Page 112 of The Billionaire's Demand

‘So you can. Choose what you want with Matilda...’

‘That’s not what I meant.’ Libby groaned. ‘God, Raul, you are unbelievable.’

‘What have I done wrong?’ he disputed with disbelief. ‘I’m trying to help.’

‘No, you’re trying to take over and do things your way, which I’m starting to realise means with an abundance of money and no actual time or feeling.’

The words slammed into the space between them, heavy with accusation and accuracy. She saw him rock back on his heels as though it was the last thing he’d expected her to recognise or say, but Libby didn’t apologise nor take the words back. It was true.

‘I just hope that when our baby is born you realise they’re going to want to spend time with you, not just live in your sky palace and benefit from your fabulous wealth.’

‘You think I don’t know that?’ Raul responded, suddenly pale beneath his tan. ‘You think I didn’t realise that the moment you told me about the pregnancy? If I wanted to spend money and be done with this, I would have set up a trust fund for the baby and walked away.’

Libby angled her face away from Raul’s.

‘I am going to be in this baby’s life,’ he said, the words low and deep but carefully muted of emotion.

It’s why I married you.

Raul didn’t need to say it again: the refrain was etched in Libby’s mind.

‘And haven’t I been spending time with you?’

It was like waving a red flag in front of a bull.

‘You’ve been shadowing me! That’s not spending time together.’

He thrust his hands on his hips. ‘I don’t know what you want from me, Libby. I really don’t.’

She turned away, angry and frustrated. She didn’t know either. That was part of the problem. But, deep down, Libby felt like this was all wrong. Everything Raul did seemed to make it worse.

She clung to belligerence, not wanting to back down. Her unreliable pregnancy emotions were zipping all over the place; she felt robbed of her usual optimism and self-control. ‘I don’t want a decorator.’

There was silence for a moment and when Raul spoke his voice was level, but that didn’t matter. Libby heard his frustration, heard his impatience. ‘You don’t even want to meet with her, to hear her ideas?’

‘I have my own ideas,’ Libby said quietly. ‘I’ve had plenty of time to think about what I want our baby’s room to be like, and it’s nothing, nothing, like this icescape.’ She waved her hand around the lounge room, the impersonal, cold furniture anathema to Libby’s sense of warmth and family. ‘You go and hear her thoughts,’ Libby snapped. ‘I’m sure you’ll be a match made in heaven.’

It took him five minutes to dismiss Matilda and he did so without embarrassment, mainly because Raul didn’t feel those emotions in the normal course of his life, and for the moment his mind was singularly engaged in decoding and understanding Libby, so he had very little run time to feel something as pedestrian as embarrassment. Besides, he would no doubt get an invoice for the designer’s time, even when the visit had been totally unproductive.

Alone once more in the apartment with Libby, he knew the right thing—the wise thing—to do was give her space, and so he returned to his own work, fuming over how unreasonable she’d been, staring at his screen with the sense of a spring being wound tighter and tighter in his belly.

But no matter how frustrated he was with Libby, he still found it impossible to stop thinking about her, and to ignore the feeling that they’d got halfway through an argument they needed to finish properly. Yes, that was it, he thought on a wave of relief. They had unfinished business and for this reason, and this reason alone, he wanted to go to her, to pick up where they’d left off. Until they’d resolved this dispute, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to concentrate anyway, so there was no sense in just staring at a blank screen.

He found her in the nursery, one shoulder propped against the wall, eyes trained on the view beyond the window. He stood just inside the door, arms crossed, watching her, suddenly at a loss for words. Her blonde hair again reminded him of an angel’s halo, her eyes were sparkling like gems.

‘I’m sorry.’

Raul was still searching for what to say, so Libby’s softly voiced apology caught him off-guard.

She turned to face him slowly. ‘I overreacted.’

He frowned, taking a step deeper into the room and then another, until he was just a short distance from her.

Libby’s gaze probed his, as if looking for something important, then she sighed. ‘When I was growing up, my room was just a mattress on the floor in a space no bigger than a wardrobe.’ Her lips pulled to the side in that way she had; Raul knew it meant she was lost in thought. ‘I know neither of us planned for this,’ she said, rubbing her stomach distractedly. ‘But, at the same time, I’ve planned for it all my life. As a young girl, I used to imagine what my house would be like, my bedroom, if only I could have it my way. As a teenager, I imagined my future, my family, and from the moment I found out I was pregnant, I’ve thought about how to make this baby’s life everything mine wasn’t. It’s not about possessions,’ she clarified quickly. ‘It’s about warmth. Security. Love.’

Something tightened in Raul’s chest.

He would give their baby the world, but love was the one thing he knew he couldn’t offer. Not to the baby, not to Libby, not to anyone. He’d lost that ability a long time ago, and it was something he never wanted to regain.

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