Page 42 of The Billionaire's Bad News Baby

“Of course,” Elio said without hesitation. He let her hand go and took a step back, like a physical demonstration of the space she was asking for. “I’ll leave you be.”

And as simple as that, he was gone, leaving Kayla alone in the guest suite just like she said she’d wanted. Because this was the right thing to do. Right?

CHAPTER 19

ELIO

Elio had had to deal with stress throughout his life. His whole upbringing had been a lesson in shouldering burdens that weren’t his: knowing how the business was run, knowing how the entire wine industry was run. Math and figures and money; status symbols and appearances. It had all been stressful. It still was. Kayla though… worrying about her was going to take years off of his life at this rate.

Maybe it was because he actually cared about her. Which meant that, even after all the blood, sweat and tears, he didn’t care about the business. The realization hit him so hard that he had to sit back in his chair and stare into space for several minutes to process it. It was a lot to take in, after all, realizing that the thing you’d dedicated your whole life to didn’t actually matter. That instead, a whirlwind of a woman who’d upturned everything upside down, she was the thing that caught your soul on fire.

He knew that he was still going to take some time to adjust to a whole new way of thinking. No matter how good his intentions were, no matter how much he wished he could just flip a switch and become a better person, it wasn’t that easy to change a lifetime of thought patterns and beliefs. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try. Even if he had to claw his way through it, he was going to try.

Was that… Wait. Was that why Kayla had asked for space? She didn’t think he was really in it for the long haul?

Again he had to sit back in his chair to take it in, because of course that was why she had pushed him away. He hadn’t questioned it, eager to do what she wanted, to listen to her and follow her lead. But Kayla was more complicated than that, and he really needed to start giving her credit for it. He couldn’t blame her either, not after the way he’d completely shut down when she’d arrived on the island to tell him about the pregnancy, avoiding her for days afterwards. If he felt sore at Kayla not fully dropping her guard around him, then he only had himself to blame. But if they were going to move forward with this strange little family of theirs, they were really going to have to get better at communicating what they were actually thinking. Which was a daunting thought to Elio, but… well, no time like the present. He left the study and made a beeline for the guest suite, but she wasn’t there.

God, not again. Why did she keep disappearing like some sort of mystical elf, vanishing into thin air? She’d been climbing up the walls with boredom, unable to sit still lately, and Elio didn’t blame her. He should have known that she would have to get out for her own sanity. But still. Not knowing where she was right this second sent a shot of panic down through his ribs.

A terrible sense of déjà vu overtook him as he looked through the house and couldn’t find her. It was like being trapped in a recurring nightmare. Soon enough, he was outside the villa and heading for the beach to try and find her.

“Kayla?!” he called, something propelling him forward, a weird instinct like when animals knew that a storm was coming. He just knew that he needed to find her, and if she was perfectly fine and told him to buzz off, then so be it. He just needed to know that she was okay.

“Elio?”

He spun as he heard his name, the voice so quiet he almost hadn’t heard it, but… there…

At the edge of the vineyard, he could see her sitting on the ground. He’d know those curls anywhere. He ran straight for her, the dread in his chest not loosening its grip now that he’d seen her sitting down. It only got worse when he skidded to a halt beside her, kneeling down to see her clutching at her enlarged belly.

“I just needed to get out of the house,” she said, her head still bent and her voice strained. “I wasn’t even going to go far, and then?—”

Her sentence was interrupted when she let out a squeal and wrapped her hands around her stomach.

“One second,” he said, squeezing her hand. “I’ll just be one second, I promise.”

He turned and ran as fast as he could back towards the house. From this point in the vineyard, just on the edge of the vines, it was only a few hundred yards. Now that he knew where she was, he could keep her in sight. But it still physically hurt to leave her there as he ran to the front door and shouted as loud as he possibly could.

“Gianna!”

Elio surprised himself with the volume, the urgency of the yell, feeling his voice crack with the pressure of it. But it worked; a window flung open from the second floor before Elio even made it to the front door of the villa. He said nothing, just waved her down and turned to race back to Kayla’s spot amongst the vines.

She was right where he left her, thank God… He really didn’t put anything past this woman anymore and he’d been terrified she’d somehow move from that spot. Elio skidded to a stop beside her, falling to his knees and taking her hand in his in one fluid motion. Already, in such a short span of time, Kayla’s breaths were coming quicker with a ragged edge to the tail end of them.

“It’s all right,” Elio said, his voice calm and clear. This whole situation was not calm, not one bit, so he would make it calm even if it was the last thing he did.

“It’s all right, Kayla,” he repeated. “Gianna’s coming to help, and the doctor too. I’m here. All right? I’m not leaving your side for another second, I promise.”

Gianna, with perfect timing, appeared and then left again immediately after getting half a glance at what was going on. Elio watched as she took out her phone to call the doctor, then returned his focus to Kayla.

“This is really unfortunate,” she said between harsh breaths. “I was fully intending to be completely numbed up for this part.”

“Well, you’re joking, so that’s a good sign,” said Elio, actually putting his poker face to good use for once so that she didn’t see how panic-stricken he actually was.

“Isn’t this supposed to take, like, hours?” she said between gritted teeth. “Aren’t you supposed to get warning contractions or something? Not just fall on the ground and have it all over in twenty minutes?”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed this about yourself,” Elio said. “But you don’t really tend to do things the usual way, do you?”

Kayla managed to huff out a laugh between breaths. Elio thought it best not to mention that it was probably all happening so quickly because she’d had pregnancy complications to begin with. He tried not to think about it; that fact wasn’t going to do either of them any good right now.

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