Page 17 of The Billionaire's One-Night Baby

Whatever she was about to say was going to change his life for ever. Of that he was sure.

Dodi lurched out of her seat and stomped over to the floor-to-ceiling window of his incredibly luxurious office, resting her throbbing head on the cool glass, oblivious to the amazing view of Johannesburg from the massive tinted windows. After a few days of feeling bone-deep tired, headachey and frustrated by a constant horrible metallic taste in her mouth, she’d decided a visit to her doctor might be in order. Since Dr Kate was one of her grandmother’s oldest and best friends, her father’s godmother and the woman she was named after, she could kill two birds with one stone: see her old friend and also get a Vitamin B injection to lift her energy levels.

But because Kate was the type of doctor who insisted on thoroughly checking her over she was there for the best part of an hour instead of a quick in-and-out visit. She’d also given her an astounding piece of news and Dodi, not thinking, had immediately turned her car around and headed into the city to Le Roux International’s headquarters.

She now regretted that impulsive move. She wasn’t ready to share her life-changing news with Jago. Oh, she’d have to, at some point, but she needed time to wrap her head around it first.

She needed to think, to assess, to make sense of it all.

She was pregnant, with Jago’s baby.

She understood the individual words, but the sentence still didn’t make sense. How had this happened? Why? Why her? Why with him? Dodi wanted to release the pressure pressing against her ribs, to unravel the constrictor knot that was now her twisted intestines.

She had so much to consider but, as hard as she tried to push them away, the wordsI didn’t want thisandThis isn’t what I wantrolled around her brain. Yet again, she’d found herself in a situation she hadn’t chosen.

She was starting to think that her face was printed on Fate’s personal dartboard.

Dodi walked back to the chair she’d used and bent down to pick her large tote off the floor. She pulled it over her shoulder and forced herself to look at Jago. He wore his usual implacable expression, and she couldn’t read any emotion in his eyes. ‘Sorry, barging in here was a mistake. I should go.’

‘Sit down, Elodie Kate.’

She glared at him, ignored him and turned to make her way to the door. She couldn’t do this, not now. She needed time to think, to plan, to consider her options. Space.

‘I swear, if you leave I will follow you, pick you up, toss you over my shoulder and bring you back here,’ Jago stated, his voice calm but determined.

Dodi whirled around to face him, her mouth falling open at his ridiculous statement. ‘You wouldn’t dare!’

‘Try me and see,’ Jago softly replied. His low tone and determined expression convinced her there was a better than excellent chance of him doing exactly that.

‘Sit down, Dodi, and tell me why you are here.’

Dodi tapped her foot and looked past him to the huge seascape on the wall behind his desk, feeling as if she was tumbling in those waves crashing onto the shore. She couldn’t breathe. It was all too much. Why did this always happen to her? Why did her life tend to skid sideways? What was she doing wrong?

Dodi felt the room sway and dots appeared behind her eyes. Her throat started to close. God, was she having a panic attack? If so, she didn’t want to have one in front of the imperturbable Jago Le Roux.

A strong hand on her shoulder pushed her down and her bottom hit the seat of a chair. Jago’s big hand forced her head to her knees and his rough voice commanded her to take big breaths, slow and deep. After a couple of minutes—years?—her chest and throat loosened. Dodi slowly lifted her head and speared her fingers into her hair, holding her pounding head.

‘I swear to God, if you don’t tell me what’s wrong with you, I’m going to call an ambulance and have you hauled off to the emergency room to be checked over.’ She didn’t doubt he’d do exactly that.

‘I was at my doctor’s this morning,’ she told him, her voice raspier than usual.

‘And? What’s the problem? Are you ill?’

Was that a hint of worry she heard in his growly voice or was she imagining it? No, he was just frustrated she was wasting his precious time. Annoyed at him and irritated at herself, she lifted her head to see him leaning his butt against the edge of the desk, his feet crossed at the ankles. His suit trousers brushed her bare knee and she wished she could touch him, just to anchor herself as she delivered her conversational hand grenade.

She could put this off and tell him later...

No, she had to tell him some time and it might as well be now. Dodi pulled in a deep breath, forced her eyes to his face and rubbed the back of her neck.

‘I don’t know how it happened because we used condoms, except for that one brief moment, but... I’m pregnant. And the baby is yours.’

A heavy, tense, painful silence dropped between them. Jago didn’t pull his eyes off her face, neither did his expression change, but she sensed that every muscle in his body contracted, that a nuclear bomb had just been detonated in the depths of his soul.

She started to speak, but before she could she heard a faint buzzing noise.

He grimaced. ‘Hold on, my PA needs me.’ He issued a voice command to open his intercom system and a few seconds later his PA’s voice came through on hidden surround-sound speakers. ‘Your investors are downstairs, Mr Le Roux. They’ll be here in three minutes.’

Without dropping his eyes from hers, Jago spoke again. ‘Put them in the conference room and tell them I’ll be a few minutes late.’

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