Page 25 of The Billionaire's One-Night Baby

‘I’ll try not to.’ Her smile turned brighter. ‘Although someone—a father, fiancé or the bride herself—might weep when I present them with the bill.’

He smiled, enchanted by her. ‘I’ll pick you up here at six, take you for an early meal.’

‘I can’t, it’s—’

He cut off her words by dropping a kiss on her nose. ‘Six o’clock. Be ready.’

He felt her eyes boring into his back but didn’t turn around to look at her. If he did, he might be tempted to take her into his arms and kiss her senseless.

Not what her clients needed to see on a sunny, late summer day.

The only reason she was going out for an early meal with the very high-handed Jago was that she was starving—she’d missed lunch—and because she didn’t have any food in the house. And, even if she had, she didn’t have the energy to cook it.

Sliding into his car, something stupidly low and ridiculously expensive, Dodi pulled her seatbelt across her stomach and clicked it into place. She was only five, nearly six weeks pregnant, but man, the hormones were rocking around her system. She was tired, more exhausted than she ever recalled being in her life, constantly nauseous, and yeah, her patience levels, never good, were running low.

She remembered Jago’s offer to look after her, for her to move into Hadleigh House and to have his butler and staff take care of her. He wanted to wrap her in cotton wool and smooth her path through life. Tonight, she was tempted to let him do that. She wasthattired and overwhelmed.

‘You doing okay?’

Dodi slowly rolled her head in his direction, lifting a hand to smother her yawn. She couldn’t let him know that she was feeling vulnerable and emotional, she couldn’t give him that much leverage. ‘Just tired. It’s been a long day, a long week.’

Jago nodded. ‘For me too. Let’s find a pub, get a drink and, more importantly, some food into you.’

Food, a bath, and an early night. It sounded like bliss. She should work—her paperwork was piling up—but, right now, she didn’t care. Dodi, enjoying the light, cooling air coming from the vents, slid down further in the seat and felt her eyelids dropping. She couldn’t fall asleep, shouldn’t, but it was so nice being in this car. It was a cool, cosy, comfortable cocoon...

Dodi woke up to the sound of a car door closing, the smell of good quality leather and the seatbelt digging across her chest. She blinked, disorientated. Where was she?

She looked out of the front window at the modernistic, L-shaped house with its flat roof and banks of tinted floor-to-ceiling windows, and it took her a minute to recognise the house Jago lived in when he’d been married to Anju. She’d only ever visited once, with Thadie. Anju, she recalled, hadn’t invited them in.

So Jago still owned this house. Why hadn’t he sold it? And why were they here?

Releasing herself from the seatbelt, she saw Jago talking to a large man wearing body armour, a huge pistol on his hip. Opening her car door, she climbed out and walked over to them, pulling the band to release her falling-down hair.

‘What’s going on?’ she asked, confused. Why were they here and not at the pub? And this house was at least a forty-five-minute drive from her salon...had she been asleep all this time? And why had Jago let her sleep?

She caught his eye, the warmth in his small smile, and felt her heart quiver. She didn’t need him looking at her like that. Neither did she need him to be caring and considerate. It both warmed and confused her and, worse, tempted her to let him take over.

Jago gestured to the security guard. ‘This is Bheki, from the alarm company. An alarm was triggered here so he asked me to meet him here.’

It took Dodi a moment to connect the dots. ‘Someone has broken in?’ she asked, moving closer to Jago.

Jago lightly touched her back with the tips of his fingers. ‘No, no one is here,’ Jago replied. ‘It must’ve been a glitch in the system.’

Bheki nodded. ‘I’ll get going, then, Mr Le Roux.’ He nodded to the open front door behind them. ‘Don’t forget to lock up.’

‘I won’t. Thanks.’

Bheki hopped into his response vehicle, reversed and drove away. Jago looked down at Dodi before lifting his hand to run his thumb across her cheekbone. ‘Did you have a good nap?’

She blushed. ‘I did. I can’t remember when last I slept for forty-five minutes.’

He grinned. ‘It was closer to an hour, actually.’

‘You drove me around for an hour?’

He shrugged. ‘You needed sleep, so I gave it to you.’

It was a sweet gesture, considerate and very kind. And very unexpected coming from the terse ‘time is money’ billionaire.

---