Page 6 of The Billionaire's One-Night Baby

But, damn it, his attraction to her hadn’t faded, not even a little. When he’d caught Dodi after her stumble earlier, his body immediately sat up and started taking notes. Sexy mouth, great breasts, long legs he wanted to feel wrapped around his hips. She smelled of soap and lemongrass, of blue skies and fresh air, and the combination of her slim body, her scent and those witchy eyes stopped him in his tracks. And sent his blood rushing south.

Jago rubbed his hand over his face. What was it about her that turned him inside out? Could it be because he hadn’t had sex for a while? Damn, he hoped so! Maybe he should schedule a visit to one of a handful of old friends who knew the score, a woman happy enough to share his bed and who wouldn’t sulk when he left it a few hours later. Sex had always been—yeah, even with Anju—a physical release, a way to blow off steam. As necessary as exercise and sleep.

The fact that he’d reacted to Dodi—his sister’s best friend!—was a solid clue that he needed to get some. And soon.

Jago looked around the expensive salon and curled his lip at the wedding dresses on rails encircling the three walls of the room. There were hundreds more in the back, simple and stylish, splendid and luxurious. Shapes and cuts and decorations to suit every taste, ranging from mildly expensive to eye-wateringly and budget-blowingly insane. He could not understand why women put so much stock in looking like a hyped-up, photoshopped version of themselves, why they put so much time and effort and money into one night, the adult equivalent of their first school dance.

Why they even wanted to get married in the first place.

Having been there, done the whole thing, he knew of what he spoke. Would he marry again? No. Not because he’d been unhappy in his marriage—he hadn’t been particularly happy either, truth be told—but because marriage was an outdated institution that had little relevance in today’s world. He’d been twenty-seven when they married. They made their relationship legal because Anju, despite being a brilliant neuroscientist with a glittering future ahead of her, craved financial security, a legal document, and a solid prenup agreement.

Because she was what he’d wanted, an unemotional woman who didn’t demand love, loved sex, good food and travelling, he agreed to her terms. Fiercely intelligent, she wasn’t interested in having kids, and apart from having enough money for a roof over her head and food in the fridge, didn’t care that he was the son of a multibillionaire. She also had an equally low tolerance for drama. They’d loved each other, he supposed, and he’d grieved for her when she died. But life went on and here he was, five years after her death, still single, and still allergic to drama.

He’d had so much of it as a kid, before and after his mum died when he was nine. They said that his father was larger than life, charismatic and compelling, brilliant, but, to Jago, he’d been intensely volatile, a bully and a bastard. For his entire early childhood Jago stood on the lip of a volcano, constantly scanning the horizon for trouble, for a hard wind or quick tap that would push him—or his mum and brother—into the lava that was Theo’s temper. They never knew where they stood with him, and their home swung from laughter to tears in the space of a heartbeat. His father could slow dance his mum around the kitchen one second and throw a crystal glass against the wall the next.

Jago did everything he could to keep the peace and, before his tenth birthday, became adept at scanning his environment, looking for problems and trying to head off trouble. But, as hard as he tried, he couldn’t anticipate that his mum would die in a head-on collision or that Theo would start dating six weeks after her funeral. His marriage to Liyana, four months after his mom’s death, rocked him. And once Liyana moved into their home, it was as if his mum had never existed. Theo, his dad, refused to talk about her and redecorated their home top to bottom, expunging everything she’d done to make their house a home. Theo donated everything of hers—from jewellery to art to clothes to trinkets—to charity. He tossed out all the family photographs, effectively erasing her presence in their life as a surgeon would cut out a cancerous tumour.

Before Jago had hit puberty, he decided that love equalled drama and he wanted nothing to do with either concept.

Jago heard a brisk knock on the front door and looked around to see his twin, Micah, and Thadie standing under the rounded peach portico above Dodi’s front door. Seeing no sign of Dodi, he stood up and walked across the salon, twisting the key and pulling open her door. Thadie stepped into the salon, followed by one of her bridesmaids—Alta, Clyde’s stepsister, agent and publicist. Having only met her once before, he stuck out his hand and internally sighed when Alta kissed his right cheek and then his left. He caught Micah’s eye and frowned at his twin’s knowing smirk.

Micah knew better than to think he had the hots for the very spiky Alta: she was too in-your-face and too abrasive for him to make a move in her direction. He had no idea why his laid-back sister had included her in the wedding party. It had to be a request from Clyde. Nothing else made sense. And Alta, he was sure, had only agreed to be a bridesmaid to stay in the wedding loop and to make sure nothing tainted or tarnished Clyde’s glittering reputation.

Thadie pulled him into a hard hug. She had her famous mother’s cut-glass cheekbones, warm brown skin, face and height but Jago still saw her as a wide-eyed kid with knobbly knees. In his head, she definitively wasn’t old enough to be a mum or to get married.

He adored her.

Thadie stepped back from him and looked around the salon, before releasing a long sigh. ‘I love this place, and I still expect Granny Lily to walk in from the back with a huge smile on her face.’

His sister had the biggest heart in the world. ‘You really liked her, didn’t you?’

Thadie sent him a soft smile. ‘I did. She was truly lovely. Dodi is a lot like her.’ Thadie looked past him, and her smile rushed into her eyes. ‘Hey, you!’

Jago knew, without turning, that she was talking to Dodi, as they were always excited to see each other.

Jago moved and saw Dodi standing there and his heart rate, stupid thing, accelerated. She’d tidied her hair and reapplied her lipstick and her right arm was fully extended over her head. Two clothing bags brushed the floor. Jago quickly moved towards her and took the bags from her, his height making it easy to hold them off the floor.

Dodi thanked him, greeted Micah and Alta and smiled at Thadie, who was hopping from foot to foot in excitement. ‘Are those my dresses?’ Thadie demanded.

Dodi mock frowned at her. ‘Your dresses? What dresses? Did you order a dress from me?’

Thadie rolled her eyes at Dodi’s teasing and reached for the zip of one of the bags. ‘Lemme see.’

Dodi gently smacked her hand away. ‘Be patient, Thads.’ Dodi gestured to a whitewashed credenza standing against the far wall. On it stood a silver ice bucket containing a bottle of champagne and champagne flutes. ‘Have a glass, then join me in the first dressing room on the right and let’s see what they look like.’

‘I hope they are perfect,’ Alta commented. She tapped the face of her watch with a red-tipped fingernail. ‘You’re running out of time, and you’ll be in a world of hurt if they don’t fit.’

Jago watched, fascinated, as Dodi’s eyes cooled, and her expression flattened. ‘We’re not in the habit of making mistakes, Alta.’

Alta lifted her too-thin eyebrows. ‘I hope not because, as you know, this is the wedding of the year.’

Jago watched the storm brewing in Dodi’s eyes and waited for her sharp comeback. But instead of issuing a harsh retort, she pulled up a smile and took Thadie’s hand. ‘Lily would haunt me if we messed up your dresses, Thads, you know that.’

Her gaze moved from Thadie to the front door and Jago saw the rest of the bridal party, his stepmother Liyana and Thadie’s two other bridesmaids, approaching the salon.

‘Micah, if you could open the front door for me, that would be wonderful and then give the ladies a glass of champagne, please. I’m going to help Thadie change into her gowns, and then we’ll choose the mother of the bride and the bridesmaid dresses. Sound good?’

No, Jago silently replied. It sounded like hell, actually.

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