Billionaire's Love Suite (15 page)

“I’m not buying this. It’s not the job that you were running to, Shana.
You were running away from me.”

Pressing her hands against his muscular chest, she could feel his heartbeat.
It would be so easy to give in to him and lose herself in an affair. But
sooner or later, it would end. There would be someone else and she would
be left heartbroken all over again. “You’re wrong.”

“Am I?”

“I thought we were having fun,” she said.

“Funny. So did I. So, why stop?” he asked with a wicked grin as he
pulled her closer.

Shana pushed against his chest and stepped back from him. “Because,
Justin, I can’t. I have to be honest with you. I’m not that kind of person. I
thought I could be. I wanted to be. I wanted to be what you wanted. A fun
fling. I’m just not that kind of girl.”

He stared at her for a long moment and said nothing as her words sank
in.

She started to walk away from him.

“Come back here!” he shouted. He lurched to her side and grabbed her
by the shoulder and spun her around.

His mouth ravaged her lips. His tongue plundered her interior as if by
doing so he would learn all the mystical answers to life itself. His was the
unquenchable thirst. He could barely breathe and his heart hammered in his
chest with so much force he thought his ribs would break. He crushed her
to his chest in a vain attempt to pull her so close to him that somehow they
would meld together and then she would have no hope of escape. He had
no reason why his body revolted so powerfully against his better judgment.
He only knew that at this moment he wanted Shana and nothing was going
to stop him.

Sinking his fingers into her silken hair, he simultaneously pushed her
toward the conference table. He would take her here. Somehow he would
show her that she needed him as much as he needed her. He would make
her want him again.

Slicking his tongue down her throat he found her pulse point and there
he found the affirmation he sought. Her heart was beating as rapidly as his.
Her breath spiraled out of her throat in short raspy hitches. It was the sound she made before she climaxed. Justin realized that he’d barely touched her
and she was ready for him. She could protest all she wanted, but her body
was the barometer of the truth.

“You want me,” he moaned into her ear.

“No, Justin. No,” she said firmly.

He realized then that she had been pressing her hands against his chest
to push him away. She had been fighting his kiss. It made no sense. Her
heart beat. Her ragged breathing.

He held her head in his hands and forced her to look at him. “I need you,
Shana. Don’t you understand?”

A tiny tear slipped out of the corner of Shana’s eye. She moved her head
from side to side, slowly as if in slow motion. Then her eyes rolled back in
her head.

“No, Justin.”

Then she fainted.

“Shana?!” Justin was quick to catch Shana as she slumped into his arms
like dead weight. Her head was flung backward as if her neck had snapped.
Terrified, he scooped her up into his arms and standing in the middle of the
conference room, he immediately placed her carefully on the long mahogany
and granite topped table. He felt her pulse and checked her breathing.

He assessed that she was not having a seizure of any kind, but she was
growing quite cold to the touch.

“Shana!” He rubbed her hands and then her cheeks. He glanced at the
tea cart, raced over and grabbed a bottle of water. He rushed back to her,
lifted her head in his arms and held the bottle of water to her lips. “Drink
this,” he demanded.

Shana was still unconscious.

Fearing that there was something seriously wrong, Justin withdrew his
cell phone and called nine-one-one. He ordered an ambulance and gave the
hotel address to the dispatcher.

Holding Shana in his arms, he pressed his cheek against hers and whispered
into her ear. “Shana, please. Come back to me.”

Shana’s eyes opened slowly. “What happened?”

“Oh, thank God,” Justin said, gathering her into his arms and sitting on
one of the chairs still holding her in his lap. “You passed out.”

“Why?” she asked pressing her fingertips to her temple.

“I don’t know. I was afraid you were having some kind of seizure or
something. Has this ever happened to you before?”

“Never,” she said truthfully. “I don’t even get colds. Or headaches for
that matter.” Embarrassed, she tried to wiggle off Justin’s lap. “I’m fine
now.”

“Not so quick. You just rest.” Justin pressed her head to his shoulder. “I
called the paramedics.”

“What?” she bolted upright.

“And I’m not calling them off. I want you checked out by a doctor.
Something could be wrong.”

Shaking her head, Shana tried to crawl out of Justin’s lap. “Seriously,
I’m fine. Just let me get up. I didn’t have much breakfast. I just need some
food,” she said, standing and looking down at him.

“I’ll order you a steak. But I still want you to see a doctor,” he said
authoritatively.

“Look, Justin. I’m fine. Okay? If it weren’t for you kissing me like you
did, nothing would have happened in the first place.”

“So you’re saying my kisses make you sick?”

“Not exactly,” she said teetering on her high heels. She touched her
temple again. Then she touched her throat and then her abdomen.

“What’s wrong?” he asked suddenly alarmed at the ghostly white pallor
he saw in her cheeks instead of the radiance he’d seen earlier.

He stood up and put his hands on her shoulders. “I should take you up
to my room where you can lie down.”

“Oh,” she harrumphed. “And where you can have your way with me
again?” Shana said feeling hot all over like she always did when she was
this close to Justin. Only this time, she felt a cold sweat start at her hairline
and rapidly cover her back and breasts. Her stomach lurched.

“My what?”

“Way…”

Shana wove back and forth like she was drunk. She didn’t know what
was happening to her.

Then she bent and vomited all over the pant legs of Justin’s Ermenegildo
Zegna suit.

Her hand flew to her mouth. “I’m sorry! Your suit!”

“You have the flu,” he said dourly and took out a monogrammed linen
handkerchief and handed it to her.

“No, Justin. I don’t think it’s the flu. I think I’m pregnant.”

He stared at her with shock in his eyes, his mouth hanging open.
“Pregnant? Pregnant.” It wasn’t a word he’d ever paid any attention to in his
life. It was a word other people utilized in their lives. Justin’s mind quickly
assimilated the information and applied it to his current situation.

“I’m not sure. I’m only a few weeks late. This is the first sign,” she said
feeling dizzy again. “I better sit down.”

“Yes! Yes. Sit down.” He helped her back into the chair.

Shana looked at Justin and wondered how it was possible that God in
all His wisdom had decided that she and this billionaire playboy should
become parents together. Was this some sick cruel cosmic joke?

“I want you to have the best doctor in Manhattan,” he said rapidly. “I
don’t want you to have one more incident like this. Surely they have something
so you won’t be so ill. And the hospital, we’ll go to the best. Wherever
it is. Okay?”

“Justin. You haven’t even asked if the baby is yours.”

He looked as if she’d thrown acid in his face. “What?”

At that moment, Shana realized she’d been cruel and unthinking and
it wasn’t like her at all. She rushed on. “It’s your baby, of course. I just
thought, well, that you might think, since we were, well, just having fun…a
fling and all….”

“I know this baby is mine. And we’ll get married as soon as possible.”
He took both of her hands and kissed them one by one, the way he always
did.

Shana felt the nausea subside. “Married.”

“Naturally. Our child should have both parents. It’s not fair to the baby
if you were to raise it by yourself. And what about me? That’s not fair to me
either. You will marry me, won’t you?”

He kissed her before she could answer. She didn’t have a chance to
say she wanted to think it over. His kiss decided it for her. She couldn’t
imagine having Justin’s baby or living another day without his kisses. For three weeks she’d tried to live without him and it was like a slow walk in an
arid desert. She’d never felt so alone and abandoned.

Now she had the chance to make all her dreams come true. She was the
captain of her destiny. She would find a way to make Justin love her because
if she didn’t, she knew her dream would become a nightmare.

T
he subtle approach never worked with Shana’s mother and now was
probably not the time to start. The problem was that there was just no
way to soften the blow she was about to deliver to the most loving person
she’d ever known in her life. Shana had picked up the phone a dozen times
to call her mother and hung up.

“Coward!” Shana groaned feeling the time and the enormity of her predicament
weigh on her heart like an anvil.

The sad fact was that Shana herself was still in shock. She was pregnant
and about to marry a man who didn’t love her. She was smack dab in the
middle of a life-defining moment and she didn’t know how to handle one
bit of it. For a person who always felt she had all the answers and advised
others about their own lives, she was at a loss.

All her life she’d been the responsible one helping her mother raise her
brothers and sisters. This was the first time she would give her mother good
cause to lose respect for her. Shana felt as if she were standing at the edge
of her universe and that if she were truly blessed and lucky, she’d be swallowed
up by a black hole never to be seen again.

“If I just hadn’t gone to Toronto,” Shana admonished herself staring
down at her flat belly where a tiny baby was already growing. How was it
possible they hadn’t used any protection? Even at the time, the idea of pregnancy
never entered her mind. She tried to tell herself now that it had only
been the one time but the fact was that they’d been like rabbits. Or worse.
Rabbits didn’t have Justin’s stamina.

Shana expelled frustration with herself with a heave of her shoulders
and a very deep sigh. She picked up her cell phone and was about to punch
her mother’s number one more time when the phone rang. She checked the
caller ID.

“Mom. I was just about to call you,” Shana stuttered.

“What’s going on? My call log shows you dialed this number three
times yesterday.”

“More, actually,” Shana muttered under her breath. “I…I wanted…
needed to talk to you.”

Emily Jackson knew her eldest daughter better than she knew herself.
She sensed the disconsolation in Shana’s voice. “You haven’t lost your job,
have you? And even if you did, it’s not the end of the world. You’re the best
at what you do. They’re darn lucky to have you.”

A slow smile of gratitude curved the edges of Shana’s mouth. She felt
a warm glow fill her body. This was just what she needed at this moment.
Every part of her being screamed for the security and the safe harbor her
mother’s love had always given her. Emily had rushed to Shana’s defense
without the first fact, which she always did with all her children. Emily was
unabashedly over-protective about Shana. She would go to the death for any
of her kids and they all knew it. She was dependable and predictable. Shana
only hoped she would be half the mother that Emily was to her.

“I’m getting married, Mom,” Shana blurted out.

“To Karl? Did he come to New York? Are you going back to Europe?”

“It’s not Karl.”

“What?”

Shana heard Emily’s sharp intake of breath, which was an indisputable
sign of her shock. “It’s Justin Yates, Mom, my boss.”

“I…I don’t understand. You haven’t mentioned him…at least not in that
way in any of your emails. I thought you didn’t like him.”

“That was when I first got here and I hadn’t met him yet. He
was
rather
testy all during that time,” Shana said remembering how she had dreaded
getting Justin’s text messages. Then he’d kissed her and her world had made
a one-eighty. “Then we met and things changed rapidly. He’s wonderful,
Mom. He’s just as passionate about the hotel as I am. We work very well
together…”

“Do you love him, darling?”

“Desperately.”

“Well, sweetheart, I couldn’t be happier for you!” Emily raced on with
joy in her voice. “How exciting this will all be! When I think of the years
you have planned your fairytale wedding and now it’s all coming true! The apple blossoms, the gown, your sisters as bridesmaids. Oh, Shana. What fun
we will have with your wedding. Do you still want to have it here at the inn?
What does Justin think of coming to Arizona for the wedding?”

Shana was silent. She’d forgotten. She’d been so deeply encased in
shock that she’d forgotten all the plans she’d made for herself. Since she
was a little girl, she’d watched videos of Princess Di and Prince Charles’
wedding dozens of times. She’d subscribed to
Bride’s Magazine
when she
was only fourteen. Working with event planners and hotel managers who
knew that weddings were very big business and could make the difference
in a hotel’s bottom line, Shana had witnessed hundreds of weddings. She
had flash drives filled with the names of gourmet, even famous chefs, florists,
wedding planners, private numbers for dress designers and internationally
renowned jewelers. Shana had always told herself that she would
have the best for her wedding. Now, those dreams vanished like miss-wired
holograms. Pixels of the vision sputtered, snapped and died.