Читать книгу Men of Power - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 17

KENZIE felt totally disoriented when she woke up. She didn’t recognize the bedroom she lay in and she definitely didn’t have any idea how she had come to be here.

But as she began to look around the dimly lit room she did recognize the man standing so tall and forbidding in front of one of the windows as he gazed bleakly over the New York skyline.

‘Dominick…?’

Dominick turned sharply at the husky sound of Kenzie’s voice, his expression lightening as he moved to sit on the side of the bed. ‘No, don’t move,’ he instructed firmly as she began to push herself up. ‘The doctor should be here in a few minutes,’ he added with impatience.

‘But—’

‘Please don’t move, Kenzie.’ Dominick reached out to lightly grasp her shoulders as he gently pushed her back against the pillows. ‘We have no idea what’s wrong with you yet, and until we do I think you should just lie still,’ he advised softly, instinctively reaching up to smooth her dark hair away from her pale face. His hand dropped away, a nerve pulsing in his tightly clenched jaw, as she just as instinctively moved away from his touch.

She moistened her dry lips. ‘What happened? One minute I was talking to Caroline, and the next—Where am I? More to the point, how did I get here?’ She frowned her confusion.

‘I’m staying in the hotel, so I brought you up to my suite,’ Dominick explained before standing up to walk away, still having no idea what was wrong with Kenzie, but very aware that his close proximity wasn’t helping her to feel any better. ‘As for how you got here, I carried you—’

‘But I was in the ladies’ powder room when I fainted!’ Kenzie protested as memory began to come back to her.

Dominick gave a rueful smile. ‘I guess I followed you into the ladies’ powder room after all. And you were right about it causing a sensation,’ he acknowledged dryly. ‘Although the fact that you were unconscious when I carried you out of there was probably the reason for that!’ he added grimly.

Kenzie closed her eyes briefly as she easily imagined the commotion that must have caused. So much for wanting everything to run smoothly this evening. Jerome was probably having an apoplectic fit at Dominick having whisked away the face of Carlton Cosmetics in this high-handed way!

‘Why on earth did you bring me up to your hotel suite, of all places?’ she protested impatiently as she began to sit up.

‘I told you to stay put!’ Dominick rasped as he came back to the bedside.

Her eyes flashed a dark shade of green as she looked up at him. ‘I’m sure you think you acted for the best when you brought me up here, Dominick, but don’t let that give you the mistaken impression you have the right to tell me to do anything!’

His mouth tightened. ‘Maybe not,’ he conceded bitterly.

‘Definitely not,’ she told him with finality. ‘Now, if you will excuse me, I have a job to do—’

‘You aren’t going anywhere until a doctor has seen you,’ Dominick insisted grimly.

Kenzie sat up to swing her legs off the bed and onto the floor. ‘I don’t need to see a doctor,’ she said determinedly. ‘I’ve been—too busy, to eat today, that’s all—’

‘You mean your anticipation of seeing me again this evening was such that you didn’t feel like eating!’ Dominick guessed, knowing exactly what that felt like—he hadn’t been able to eat today, either. In fact, he couldn’t remember when he had last had a decent meal…

Kenzie gave him a scathing glance. ‘Don’t flatter yourself, Dominick,’ she scorned. ‘I haven’t thought about you enough in the last five weeks to care one way or the other,’ she added coldly.

‘No?’ he sneered to hide the fact that her barb had hit home—he had thought of nothing but her for the last five weeks!

‘No!’ she said firmly. ‘Now, if you wouldn’t mind getting out of my way I need to go back downstairs to try to repair some of the damage you did with your heroics earlier—’

‘You would rather I had just left you on the damned floor, is that it?’ he grated impatiently.

‘I believe I told you I would rather you just stayed away from me altogether!’ she snapped. ‘Go and find Caroline—I’m sure she will be more than happy to see you!’

‘Caroline…?’ Dominick frowned. ‘What the hell does Caroline have to do with anything?’

‘You came with her, didn’t you?’ Kenzie reminded him, with a scowl.

‘She came with me,’ Dominick corrected. ‘She telephoned me earlier today and asked if she could.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes—really!’ he confirmed in frustration as he ran a hand through the dark thickness of his hair.

‘And you were only too pleased to say yes!’ Kenzie accused.

‘No, I—’ he broke off impatiently. ‘What the hell does it matter to you who I came here with, Kenzie?’

Yes, why did it matter to her? Kenzie asked herself.

Seeing Dominick again, and talking to him, had shown her that her feelings for him weren’t dead, after all. They were only hidden in the dark recesses of her heart where they couldn’t hurt her any more. Where Dominick couldn’t hurt her any more.

Over the past few weeks, she had channelled all her emotions into remembering the anger and disappointment she had felt for Dominick when they had parted, but all that had changed when she had seen him arrive here this evening with Caroline Carlton…

She had been jealous of that other woman clinging so intimately to his arm!

Caroline Carlton, of all women.

A woman she had never liked. A woman she would never like now.

But it was still jealousy. After all that had happened, after all the pain they had deliberately inflicted on each other, she still loved Dominick, and that was why it mattered to her that he had come with someone else.

‘It doesn’t,’ she lied. ‘I just thought you might have had better taste, that’s all.’

Dominick glowered at her. ‘I am not, nor have I ever been, involved with Caroline Carlton—’

‘I told you, it’s of no interest to me if you are!’

‘It doesn’t sound that way to me!’

‘I don’t care how it sounds to you—’ She broke off as a knock sounded on the outer door.

‘That will be the doctor now,’ Dominick growled. ‘At least let him examine you now he’s here.’

She could do that, yes, Kenzie conceded, dropping weakly back against the pillows as Dominick left the bedroom to go through to the sitting room to answer the door. She felt as drained by the argument they had just had as much as by her faint earlier.

Mainly because, in all honesty, she still felt extremely light-headed, and it would only have been sheer stubbornness on her part that would have got her on her feet and back downstairs.

But she was pretty sure the doctor was going to tell her that it was tension and lack of food today that had caused her to faint, so there really was no reason for Dominick to look quite so grim as the doctor came into the room and began to ask her questions.

‘Dominick, would you mind going into the other room?’ she requested coolly as the doctor expressed his wish for a more thorough examination.

Yes, he did mind, damn it, Dominick acknowledged with a scowl.

Kenzie could have no idea of his shock earlier, and his feelings of concern when Caroline Carlton had come running out of the powder room to tell him Kenzie had collapsed.

Nor had Kenzie seen the gentleness with which Dominick had gathered her up in his arms, harshly brushing away Jerome Carlton’s questions when he had emerged into the crowded reception room seconds later with Kenzie still cradled against him. She hadn’t seen him stride forcefully towards the lift while he barked an order at the flustered hotel manager to call a doctor and have him sent up to his suite as soon as he arrived.

She had looked so pale when Dominick had carried her along the corridor to his hotel room, her long dark hair trailing over his arm adding to that air of fragility. Kenzie had seemed to weigh nothing in his arms despite her tall stature.

So, yes, he did mind leaving the room because he wanted to know what the hell was wrong with her!

‘I think it might be as well if your husband stayed, Mrs Masters,’ the doctor told her with a smile. He was a short iron-grey-haired man who was obviously slightly in awe of Dominick glowering across the room at him.

Kenzie’s face regained some of its colour. ‘He’s not—’

‘I’ll go and stand by the other window if it makes you more comfortable, Kenzie,’ Dominick cut in on what he knew was going to be her protest at having him called her husband let alone finding herself addressed as Mrs Masters.

But that was exactly what she still was, he brooded as he moved to the other end of the bedroom, totally deaf to the murmur of Kenzie and the doctor’s voices.

Kenzie was Mrs Masters whether she liked it or not. His wife. As he was still her husband.

He had taken the divorce papers out of his desk drawer a dozen times over the last five weeks, not with the intention of signing and returning them, but as a way of reminding himself that, no matter how much he might have changed, Kenzie no longer wanted anything more to do with him.

He was vaguely aware now of Kenzie going into the bathroom, then returning a couple of minutes later, and the low whisper of voices as the doctor spoke to her again.

‘Well, I believe that’s perfectly in order,’ the doctor said as he straightened and turned to include Dominick in his smile. ‘Nothing to worry about at all, Mr Masters—’

‘Kenzie collapsed, so of course I’m worried,’ Dominic snapped.

‘Your wife only fainted, Mr Masters,’ the doctor assured him as he packed his things away in his bag. ‘It’s perfectly common at this stage of things, I do promise you. Of course, Mrs Masters will need to see her own doctor as soon as possible, and if these fainting spells continue I’m sure he will be—’

‘What-is-wrong-with-her?’ Dominick interrupted tautly, his patience having been tested beyond endurance.

‘I believe congratulations are in order,’ the older man beamed. ‘Your wife is in the early stages of pregnancy.’

Pregnant…?

Kenzie was pregnant!