Page 21 of Bound By Her Baby Revelation (Hot Winter Escapes)

She didn’t hear the soft push of the bathroom door. She was frowning and concentrating hard, and it was only when she glanced across that she saw Leo’s hand on the door, his shadow on the tiled floor.

‘You okay in there?’

Kaya’s head went blank. She felt heat pour through her body, and she knew she should say something, but her vocal cords had seized up and all she could manage was an inaudible croak.

And then the door was pushed open and there he was, the guy she’d spent the last forty minutes thinking about while the bath water had gone cold, her skin had puckered and he...what?

He’d left her to have a bath and she’d taken so long that he’d understandably become worried—just as she’d understandably been worried when he’d headed into town on foot in the snow...

‘Leo!’

‘Kaya...’

They spoke at the same time.

‘Get out!’

The words seemed to hit Leo from a long way away. He’d done his best to clear his head in the kitchen, and had taken his time making them both something to eat. But when he’d glanced at the clock on the wall, and seen just how long it had been since he’d run that bath, he’d felt a little tendril of worry begin to curl inside him.

He’d left the food in the kitchen and headed up the stairs, and then he’d listened by the door and heard nothing. He’d knocked softly and then increasingly harder but had heard nothing. And then, with his hand on the bathroom door, he’d heard something that had sounded very much like a cry of pain and gut instinct had taken over.

He stared.

Her body... How long had he been fantasising about her body without realising it? How long had he been telling himself that this woman was out of bounds? That whatever attraction he felt was rooted in nothing more than the kick of novelty and the strangeness of the bond between them in the form of his mother?

She was beyond beautiful. Her body was a golden olive. Her glaring eyes were bright and dark and her long, soaking wet hair streamed over her body, clinging to her shoulders and falling in strands to partially cover small, perfect breasts.

She was supporting herself on the bath. He could see the strain of sinew in her arms, and beyond that the length of slender legs and the dark thatch between them.

Their eyes met, she yelled at him again and the spell was broken. Leo reddened, averting his eyes as he backed away.

For the first time in his life he was in a situation over which he had absolutely no control. She was the most glorious thing he had ever seen in his life, and he could have stayed looking at her until the sun rose in the sky. But instead, perspiring, flustered and slamming the bathroom door shut behind him, he fled.

CHAPTER FIVE

KAYACOULDN’THIDEin the bedroom for ever, but she wished she could. She was on fire as she got dressed. When she thought of Leo bursting in on her, seeing her naked, her thoughts went into meltdown and she wanted the ground to open up and swallow her whole.

Mortification, blind fury, horrifying self-consciousness: she honestly didn’t know which was the strongest emotion. What had gone through his head when he had seen her? She tried to recapture what she’d seen on his face and the only thing she could come up with was...shock.

But then what had he expected when he’d decided to waltz into her bedroom uninvited and then, to top it off, enter the bathroom, knowing that she would be in it?

She looked at her reflection in the mirror and what stared back at her was a woman whose colour was so high and whose eyes were glittering so brightly that she seemed on the point of combusting. She had thrown on her jeans and several layers and had managed to put on socks, even though her ankle was still sore and tender. With her emotions running high, though, it was very easy to overlook her twisted ankle.

She made it very slowly down the stairs, clutching the banister, and with each passing step her fury increased. By the time she finally made it to the kitchen, she was bolstered by self-righteous anger, which had the great advantage of diminishing her excoriating embarrassment.

She pushed open the kitchen door and the first thing she saw was Leo at the kitchen table. He looked up as soon as she entered.

His computer was open on the table—the Wi-Fi had been restored at some point during the day—but she could tell that he hadn’t been working. His eyes were brooding, intense, and she noted the dark flush that spread across his sharp cheekbones as their gaze held and kept holding for what seemed like an eternity.

‘Howdareyou?’

Fired up, Kaya hobbled into the kitchen and, when he half-rose to help her to a chair, she glared at him.

‘Kaya, I’m sorry if I busted in on you while you were—’

‘Don’t even say it!’

The last thing she needed was to be reminded of her nudity when he had barged into the bathroom unannounced.

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