Page 40 of The Billionaire's Bad News Baby

It surprised Elio how true that was. He’d started worrying about little things; was she eating enough? Was it too hot during the day? Too cold at night? What if she fell and no one heard her call for help? What if, what if, what if… Kayla had him feeling things so deeply that even his worry about her felt like a sword to the gut at times.

Their usual bantering was interrupted by a speck racing across the water.

“Is he… on a jet ski?” Kayla asked, looking like she was about to rub her eyes to see if the spectacle of Dr. Albero riding towards them was actually happening.

“Oh,” said Elio with a grin as the doctor’s fluorescent green Hawaiian shirt came closer into view with every second. “You didn’t see him arrive last time, did you?”

“This is a regular thing?”

“Well, regular for Dr. Albero.”

Kayla nodded in something like approval. “I’m pretty sure he’s the coolest doctor on the planet.”

“I think so too,” Elio said fondly as Dr. Albero slowed to a stop, swept his sunglasses on top of his head and dismounted the jet ski, tying it up by the dock so he could retrieve his trailer.

“Let me help you inside,” Elio said, holding out an arm for her to steady herself on. She peered at him with a small grin and a raised eyebrow.

“Would it make you feel better?” she asked.

“Just take my arm,” Elio said with a sigh, but she did, looping her elbow through his. Elio refrained from pointing out smugly that by the time they made it back to the guest suite, she was leaning on him for support.

The scan setup was makeshift but functional, as Kayla was directed to lay on her bed in the guest suite and pull her shirt up so her round stomach was exposed. Seeing how flushed Kayla’s face was just from the short walk outside, Elio was glad he’d gone the extra mile and asked Dr. Albero to transport the equipment here.

“This can all stay here with you,” the doctor announced as he set up the ultrasound device and screen at Kayla’s bedside. “No use lugging it back and forth across the water. Better to have it at hand.”

Kayla peered curiously at all the machinery being assembled while Elio had started pacing back and forth at the end of the bed. When he started running his hands through his hair, he knew he was more than just the normal level of stressed.

“Hey,” Kayla said, stopping him mid-stride. “Why don’t you come and sit beside me. You know, so I don’t fall off the bed or something.”

“I don’t actually think you’d fall off the bed.”

“I don’t know, I’m pretty round these days. I might roll straight off if I’m not careful.”

Elio scowled at her, his arms folded tight over his chest. Kayla just smiled as bright as the sun, as if teasing him was incredibly amusing to her. The more he got to know Kayla, the more he realized that she was one of the most stubborn people on earth. So unless he broke the silence, they were going to be stuck in this weird stalemate, stare down. So repressing a sigh, he changed direction and walked over to beside the bed.

“By the way, this is just so I can see the screen better,” he said, perching on the bedside table as Kayla failed to smother her smirk.

“Sure it is.”

Dr. Albero, apparently completely oblivious to anything else going on around him, chose that moment to squirt gel onto Kayla’s bare stomach with an unholy squelching sound and a satisfied nod as he prepared the screen.

Elio wasn’t going to laugh. It wasn’t even that funny, so he wasn’t going to laugh. It was a mistake, then, to glance at Kayla, whose lips were pressed together in a thin line, her eyes staring straight ahead in fierce concentration. Then she glanced up at him, and they both nearly lost it then and there.

“Shut up,” Kayla said, entirely breathless and shielding the side of her face so she couldn’t look at him.

“I’m trying,” Elio said, his voice just as weak as hers. “You’re not helping.”

Kayla slapped his knee and that was nearly Elio’s undoing. But Dr. Albero, as if making up for kicking off this whole thing, turned around and clapped his hands together as if calling for the attention of a class.

“Right!” he said enthusiastically, apparently either not noticing or not caring why Kayla was still shielding her eyes. He placed the sensor onto Kayla’s stomach, gliding around in the gel and nearly setting both of them off again, still entirely oblivious to the chaos he was causing.

“Let’s have a proper look at your baby, shall we? Give me one moment to zero in on it — they like to move about sometimes.”

A glare on the screen from the open window made it impossible to actually see what was going on, so Elio knelt by the side of the bed for a better view.

“I thought you were sitting there to see the screen better,” Kayla said with more than a hint of smugness.

“You worked for lawyers way too long, you know that?”

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