Page 110 of The Billionaire's Demand

Her lips pulled to one side. ‘Obviously.’

‘Such as?’

Except Libby wasn’t sure she wanted to confide in Raul. She’d chosen the nursery as her project the day after he’d left, when she’d known how important it was to stay busy and focus on something positive. The nursery had become her salvation—something she was tinkering with each day, thinking of their baby, the life inside of her, imagining a future with a little person who simply adored her.

‘Nothing you need to worry about.’

He was quiet for so long that Libby felt her eyes pulling towards him, dragged there by the weight of his silence. His expression gave nothing away.

‘Do you promise you will not go up the ladder again when I am not home?’

Libby’s brows knit together. ‘Um, no.’

‘No, you will not go back up the ladder?’

‘No, I don’t promise any such thing,’ she snapped. ‘I’m not a moron, Raul, and, believe it or not, I care about our baby just as much as you do, or I wouldn’t have agreed to go along with all this, would I?’ she said, glad to be able to hurl that in his face, though she had no expectation of the sentiment proving as hurtful to Raul as it had been to her, particularly as it had come right after they’d just slept together.

‘Then prove it. Don’t do anything dangerous when you are alone in the apartment.’

‘Going up a ladder is hardly—’

He held a hand up in the air, an instantly recognisable gesture of silence. Libby gawked at him. ‘What if you had fallen?’

‘I didn’t.’

‘You could have.’

‘Then I would have called for help.’

‘Who would you have called? In case you hadn’t realised, this penthouse is somewhat isolated.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘I have my phone in my back pocket.’

‘And if you passed out?’

‘You’re talking in what-ifs. I could just as easily have slipped when I got out of the shower this morning, or rolled my ankle whilst making the bed...’

His eyes flashed to hers and his jaw tightened. ‘You’re right.’ He crossed his arms over his chest. ‘You should not be left alone.’

Libby’s lips parted in surprise and her heart began to race. ‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘But it’s clear,’ Raul contradicted. ‘Until the baby is born, I’ll work from home.’

Libby’s face went whiter than a ghost’s. ‘N...no,’ she stammered, rejecting the idea on some soul-deep level, even when she acknowledged there was a part of her that wanted his company and companionship. ‘You’re being ridiculous.’

‘As ridiculous as a woman who thinks she has to carry a paperweight to protect someone like me from teenage tearaways?’

At the reminder of how they’d first met, Libby’s pulse quickened. ‘I’m not here all the time, Raul. I go out—a lot. Are you going to shadow me on the footpath too? Stop me from being hit by a bus or mugged in an alley?’

He ground his teeth. ‘If that’s necessary.’

Appalled, she glared at him. ‘I was being sarcastic.’

‘I wasn’t.’

‘But—’

‘You are my wife.’ He enunciated each word clearly. ‘And the mother of my baby. Your safety is important to me.’

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