Page 80 of The Billionaire's Demand

She sucked in a deep breath, tried to steady her nerves. ‘You’d better come in,’ she said, aiming for decisive and coming off loaded with dread. She cleared her throat. ‘This...won’t take long.’

His brow furrowed and he jammed his hands into his pockets, but he nodded once, curtly.

Curtly!

Her stomach dropped to her toes. She spun on her heel and moved inside her apartment, immediately ashamed of how shabby and small it was, aware of how it must look to his eyes. It had come partially furnished, so the sofa and small table weren’t hers. She’d done her best to brighten up the place, covering the card table with colourful fabric and the sofa with a blanket she’d bought at an op shop, but it was, nonetheless, unmistakably cheap.

Not that she had any reason to apologise for her financial circumstances. If anything, Libby was proud of how she’d pulled herself up by the bootstraps. But Raul was...different...to anyone she’d ever known. Somehow, she didn’t want him seeing her through this filter.

‘I’ve just made a cup of tea. Would you like something to drink?’ she asked nervously, pacing into the kitchen and wrapping her hands around the mug.

‘No, thank you.’ His frown deepened. ‘How are you?’

‘Fine,’ she lied. ‘Just fine. And you?’

He paused. ‘Yes, also fine.’

But this was a disaster! Everything felt so strained and different to how it had been on the boat. Then adrenalin and adventure had been a great equaliser. She’d been emboldened by their shared experience, made brave and powerful by what they’d been through and how she’d shown her strength. Now her stomach was in knots and she had no idea how she could possibly get through the next few minutes. Only she knew she had to—somehow.

‘Why did you call me, Libby?’ he asked again, propping one hip against her kitchen counter.

The kitchen also showed signs of disrepair, but it was Libby’s favourite room of the house, for the view it had of the beautiful bougainvillea and the way she’d brightly accessorised it so every surface popped with colour.

Drawing as much comfort from her surroundings as she possibly could, Libby sucked in a deep breath. ‘I...thought you should know...’ she began, then sipped her tea quickly. It had cooled down just enough to be palatable without burning.

‘Yes?’

Her teeth pressed into her lip. ‘God, this is way harder than it should be,’ she said on a humourless laugh. If only he knew how much this was her worst nightmare. Not being pregnant, but all the circumstances surrounding it.

‘Libby, are you okay?’

‘No,’ she groaned, placing her tea on the bench. ‘Not really.’ She frowned. ‘And yes, at the same time.’

‘That makes no sense.’

‘I know,’ she said softly, sucking in a deep breath. ‘The thing is...’ She stared at her tea rather than into his eyes, which were too perceptive, too inquisitive. Too everything. ‘The thing is,’ she started again. ‘That day...’

Silence fell, except for the ticking of the clock, which sat on the kitchen bench. Strange, she’d never really noticed how imperious and loud it was before. Every second cranked noisily past.

‘Raul, I’m pregnant,’ she said finally, the words, now she’d committed to saying them, rushing out of her. ‘Three and a half months pregnant, in fact. You’re the father.’

CHAPTER FOUR

RAUL HAD OFTEN heard the expression ‘the bottom fell out of someone’s world’, and he’d always thought it to be a slightly indulgent concept. He’d experienced many shocks in his life, many turns of event which had required him to dig deep and find his inner strength and determination, but he’d never once believed the bottom could fall out of his world.

Until that moment, when everything in his life lost its familiar shape and context, even his own self.

The universe shifted.

No! he wanted to shout. He wanted to reject her statement with every cell in his body. He wanted to pull apart the universe with his bare hands and shake this reality away. He couldn’t be a father. Not to anyone. He couldn’t be anything to anyone. He was a loner. Born that way, raised that way, he was better on his own.

His breathing grew rough and he stared at Libby, as if just by looking at her he could undo the words she’d spoken, or make better sense of them. As if by staring at her he could make sense of anything.

Her head was bent and the sun sliced through the kitchen, bathing her head in gold, like a halo. His eyes dropped of their own accord to her stomach. It was flat and neat, just as he remembered from that afternoon. She was naturally slim, but as he lifted his gaze back to her face his attention lingered on her breasts. Was he imagining them to be more rounded than they had been then? Was that proof of her assertion?

Was there any likelihood this wasn’t true?

Why would she lie?

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