Page 26 of The Billionaire's Bad News Baby

They stood there awkwardly for a few seconds, neither of them saying anything, and Kayla felt like she was being pulled in two opposite directions.

“We drank a lot of that wine, huh?” she said, trying to lighten the atmosphere a little. “If anybody wants a recommendation from a nobody from Newark, then give them my stamp of approval.”

Something seemed to shut off in Elio then, like he’d just stepped inside a glass case and closed the door.

“Right, well… I’ll go order you a water taxi to get back to the mainland,” he said. With a polite smile, he turned and left her there, disappearing down the hall to order a boat. Kayla felt cold from the inside out despite the sun shining.

* * *

The boat came far too quickly. Before Kayla knew it, she was stepping off the dock into the small vessel, the driver a much friendlier man than the fisherman she’d bribed to take her out in the first place, with Elio standing by the front door of the villa watching her leave. He raised a hand, nothing more, and Kayla raised hers. Then it was done. The boat was churning up the surface of the water as it sped back to the mainland, where her bags would be waiting at the hotel and she would be one plane ticket away from returning home.

She should be happy. That’s what she kept telling herself. Not only had she done her job, which had been the whole point of this trip, she’d had the adventure of a lifetime while she’d been at it. She’d stayed on a private island, getting to cook with some of the finest ingredients she’d ever seen. She’d been able to drink some of the best wine in the world in a private vineyard, watching the sunset over the ocean. Kayla had nothing to be sad about when she had memories like that to last her the rest of her life. The problem was the man that appeared in all of those memories. She’d known him for all of three days. So why did it feel like she was losing something?

CHAPTER 10

KAYLA

Time really did fly when you kept yourself so busy that you didn’t get a chance to breathe. A lot of people might have thought Kayla was insane, or at least having some sort of early mid-life crisis, when she stepped off the plane from Italy and announced immediately that she was quitting her stable job in order to start from scratch and go get an accreditation at culinary school. Her mom, however, had just said “about time,” given her a hug, and that was it. The start of her new life.

Kayla had just been able to squeeze into a culinary course at her local community college before the cut-off date, which would have had her waiting for the next semester, and within the week, she was back to studying. It hadn’t left a whole lot of time to process being stuck on an island with a billionaire… and then sleeping with him… then leaving the next morning. Already, it was starting to feel like a fever dream.

Six weeks passed before Kayla even realized that they were gone. Standing in her kitchen, it felt like some sort of disconcerting time travel, looking around and realizing that a month and a half ago she was miserable in a job she hated. Well, very technically, a month and a half ago she’d been on a private island in Italy, sitting in a vineyard with a billionaire who was being sued over an olive pit, but who had turned out to actually be kind of a good guy. A great guy. But she’d been trying not to think about that; she wasn’t always successful, but she was definitely trying. She was back in reality where she belonged, eating dry toast.

No one had told her that international travel would screw up your stomach so bad. And even though the food in Italy had been the best she’d ever eaten, no matter how simple it had been, Kayla felt like her digestive system would never recover. She’d also consumed a lot of wine in a very short period of time. That probably wasn’t helping matters. Oh, and then she’d turned her whole life upside down.

Whatever had kicked it off, Kayla was sick of being sick. It had been over a month, and as soon as one thing got better, another would kick off. It wasn’t enough to get her running to the doctor, and she’d never been one to go for medical care unless she had a broken bone anyway, so mostly she’d dealt with it by complaining to her mom and then getting on with things. Venting was a powerful tool, and so far, it had seemed to do the trick. But today she was well and truly over it, with nausea hitting her like waves of toxic waste. Even this late in the afternoon, she hadn’t eaten anything all day and was forcing herself to take bites of dry toast. At this point, trying to keep going with a completely empty stomach seemed like a bad idea.

Unfortunately, lying on the sofa and bemoaning her existence wasn’t an option, not with the whole diving headfirst into studying for a new career thing. So here she was, standing at the kitchen counter, eating toast and reading through coursework when her mother walked in and found her.

“Aren’t you a chef now?” Liz asked, eyeing the dry toast that Kayla was nibbling at. “Or are you eating like a peasant for fun these days?”

“Uh, no, and also no, not a chef yet. This assignment on food safety and cross-contamination is proof that I’m definitely not a chef. Yet. But let me read more about what makes a place gluten-free versus gluten-friendly, then there’s no stopping me.”

Liz just frowned and continued staring at the toast in her hand like she had a personal vendetta against it.

“That was a joke,” Kayla said. “You should laugh. Not about gluten free, though. Apparently, that definition holds legal weight.”

Liz still didn’t laugh, didn’t react at all. Instead, she just sighed and put her handbag down, pushing up her sleeves as if she was here on serious business.

“Now, Kayla…” Liz said and pushed her glasses up her nose. Even at thirty-two, the tone in her mom’s voice had Kayla sagging against the kitchen counter in despair. That specific tone meant she was gearing up to say something she felt was very important and also probably awkward.

“Ma,” Kayla said, continuing to nibble around the edge of her toast, determined to get something in her stomach. “You sound like you’re about to make a speech. Now think about it, do we need the speech? Or can this all remain an inside thought?”

Liz pursed her lips in defiant annoyance. “I have something to say,” she said pertly.

“Oh God, okay.” Kayla rubbed her face with her free hand and resigned herself to one of her mom’s weird conspiracy theories. Maybe she needed to watch out for the neighbor because he’d trimmed his hedges lower, which meant that he was definitely spying on her.

“Now I don’t need to know what shenanigans you get up to,” Liz said.

“Did you just say shenanigans?”

“It’s a perfectly good word.”

“It sure is.”

“But I’ve been around the block once or twice, myself.”

“Ah-huh.”

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