Bought by a Millionaire Read online

  And though that meant a lot to her, it wasn’t enough. She wasn’t trying to be cruel or demanding, but she knew the meaning of the word love and couldn’t bring herself to marry a man who didn’t.

  What if his feelings toward her changed? What if she invested all of her time and energy into building a relationship, a family with him, only to discover he could never love her? Or worse, for him to finally figure out the definition of the word with another woman.

  It would crush her. Kill her.

  Better to sever ties now, finish out their business arrangement—which would be painful enough to deal with—and try to let the wounds on her heart heal.

  Pushing herself up, she walked to the door and pulled it open, heedless of her runny nose and damp cheeks. Burke looked just as tormented, his mouth turned down in a frown, his eyes narrowed with uncertainty and concern.

  He reached out tentatively to rub a hand down her terry-covered arm. “Are you all right?”

  She shook her head, very far from all right. Fresh tears welled, dripping from her lashes.

  “I appreciate everything you’ve said,” she told him in a wavering voice. “And if things were different, I would be happy to marry you, live with you, build a family with you. But somewhere along the way, I fell in love with you, and because I love you, I can’t settle for less than everything from you.”

  “Shannon…”

  She clenched and unclenched her hands inside the pockets of her robe to keep from reaching out to touch him. Squeezing her eyes shut, she took a deep breath and forced herself to get through the rest. “Don’t, please. It’s too hard already. I think you should just leave.”

  He stood where he was for another minute, inhaling and exhaling raggedly. Then he turned, crossing her small apartment to gather his clothing. He took only enough time to climb into his pants before retrieving his shoes and coat and slamming the door behind him.

  As soon as he was gone, her bones seemed to melt. She fell back against the doorjamb, then slid down, joining the pieces of her broken heart in a pile on the floor.

  Twelve

  It was eight days and counting since he’d walked out of Shannon’s apartment, and every damn one of them felt like a millennium. He hadn’t seen or spoken to her, and she’d even managed to reschedule her last prenatal appointment without telling him so that he missed it.

  A part of him understood Shannon’s decision to pull away and keep her distance. To make him keep his. He couldn’t give her what she needed—a declaration of undying love—and she wanted nothing less.

  He only hoped she knew that if it was within his power, he would have told her what she wanted to hear. He could offer her money and jewels, cars, clothes, houses, trips around the world. Being married to him would give her power and prestige.

  Instead, what she wanted cost nothing. Three little words that he couldn’t in good conscience utter when he had no idea what they meant.

  In his experience, love was simply a word, like any other in the dictionary. People tossed it around, using it to flatter, persuade, manipulate.

  Love between a parent and child was one thing. That was one form of the emotion that—in most cases, anyway—could be trusted. Even though he’d never experienced such a thing with his own parents, he already loved the baby Shannon was carrying, completely and unconditionally. And he would make sure the child felt the strength of that love every day of his or her life.

  But adults, women especially, were a different story. There had been several women in his past who’d told him they loved him. Once or twice, he’d even begun to fall for the sugared lie. Until he’d realized they were only telling him what they thought he wanted to hear, what they thought would get them more expensive gifts, a credit card on his account, or maybe even a ring on their finger.

  From those women, he’d learned I love you was an easy phrase to throw out…something said on a whim to appease your partner, or with careful planning to exploit him.

  And that was why he couldn’t say it to Shannon. In the short span of their relationship so far, he’d been completely honest with her. He might want her, but he didn’t want to lie to her.

  Burke dropped his pen on top of the thick contract on his desk and rubbed hard at his eyes.

  Why, then, did he believe Shannon’s declaration? Before she’d kicked him out of her apartment, she’d told him she loved him. At that moment, his heart had squeezed, but he’d pushed it aside and concentrated all of his effort on keeping his feet under him, finding his clothes and leaving without letting her see how much pain he was really in.

  Later, he’d mocked her words. How could she say she loved him in one breath and throw him out in the next? How could she claim to love him, but deny him everything he wanted in the world—her, their child, a future?

  And then he’d come full circle, his heart not only squeezing, but growing and swelling and threatening to burst. Just as he’d never lied to her, he was sure Shannon had never lied to him. If she said she loved him, then there was a damn good chance she meant it…and meant it in a way he was only beginning to understand.

  But could he love her? Did he love her?

  A sharp knock on the door and Margaret’s uninvited entrance slammed the brakes on his already scattered thoughts.

  “I said no interruptions,” he snapped, his brow furrowing in a frown. He’d been doing that a lot lately, barking and growling at anyone who dared approach him. It was a wonder he still had any employees at all, especially Margaret, who didn’t take well to being snarled at.

  “You’ve said a lot of things this week,” she retorted. “I’ve learned to ignore you. For the second time, your two o’clock is here and doesn’t look like he wants to wait much past two-fifteen to see you.”

  He checked his watch only to find it was already ten minutes after the hour. Lord, where was his head lately? His business had never suffered so much as in the past few days, when he found himself thinking more about Shannon and what an idiot he was than about the incredibly lucrative deals cluttering his desk.

  This was ridiculous. He would never get past these feelings blocking him until he confronted Shannon and came clean with himself.

  Pushing his chair away from the desk, he grabbed his coat and started for the door. “I have to go. Tell Peterson I’ll add ten percent to my offer if he agrees to come back next week.”

  He heard Margaret mutter, “It’s about time,” as he waved off an aggravated Peterson and crossed the lobby to his private elevator.

  Twenty minutes later, palms sweating against the steering wheel and heart hammering in his chest, Burke pulled up to the curb of Shannon’s college campus and cut the engine of his Mercedes. He was probably parked in a fire lane, but couldn’t have cared less.

  Jumping from the car, he scanned the names on the sides of the buildings, looking for the one where Shannon should be finishing up her English literature class.

  In a few short months, she had come to mean everything to him. She was the first person he thought of when he woke in the morning, and his last thought of the day before drifting off to sleep. She filled his heart and mind and soul; quite simply, he didn’t want to live in a world without her.

  He didn’t know why it had taken him so long to admit it, but now that he had, he wanted to shout it from the rooftops. If only he could find Shannon and convince her to give him another chance.

  Shannon gave a moan of frustration as her oversize handbag swung forward and knocked the books out of her hands. She’d never had this kind of problem before her pregnancy had begun to show.

  As she crouched down to pick up her things from the sidewalk, a second pair of hands reached out and collected them for her. Familiar, masculine hands.

  Lifting her head, she found herself staring into Burke’s wide gray eyes. Without a word, he helped her to her feet and enveloped her in his warm embrace. Students passed around them, casting curious stares, but he didn’t seem to notice or care.

  Running his finge
rs through her hair, he pressed his lips to her forehead and closed his eyes for a brief moment. “I’m so glad I found you. I have to talk to you. There’s something you need to know.”

  He sounded so serious, and his sudden appearance on campus was enough to make her fear what he was about to tell her.

  “My mother,” she breathed, a wave of panic washing over her. “Is she—?”

  “No, no, your mother is fine. This is about us.”

  Framing her face with both hands, he tipped her head back and looked directly into her eyes. “I love you. It took me forever to figure out what that meant, but now I know. Ever since you kicked me out of your apartment, I’ve been thinking about it, trying to define all these feelings whirling around inside me. And then this morning, I was sitting in my office, being miserable, when it finally clicked.”

  His hands moved to her shoulders, kneading the flesh of her upper arms. “I’m an idiot. I should have figured this out so much sooner. But it wasn’t until I thought I’d lost you that I realized how much you mean to me. I understand now what you were trying to tell me back at your apartment when you said you loved me but couldn’t be with me unless I loved you back.”

  The sheer intensity of his expression sent Shannon’s stomach on a bungee cord to her toes. He looked so stark and open, so honest and desperate for her to believe him.

  And she wanted to. Every fiber of her being screamed for her to accept his words, throw herself into his arms, and live happily ever after. Her brain, however, warned her to take it slow. Hear him out and decide if he was telling her the truth or simply telling her what he thought she wanted to hear.

  “Burke,” she began.

  “No, don’t say anything yet. Let me finish. After that, if you still want to walk away, I’ll let you. I’ll hate it, and it will leave me a shell of a man, but I won’t try to stop you.”

  Taking a deep, shuddering breath, she nodded. She was almost afraid to hear the rest, but knew she had to. If he truly meant what he was saying, if he really did love her, she wanted to hear every word. She wanted to memorize them, brand them on her soul, and then throw herself into his arms and tell him how very much she loved him, too.

  But she needed to be sure. Needed to know he was sure, and that he understood exactly what impact those three little words would have on her. Because walking away from him the first time had been the hardest thing she’d ever done in her life. She didn’t think she had the strength to do it again.

  “I’ve always thought telling someone you loved them was just a way to manipulate them, a way to gain control over their lives and their emotions. That’s the only experience I’ve ever had with the words, and I didn’t have parents who made it a point to teach me differently. But now I realize how wrong I was. Love means loving someone. Worrying about them, caring about them, wanting them to be happy. I love you, not because you’re carrying my child or because I think that’s what you want to hear. I love you for your beauty, both inside and out. For your sense of humor, the caring you show your mother and the caring you want to show the little kids you’ll watch over when you become a kindergarten teacher. I love you for the strength and courage it took to answer my ad for a surrogate mother, and to tell me you loved me even though you weren’t sure I loved you in return.”

  He loosened his grip on her arms and let his hands slide down to hers. Linking their fingers together, he gave her a squeeze. “I love you, Shannon. I won’t ever take that back or change my mind. I want to marry you and spend the rest of my life with you. I want to raise this baby and a dozen others with you. I want you to be my wife, my partner, my lover, my friend. And no matter what the gossips say or the tabloids print, I swear I will never give you reason to doubt me or my love for you.”

  She watched the muscles in his throat flex as he swallowed and took a step back, releasing her completely. He stood with his arms at his sides, awaiting her reaction.

  For a moment, she couldn’t move. The tears prickling behind her eyes were definitely tears of happiness, and her heart felt like a hot air balloon, ready to take flight and soar up above the clouds. But her hands and feet seemed to have turned to stone.

  If this was a dream, she never wanted to wake up. Burke Bishop, the man she’d fallen in love with almost immediately and learned to love more deeply over time, was standing in front of her, telling her he loved her, too.

  He could have said the very same thing eight days ago to appease her sense of romance and get her to accept his proposition of marriage. He could have claimed to love her, put a ring on her finger and had everything just the way he wanted.

  Instead, he’d walked away. And it meant so much more to her that he had. Because now she knew, was absolutely certain, that he really did love her. The stark hope and affection in his eyes couldn’t be contrived.

  Moving toward him, she stepped straight into the circle of his arms, which came up to wrap around her ever-expanding waist.

  “I love you, too,” she told him, meeting his gaze with a supremely confident one of her own. “For your sharp mind and handsome face. For your decision to bring a child into the world and love it even before you’d met the right woman. I even love you despite your wealth and the fact that you’re considered Chicago’s most eligible bachelor.”

  He chuckled, his eyes damp with emotion. “I’ll do my best to live it down.”

  Toying with the hair at the nape of his neck, she grinned. “I hope so. I don’t think I’d do very well as a flashy society wife. And I definitely want you for my husband, my partner, my lover and my friend.”

  “Does that mean you’ll marry me?”

  Shannon didn’t think anything could make her happier than hearing Burke say he loved her. But with his official marriage proposal, and love shining down on her from his storm-gray eyes, her heart swelled three times larger in her chest.

  “Oh, yes. I will absolutely, positively marry you.” She ran the flat of one hand over the slight mound of her belly. “The sooner the better, if you don’t mind.”

  Covering her hand with his own, they stroked the swell of their child together.

  “Believe me, I don’t mind. I’ve only been trying to finagle you to the altar for the past month now. It can’t happen fast enough for me.”

  He brushed a smudge of dirt from her cheek, his mouth lifted in a sexy half smile. “I really do love you, Shannon. The day you walked into my office was the luckiest day of my life.”

  “I really love you, too. And I think it was the luckiest day of both our lives.”

  The child inside her womb picked that very moment to give a small but hearty kick, the first she’d felt so far in her pregnancy. And she was thrilled Burke was here to experience it with her.

  With a wide smile, she met his glance. “I think our child approves.”

  “I’m glad,” Burke murmured. Then he leaned in and sealed their love with a kiss.

  Epilogue

  “Once more should do the trick,” Dr. Cox announced cheerfully from somewhere behind the sheet that draped Shannon’s bent legs.

  She groaned, rocking her head on the hospital pillow. Sweat drenched her brow, dripping into her dark copper curls.

  “Come on, sweetheart, you can do it.” Burke ran a cool cloth over his wife’s face before taking hold of her shoulders and lifting her into a sitting position. “One more big push and we’ll be holding the baby we’ve been waiting for all these months. Don’t you want to hold him? Or her?”

  “No,” she huffed with an adorable pout. “You have the baby. I want to go home.”

  “I would if I could, darling, but you’re the star of this show. Now come on. One more push and we can go home. You can sleep for a week, if you want.”

  “Really?”

  “I promise.”

  He watched the contraction building on the monitor as Shannon took a deep breath and began to push. She squeezed his hand until the bones rubbed together, but he barely noticed. She’d been in labor for sixteen hours—the longes
t sixteen hours of his life—and he hated to see her in this much pain, especially when he was partially responsible.

  “Eureka!” the doctor exclaimed as an earsplitting wail filled the room. His grin was so big, he might have been holding his own newborn. “It’s a girl! Good job, Shannon. You can lie back and relax now.”

  The strength seeped from her body like a tire going flat and she collapsed against the bed. “Is she all right?” she asked breathlessly. “I want to see her.”

  “She’s beautiful,” Burke told her, watching as the nurse wrapped the baby in a blue cloth and cleaned her up a bit before laying her on her mother’s stomach.

  The baby settled the second Shannon touched her. She stared up at them with wide, wondrous owl eyes, her pink lips pulled into a rosebud pucker.

  Burke’s eyes grew damp, and he didn’t even try to blink away the tears as he looked down at two of the most important people in his life. His wife and his brand-new daughter.

  “Oh, look how perfect she is,” Shannon whispered through tears of her own, stroking each and every one of the baby’s tiny fingers and toes.

  “You’re both perfect.” Leaning in to rest his temple on the crown of her head, he looked with awe on the sweet little girl who had just been entrusted into his care. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Though you did have something to do with it.”

  “Just the initial stages,” he replied with a grin. And then he turned serious, running a hand over her damp hair. “I love you, Shannon.”

  She raised her gaze to his, an angelic smile on her lips. “I love you, too.”

  Those words, coming from her, never failed to send a hitch through his chest and remind him of how damn lucky he was—and how stupid he’d been to nearly let her slip away. Thank God he’d come to his senses or he might never have known what true happiness felt like.

  “Do you have a name in mind?”

  She shook her head. “I like Abby or Allison, but you like Sarah and Lisa.”