Page 116 of The Billionaire's Demand

The lift doors opened and she stepped through them with gratitude, pressed her back to the wall and then sighed a big breath of relief when they silently zipped shut.

Downstairs and on the corner of the block, she ordered a coffee—her one pregnancy indulgence, which she allowed herself to enjoy only once per day—with caramel syrup, wrapped her hands around the cup then took a sip as she left the café, looking left and right.

It was a beautiful morning, the weather turning incrementally warmer, and she longed to explore the city in all its guises, but especially spring. Trees were beginning to show their first bloom of leaves and blossom. Her mind turned longingly to Central Park, and the beauty she knew she’d find there as things began to grow again. Though winter had also been stunning, with the snow-covered ground and eerie, spindly trees almost seeming to scrape long tendrils of fingers against the leaden sky.

She walked without purpose or destination, simply to move, and with walking came thoughts and clarity, even when she didn’t intentionally seek either. It had always been that way for Libby—a walk somehow unlocked things within her.

Each step seemed to cement something, an idea, a concept, that had begun so long ago, and so incrementally, she couldn’t even say for sure when the idea had first occurred to her. Not consciously ever but, looking back, she supposed she’d felt a red flag very early on. Perhaps even on the boat, when Raul had suggested dinner. Libby had balked then, because he’d been so everything, and she hadn’t known quite how to handle that. Or maybe it had been even earlier, when she’d insisted on going with him to confront the boat thieves, as if she’d known that she had to defend him, to protect him, because even when they were total strangers, the idea of anything happening to Raul had been unimaginable.

And then she’d found out about the baby and she’d felt the first rush of love. Unmistakable and all-consuming, it had made her fingertips tingle with possibility and hope. Of course she’d loved her baby, but had it been more than that? Had she loved, even then, the idea of Raul too? Of growing a person who was half him? Of the certainty she would get to know Raul, even if only through their child?

She ran a hand over her stomach, patting the baby distractedly, connecting with that little lifeform, silently promising them the world, as she did all the time.

Libby had always wanted the fairy tale. The dream. But she’d come to accept it might not be possible.

But what if it was?

What if the answer, her hopes, her heart’s desire, had been staring her in the face this whole time, and she’d been too shell-shocked to understand? Too stubborn, too scared to admit that the pragmatic terms they’d negotiated were just a shield they were both using to protect themselves from any possible fallout?

Libby stopped walking and stared straight ahead. It was early enough in the morning that the street was still quiet, but even if the sidewalk had been brimming with people, she wouldn’t have been capable of noticing.

Her breath caught in her throat and she clicked her fingers in the air, the answer seeming so bloody obvious to her now.

They were both scared. They were both using the terms of their arrangement as a shield.

Whenever they got close to breaking through that shield, Raul pulled back, reminding her forcibly of what they were, because he couldn’t accept a reality in which he cared for Libby as a person.

She groaned softly and turned on her heel, walking with renewed purpose back to their apartment, a smile tingling the corners of her mouth even when her tummy was tied in a thousand, billion knots with nervousness at the conversation in her near future. It was the only way to move forward, and suddenly she was convinced she could do this.

If fate had brought them together, and she knew in her heart that it had, it was Libby’s job to listen—and to make sure Raul did too.

‘Come on, baby.’ She smiled at the doorman as she returned to Raul’s building. ‘Let’s go tell your daddy how much we love him and just see if he doesn’t feel the same way.’

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

RAUL WAS IN the kitchen when Libby returned to the apartment, a cup of coffee in one hand, a large tablet in front of him with one of the daily newspapers on the screen.

He frowned. ‘You’ve been out?’

She stepped out of her boots, then removed her denim jacket, carrying it over one arm. ‘I went for a walk.’ She held up her coffee as if that explained everything.

‘You should have told me,’ he said with obvious disapproval. ‘I would have come with you.’

She stared at him as if up was somehow down, because it was, in so many ways. An abstract concept whilst walking outside, face to face with Raul now, she had to accept that yes, she absolutely did love him. And that this conversation, while necessary, was the most important of her life.

It was also the most terrifying.

Every time her mother had let a new man move in, Libby had known rejection. She’d lost her mother, not once, not twice, but again and again and again. She’d always been second-best. A consolation prize when her mother was single. Nothing more. She’d never been important, really important, to anyone.

What if she wasn’t important to Raul? Could she take that rejection?

Uncertainty pierced the veil of hope that had begun to shroud her; she fidgeted with her fingers.

But Libby had learned to lean into optimism. Perhaps it had been her earliest and best survival skill, a form of delusion even, to hope when hope seemed stupid. She saw beauty, sunlight, brightness, because it had helped her survive the emotionally barren nature of her upbringing, and she saw hope now, even against the odds.

Fate had brought them here; Libby was sure of it.

‘I needed to think,’ she said honestly, taking a few steps closer, pausing on the other side of the kitchen counter. It was like waking up from a dream, seeing everything for the first time.

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