Page 29 of How to Win the Wild Billionaire

Digby lifted Bay’s legs and sat down, placing her legs across his thighs, as she reached for a Danish and then bit down. Her eyes widened as she chewed and a look of bliss crossed her face.

“So, so good,” she mumbled taking another huge bite.

Digby smiled, enjoying the look of pleasure on her face as she finished the pastry. “My pastry chef is world-class.”

“I’d say,” Bay replied.

He reached for a cup of coffee and handed it to her, smiling as she wrapped her hands around the mug. She’d had the same look of anticipation on her face when she wrapped her hands around his erection earlier. Digby sighed, felt the action in his pants and told himself to stand down. They’d made love twice and fooled around again in the shower; he needed some time to recover and so did Bay.

But damn, it had been the best sex of his life. How had that happened?

Forcing his thoughts from how they’d loved each other and how right—that word again!—it felt, Digby turned his thoughts back to Olivia. “You’re an amazing mom, Bay,” he quietly told her, reaching for his own mug. “If I had said there was a problem, I imagine you would’ve been out that door in a flash.”

“Of course I would,” Bay replied. “That’s what moms do. Or even what aunts, trying to be moms, do.”

He knew that wasn’t true. “Not all mothers, Bay. I should know.”

“What do you mean?”

Digby grimaced, wishing he hadn’t opened this door. Then again, with Bay, the doors he normally kept locked seemed to spring open without any help from him.

He looked at her curious face and knew he was going to tell her. He couldn’t not. Bay was his truth serum. “When I was twelve, I suffered an injury on the rugby field and was rushed to hospital in an ambulance—they were worried about my neck. The coach called my mom, who happened to be in the country at the time. She was at the family farm, our vineyard, not twenty minutes away from where I was playing. She told my coach to let her know if something more serious developed. Jack was the one to rush to my side.”

Bay looked at him, aghast. “That is truly shocking.”

Digby shrugged and looked out the window, idly noticing that his private lap pool was full of leaves, and made a mental note to remind the maintenance crew to have it cleaned. “It was just the way she was.”

“And your dad?”

“He followed my mom’s lead.” Digby told himself to stop talking but his mouth was on a mission of its own. “You’ve got to understand—my parents didn’t engage with us, me in particular. They were very over having kids by the time I came along.”

Bay frowned. “They could’ve chosen not to have any more kids after Jack was born. I mean, I’m glad they didn’t, obviously, but that was a choice they could’ve made. They had their heir, why have more kids?”

Digby wasn’t sure whether to tell her that the reason he was born came down to hard, cold cash. Would she understand? Would she recoil away, and would her disgust taint him? Taint what they’d just shared?

He hesitated and Bay put a hand on his arm. “Digby? What is it?”

Despite his hesitation about sharing something so private, the words came tumbling out. “The Tempest-Vanes weren’t good at stocking the family tree and my father was the sole Tempest-Vane heir. My great-grandfather told my father he’d give him two million for every male child he produced. Three boys resulted in a hefty paycheck.”

Bay looked, as he expected, shocked. “That’s dreadful. And if you’d been a girl?”

Digby shrugged. “No money if that’s what you are asking.”

“Wow, that’s a superb example of misogyny,” Bay commented. “Your parents weren’t very likable, were they?”

Now, that was the understatement of the century. Sometimes he actively hated them for being so damn selfish, so reckless, so impossibly self-centered. For leaving them to raise themselves. His biggest dream, as a kid, was having two parents who put him and his brothers first, who gave them both roots and wings and were a soft place to fall when things went wrong. But he’d never had that. As a result, he didn’t know how a family worked and couldn’t see himself giving a family the things he most needed as a kid. And if he couldn’t do it properly, he wouldn’t do it at all.

So, no family for him.

“Radd and I were definitely surplus to what was required. Zia had no interest in us at all and she frequently told the press that she wasn’t cut out for motherhood.”

He’d repeated her words to reporters, saying he wasn’t cut out for a family, but the difference between them was that he wasn’t a father and his kids couldn’t read what he said about them online or in the papers.

Bay’s soft hand stroked the ball of his shoulder and her touch calmed him. It was so strange that, when he spoke about his parents to her, the subject didn’t sting as much as it normally did.

“Did you see much of her growing up?” Bay asked softly, waiting for him to continue.

Digby placed his hand on her thigh and drew patterns in her soft skin with his thumb. “When I was about ten, there was a stretch when I didn’t see either Gil or Zia for about six months. They went to the States for an extended holiday and didn’t return.”

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