Page 41 of The Billionaire's One-Night Baby

She finally, finally, found the courage to meet his eyes and was surprised to see an understanding smile. ‘It’s overwhelming, right?’ he softly asked. He was talking about the baby, thank God. He had to be.

‘Very,’ she admitted. She sighed, thinking that she could do with some time alone, to think.

Jago stood up and picked up his empty beer bottle. ‘It’s been a long day and we’re both tired, played out.’

How did he do that? How did he know what she was feeling, what she needed without her having to say a word?

‘Okay,’ Dodi agreed, following him to his feet.

Jago walked around the table to where she stood and gently gripped her chin in his big hand and looked down into her face, his expression intense. ‘You’re going to have to trust someone at some time, Elodie Kate. I hope that person is me.’

She managed a small smile, a quick nod and tried not to sigh when Jago dropped a hard kiss on her open mouth. ‘Come to bed now,’ he softly suggested.

She stared at his broad hand for a moment before sliding her own hand into it and following him back into his sitting room, and then into his bedroom, wishing she could tell him that trust was an essential part of love, and if she couldn’t trust him, she couldn’t love him.

Wouldn’t let herself love him.

Because loving, and losing, Jago would destroy her. There would be no climbing out if she toppled into that deep abyss.

Unable to sleep, Jago left Dodi in his bed, walked outside, and dived into the pool. After swimming for nearly an hour, and still feeling edgy, he sat on the side of the massive pool, his feet dangling. Water ran down his body, from his hair, and his limbs felt hot and heavy.

Normally exercise cleared his head, sharpened his thinking, but that hadn’t happened tonight. If anything he was more confused than ever.

And it was all Dodi’s fault.

The woman disoriented him, made him feel a hundred emotions at once, spun him in a thousand directions simultaneously.

Leaning back on his hands, Jago looked up at the bright moon, immediately seeing the rabbit shape on its surface, something one could only see from the southern hemisphere. He inhaled the fragrant air, heat mingling with the smell of roses from the extensive garden to his right. He smiled at the deep bellow of a bullfrog. Even in the city, he still felt connected to primal Africa. It was in her heat, her smells, her sounds and her essence. But saying that, he needed to get into the bush, somewhere wild, and he wanted to take Dodi with him.

Would Dodi agree to step away with him, to go to an unknown place with few roads, no mobile phone reception and no people? He wasn’t sure. After hearing how her piece-of-crap ex had treated her, he finally understood Dodi’s reluctance to trust, didn’t blame her for being wary about people and men.

But he still wanted her to trust him, to know, deep down, that he would never, ever hurt her or their child. She needed to accept that she was under his protection and that he’d rather die than see her in any sort of distress.

Yes, he was protective of her, would be protective of his kid, but there was so much more to his feelings for his sister’s best friend than his need to shield her.

He adored her body and loved being naked with her. He’d enjoyed a healthy sex life with Anju, had had many sexual encounters since she’d died, but with Dodi, the act seemed deeper, more mysterious, intense. The physical release wasn’t the end goal. She wasn’t a way to blow off steam. With Dodi, it was the journey, not the destination that was important.

And that was very, very new.

He couldn’t help but compare her to Anju—his wife was the only long-term partner he’d had and, as such, his only reference.

He’d enjoyed Anju’s astounding intellect and their highbrow conversations about politics, neuroscience, chemistry and astronomy. But they’d never laughed or joked around, discussed the mundane and the ridiculous, the normal and the nonsensical. There was a good chance that he and Dodi would never talk about the latest brain-imaging techniques or scientific discoveries, but they could discuss books and music and movies, politics and religion.

She’d make him laugh, and curse, and she would challenge him to feel more, be more,engagemore.

And that wasn’t a bad thing.

He’d thought he’d been so clever, constructing his life and his marriage to be safe, to be stable. In trying to avoid drama, he’d created a life that was, in all honesty, stiflingly boring. It was hard to admit that he’d been living on the edge of life, scared to swim to the centre. In the middle of the pool of life were the currents, the whirlpools and rapids, where things got interesting. It was safe at the edges, but it was also deeply uninteresting, and mind-numbingly predictable.

The centre held energy, it demanded you engage, be present. Dodi was turning out to be his centre, his favourite whirlpool, the current taking him on a new journey.

Her dropping into his life, with her vibrant looks and personality, had flipped his world upside down and yeah, she was everything he needed. Up until now, he hadn’tlivedlife, he’d operated to the side of it, scared to wade out of the shallows.

Sure, his childhood had been tough. He hated the way his father had acted, and the way he had raised them...

But he wasn’t his dad, didn’t have to make the same choices his father had and wasn’t obliged tobehis father. His childhood was over, and he couldn’t keep living in the past or letting his father and his actions affect what he did today, how he lived his life.

And, since he was going to be a father, he needed to teach his kid to be brave, to live authentically, to take chances, to engage with the world. If he kept himself separate, remained on the sidelines of life, then that was what his child would do too...

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