Carrying His Secret. Marie Ferrarella

to work or preparing to go to work. The drive home was usually a tired blur.

      And those hours that she had put in, she thought as she drove home now, had all involved Reginald Adair. What was going to happen to her now that he was gone?

      The company was far too large to shut down. Besides, it was considered the leader in its field and it was just a matter of time before it surpassed the competition. Would Whit take over the corporation? Would he just pick up where his father had left off and act as if it was all only business as usual?

      His manner just now indicated that most likely he would, but the man wasn’t a robot or an android. He was going to have to make time to grieve over his loss. If he didn’t, eventually, it would catch up to him, causing him to break down, perhaps on a grand scale.

      A scale from which there would be no way to come back. It wasn’t as if things like that never happened—they did, and careers ended because of it.

      Whit was too good at his job to allow that to happen, she told herself. But she was still uneasy. After all, Whit was a man, not a machine.

      She had to find a way to make sure that didn’t happen. For his sake as well as for the memory of Reginald Adair.

      Just missing a light, she sighed and stepped on the brake. Waiting for the light to turn green, she pressed the flat of her hand against her abdomen. Her thoughts turned to the small passenger she carried there.

      “I’m going to have to hold off introducing the idea of you to the world a little longer,” she murmured to her stomach. “You understand, don’t you? Your dad just isn’t ready to hear that he created you right now, sweetie. We’ll tell him when the time is right, okay?”

      Elizabeth didn’t bother saying out loud that the time might never be right. That was something she was going to have to deal with later, but not now.

      For now, she was just going to have to put that problem on the back burner. This was absolutely not the time to tell Whit that their one night together had produced a dividend. She was certain that would throw him for a loop, especially at a time like this. Whit deserved to know that he was going to be a father and she had every intention of telling him—when she felt the time was right. In short, he needed to know, but not now.

      Perhaps not until after it was all behind them, Elizabeth thought.

      What she was afraid of was that Whit might think that she had deliberately allowed this to happen in order to trap him. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Under no circumstances did she want Whit thinking that she wanted anything from him.

      In reality, she actually did want something from Whit, but it had nothing to do with the baby—or at least, not directly. She would have loved nothing better than to have Whit tell her that he wanted to marry her—but she wanted him to marry her because he wanted her and he loved her, not because he felt a sense of obligation, or because he wanted to give the baby his last name.

      The last thing in the world she wanted was to look back someday and have Whit accuse her of tricking him into marrying her.

      She would rather die first than have that happen to her.

      To them.

      And there was even a worse scenario than the one she wanted no part of. What if she told him that their one night of indescribable passion had yielded a baby and he went on to deny that the baby was his? Too busy working to form any personal relationships, she hadn’t been with anyone else in a number of years.

      The child she was carrying below her heart most definitely belonged to Whit Adair.

      If she heard Whit deny it—or tell her to simply “take care of the problem”—it would absolutely break her heart. Not just that, but it would completely destroy the way she thought of Whit.

      No, this was most definitely not the time to tell Whit Adair that he was going to become a father.

      Perhaps, Elizabeth thought as she turned her vehicle in to her neighborhood, there would never be a right time and this would just be a secret she would keep from Whit forever.

      Better that than to have her heart destroyed.

      Elizabeth blew out a long, ragged breath. No matter how she looked at it, this was going to be a no-win situation.

      Getting out of her car, she headed straight for the front door of her two-bedroom town house. She wanted the solace of having familiar things around her.

      Preoccupied, she didn’t notice the person who remained in the shadows.

      The person who had followed her and was intently watching her every move.

      * * *

      It was hard remaining in the shadows, hard not to give in to the surge of adrenaline the observer could feel coursing through their veins, bringing with it a desire to act. A desire to have Elizabeth Shelton done away with and have her join her dead boss in whatever hell was reserved for godless people like that.

      Soon. The word shimmered seductively in the observer’s mind. Soon the world would be rid of the girl just like it was now rid of that pompous ass with his phony, shallow smile.

      Checking the impulse to follow Elizabeth into her town house and bring her to her knees, having the so-called “administrative assistant” beg for her life, the person cleaving to the shadows savored the deed that still lay ahead. The mistake would be improved on. Adair was allowed to die too quickly. Next time, there would be torture. Slow, painful torture.

      The observer smiled in anticipation.

      And made plans.

      * * *

      As she opened the medicine cabinet to reach for the light cologne she liked to spray on before she left the house, she saw that it wasn’t in its usual place. It wasn’t there at all.

      What had she done with it, Elizabeth asked herself, trying to remember when she’d had it last. This was getting very annoying, she thought. Yesterday, her lipstick had been missing—she never had found it.

      Opening the drawer where she kept several different brushes that she used to style her hair, she saw that the cologne was lying on its side—the drawer was long and shallow. She took it out, hit the spray quickly twice and then put it back in its customary place.

      What was going on with her? she thought. She was too young to be going senile.

      If she was going to be of any use to Whit, she was going to have to get ahold of herself and pay attention to what she was doing, she silently upbraided herself.

      Opening another drawer, she took out her spare lipstick and put it on. At least that was where it was supposed to be, she thought with some measure of relief.