LITMIR.BIZ

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Chapter 5

      Zane was just putting his cell phone back into his jacket pocket when he saw Mirabella coming out of the restroom. Rather than pale, his administrative assistant’s face was now a shade closer to pea green.

      Deeply concerned, he momentarily forgot about the call he’d just received. Instead, Zane turned his attention to his assistant’s welfare. Crossing to her, he touched her forearm. Her skin felt almost clammy to his fingertips.

      Since she’d been ignoring his advice, he raised his voice when he spoke to her. “Belle, I insist you go see a doctor and get checked out. You can’t continue like this.”

      Mirabella offered him a weak smile, unable to do anything more than that. She felt as if all of her strength had been sapped. Although she did feel worse than she had previously, she knew she just had to tough it out. This would fade soon enough, just the way it had been doing for the last couple of months.

      “I’m fine, Mr. Colton. Really. It’s just a little upset stomach I can’t... I can’t...seem to...shake.”

      The last word was uttered in a whisper, if that loud. The hallway had begun to spin and then her surroundings, usually so well lit, began to darken as well as shrink, until everything went completely black around her.

      * * *

      One moment he was speaking with Mirabella, trying in vain to talk some sense into her, the next moment her eyes were rolling back in her head and he saw her literally begin to sink right in front of him. Stunned, Zane barely had time to react.

      Moving quickly, he caught Mirabella in his arms and kept her body from crumpling down to the floor.

      Panicked, he tried to rouse her. “Belle? Belle, are you all right? No, damn it, of course you’re not,” he snapped angrily, a helpless feeling sweeping right through him.

      “Need help, Mr. Colton?” Nancy, one of the newest employees who’d been hired when the security section had expanded, asked as she ran up.

      The fewer people involved, the better, he couldn’t help thinking. He knew Mirabella wouldn’t appreciate people staring.

      “No, I’ll handle it,” he told the other woman. The next moment, he picked the unconscious assistant up into his arms.

      “Are you sure?” Nancy called after him.

      “I’m sure. Thanks,” he answered without looking back. With that, he carried Mirabella into his office.

      He missed the knowing looks exchanged between Nancy and another woman who had just come out to see what the commotion was all about.

      Closing the door to his office with his elbow, Zane gently lay the woman down on his sofa.

      She was still unconscious.

      At a loss as to what to do, he briefly contemplated loosening Mirabella’s clothing, but quickly vetoed that idea. She wasn’t having any trouble getting air in. Mirabella had apparently fainted for an entirely different reason.

      A state-of-the-art bathroom, complete with a sink and shower, was part of his office suite. Zane went to get a wet towel.

      Returning quickly, he laid it across Mirabella’s forehead, hoping that might help rouse her.

      If it didn’t work, his next step was to call for an ambulance, something he had a feeling Mirabella wouldn’t want.

      Adjusting the compress on her forehead, he stepped back and unconsciously held his breath as he watched her intently.

      A few seconds later, he saw Mirabella’s eyes begin to flutter open.

      Thank God.

      She began to struggle, trying to get into a sitting position. Zane gently pushed her back down.

      “Don’t try to get up just yet,” he warned.

      Disoriented, it took Mirabella a moment to get her bearings and a few more to focus in on her surroundings. The last thing she remembered was being in the hallway, talking to Zane.

      “Where am I?” Her brain felt as if it was wrapped in heavy gauze.

      “I brought you into my office. You fainted.”

      As familiarity dawned on her, followed closely by embarrassment, Mirabella tried to bolt upright. “No, I didn’t,” she protested.

      He wasn’t about to argue with her. “Have it your way. You took a short nap and would have wound up at my feet if I hadn’t caught you.”

      Her head felt as if it was emerging out of a tailspin. Even so, she couldn’t just lie here. That would be totally unprofessional. This was Zane’s office.

      Clutching the side of the sofa, she swung her legs down until she could feel the floor beneath her feet. Taking a deep breath, she began to rise, only to feel her legs growing wobbly.

      She had no choice but to sink down into the sofa again as she struggled to pull herself together.

      “Sorry,” she murmured.

      Zane made no reply. Watching her, it suddenly hit him what was going on. Putting his hand on her shoulder to press her down again as she tried for a second time to gain her footing, he sat down next to her.

      He shook his head. How could he have not seen this before?

      “You know,” he told her, “I can be pretty dense sometimes.”

      “I’m not sure what you mean,” she heard herself saying.

      Her voice sounded distant and tinny to her ear. Mirabella was still having a great deal of difficulty focusing on the room. She clenched her hands in her lap, unaware she was clutching the towel he’d placed on her forehead. Her mind scrambled for a way to explain herself out of this. She didn’t want him or anyone else knowing the truth, at least not yet.

      “What I mean,” he replied patiently, “is I don’t always pick up on all the clues that are right there in front of me.”

      Her breath caught in her throat as her heart seemed to stand still for a moment.

      Had Zane guessed the crush she had harbored for him all this time had turned into something that was now a great deal more? Did he know his every kindness had warmed her heart and that she had begun to see him as something other than just her boss? Did he suspect that lately he’d begun to enter her dreams on almost a nightly basis?

      Mirabella racked her brain, trying to come up with something to deflect his suspicions, if it wasn’t already too late.

      But before she could come up with any sort of a reply, Zane rendered her entirely speechless by asking, “You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”

      Her mouth dropped open and she could only stare at him in total silence. Her mind went blank and words completely failed her.

      “I take that as a yes,” he commented in response to her total silence.

      What he didn’t comment on, either to her or to himself, was how the realization of Mirabella’s apparent delicate condition suddenly created wide, stinging holes through his entire being.

      He found himself feeling vastly disappointed and he couldn’t even begin to explain, to himself and certainly not to her, why. After all, he wasn’t one of those supermoralists who professed to know what was best not just for himself but for everyone else around him.

      As far as he was concerned, he’d always espoused a philosophy of live and let live. What that meant was he believed everyone had a perfect right to live their lives the way they wanted to, as long as no one else was hurt in the process.

      But that was just it, he realized. This did hurt. It hurt a great deal.

      Finding out Mirabella was pregnant, that there was a man in her life, someone she’d cared enough about to sleep with—because

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