the corner of the comfortable sofa, her feet tucked up underneath her on the butter-soft leather as she stared blindly out over the city skyline.

Lights twinkled, millions of them. All those people out there busily getting on with their lives, she thought, the clubs and bars in this thriving corner of the capital throbbing with life. It was still early by their standards, merely the beginning of the night. Even the thought exhausted her.

She rubbed her temples, pulling out the pins that held her unwilling hair in place. It sprang free, a wild tangle of curls tumbling down over her shoulders, and instantly her headache eased. She sighed and dropped her head back against the soft cushion of the sofa and closed her eyes.

She wanted to open the window, to slide back the big glass pane and step out onto the roof garden, but all she would hear would be the honking traffic and the sirens, the sounds of the city by night.

It would be quiet in the country, she thought, the only sounds the rustlings and cries of the animals. Perhaps quiet wasn’t the word. She thought again of their campsite by the river all those years ago, the astonishing sounds of the countryside at night, and she had a fierce longing to return, to hear the sounds again.

Kate’s words came back to her, piquing her curiosity, and she got up and went over to her computer.

With a few keystrokes she connected to the internet, and within minutes she’d registered with the website Kate had talked about and was scanning a list of once-familiar names.

Rob’s name sprang out, and she clicked on the envelope beside it to read his message. It was so much like him that she could almost hear his voice. He was a solicitor now, married to Emma, they had three children, and they still lived in the village.

How incredible, after all this time, that they were still there in the same place. She felt a little stab of something that could have been envy, but crushed it ruthlessly. What was she thinking about? She had a fantastic life—success, wealth beyond her wildest expectations, a full and hectic schedule.

What more could she possibly want?

Will.

She ignored the curiously painful thought, dismissing it before it took hold. She’d e-mail Rob, and ask him how everyone was. Without stopping to think too much, she wrote a quick e-mail and then as an afterthought included her telephone number.

Maybe he’d ring and they could have a chat.

‘Michael, I’m not telling you again, do your homework or that GameBoy’s going in the bin. Rebecca? Beccy, where are you? Your stuff’s scattered about all over the place.’

She wandered in, her mouth formed in a sulky pout around her thumb, and with ill grace she shovelled her books back into her school bag and flounced off again.

Will sighed and rammed a hand through his hair. He had the accounts to do, another endless round of forms to fill in for yet another set of regulations—and when he’d finished that, he’d have the ewes to check—again. Still, at least it was warm now. Lambing in April, even if it was by accident, knocked spots off lambing in February.

The phone rang, freeing him from the paperwork he hated, and he scooped up the receiver almost gratefully.

‘Hello, Valley Farm.’