Page 4 of Bound By Her Baby Revelation (Hot Winter Escapes)

‘I’m Leo. I’m happy to continue this conversation in the morning, but with every passing second I’m getting the impression that there is a lot of ground we need to cover.’

‘You said you got in through legitimate means...’

‘I give you...’ He reached into his jeans pocket for a key, which he proceeded to dangle in front of her. There was a tag on it. ‘Key to the kingdom.’

‘I need to sit down.’

‘You look as though you need more than a chair. Why don’t we head down to the kitchen and I can give you something stiff to drink?’ He held both hands up in a gesture of surrender. ‘And I assure you that you have absolutely nothing to fear from me. We can cover some basic ground, because you’re not the only one with questions, and then you can have the bedroom, lock the door and go to sleep.’

Kaya nodded, in a daze.

‘Are you going to pass out on me?’

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I’m not the passing out kind.’

‘Glad to hear it.’

He stood aside, waiting for her, and she had to control a shiver as she preceded him out of the bedroom and down to the kitchen. She felt like a convict being escorted back to prison, her gaoler behind her making sure she didn’t try and pull a fast one. It was colder out here in the hall and she bent to grab the jumper she had discarded earlier and pulled it over her without looking around, without wanting to see the guy walking behind her.

He had a key.

The legitimate way...

Of course, she knew who he was. He wasn’t some random stranger she had found sleeping in her bed. He hadn’t trudged in from the cold, dumped his cashmere coat on the ground, kicked off his hand-made shoes and fallen asleep in her bedroom.

Because he didn’t look like Julie Anne didn’t mean that he wasn’t connected to her, wasn’t related to her. The guy the lawyers had told her would be coming wasn’t supposed to be here yet; they had said it would be a long time, not until everything had been sorted out. And the ins and outs of a tricky probate could take up to a year...more than enough time for her to gather herself and find alternative accommodation.

Those lawyers had been very sympathetic.

They had understood the level of her shock when they had called her in to their posh office in the heart of Vancouver and advised her that the house she had been living in, the place she’d calledhome, would be under new ownership.

Julie Anne had left a will and everything would be going to her son.

‘Julie Anne doesn’t have a son,’ Kaya had told them without batting an eyelid. She hadn’t had a clue as to what her friend had decided to do with her house and the land, not to mention the halfway house in the middle of town. She had vaguely figured that the halfway house would be kept and the house and land might be sold, with the proceeds going towards the charitable organisation Julie Anne had founded decades ago.

But a son?

She had been frankly incredulous until they had explained, very slowly and very gently, that they had all the documentation to prove his legitimacy. They had explained it to her in three different ways, had brought her innumerable cups of tea and had told her that she could remain where she was, looking after the place, until the legal work was done and every detail sorted. She would have warning to vacate, they had said.

On top of everything else, that single revelation had hit Kaya for six. To know someone and yet not to know them... To discover that there were secrets lurking beneath the surface, secrets never divulged even to her...

She knew that she had escaped more than just her misery when she’d fled to New Zealand. She’d also been running from her confusion and bewilderment at what Julie Anne had held close to herself her entire lifetime. For reasons Kaya respected, of course, but still...

At any rate, she had returned to Canada, ready to pick up the threads, safe in the knowledge that she would be long gone before anyone rocked up to take over the house.

It seemed that fate had had other things in store for her. Thinking about what was happening now made her feel sick, because it raised a host of issues she didn’t feel equipped to deal with, not just yet.

She hadn’t wanted to meet the son. She’d pushed his existence to the back of her mind, had barely entertained any curiosity about the man. Who was he? What had he been doing for all those years? Had he been a down and out, forced into a life of penury because of circumstances beyond his control? Drifting this way and that before discovering himself to be the lucky recipient of a fortune he hadn’t banked on? She’d parked all those questions and focused instead on making sure she wouldn’t be around when she got that call from a lawyer telling her that the son would be heading to the house to claim what was rightfully his.

Glancing back at her as he pushed open the kitchen door, Leo noted the wariness on her face and something else—something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

‘We’re here,’ he advised brusquely. ‘The snow’s falling thicker and harder with every passing second. I think it’s fair to say that we’re going to have to trust one another, because we’re going to be cooped up in this house for a least the next few hours, if not days, and I don’t see either of us having much success if we try to make it into town. Or even to the nearest neighbour who lives...where, exactly? I didn’t drive past too many houses on the way here.’

Kaya nodded.

What was his plan? Was he really who she thought he was? How could henotbe? She felt his eyes on her, darkly intrusive and assessing.

Of course he would be curious about her.

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