Page 34 of Bound By Her Baby Revelation (Hot Winter Escapes)

Buzzing up high in the sky as the helicopter whirred its way to Harbour Island a mere fifty-four hours after she had sent her text to Leo, Kaya closed her eyes and contemplated the prospect ahead of her.

Her head was spinning and her heart, which she had been so determined to put into cold storage, was fluttering madly inside her.

This situation had seemed a lot more manageable from the safety of back home, with a vast ocean between her and Leo. It had been easy to be sensible from a distance. Of course, she hadn’t known where she would find him when she’d texted him on the number he had given her when life had been all sunshine and laughter between them, and she had been surprised when he had replied that he was at his villa in the Bahamas.

Yes, he’d told her that, but deep down she hadn’t quite believed it. Leo chilling out in the sunshine? She hadn’t seen it but she’d been wrong.

She hadn’t asked why. Hadn’t asked how come he wasn’t in New York, to where he had bustled off within an hour of reading that journal and deciding that it was time to clear off. Wasn’t he the committed workaholic, after all?

There had been no superfluous chit-chat by text, and he hadn’t asked why she’d suddenly decided to pay him a visit when, two weeks before, she had turned her back on him.

Of course, Kaya knew the reason for his lack of interrogation. He figured she had read the journal, been moved, had re-examined her decision not to sleep with him again...essential, because things had to fizzle out of their own accord...and had decided to make contact.

He had cockily assumed that she just couldn’t resist his charm and had had to get in touch, pathetically hoping he’d reconsider and carry her back, caveman-style, to his bed.

Leo was in for a shock.

Kaya tried to train herself to think without emotion, because a lack of emotion was what she was going to need, but it was so hard. It was especially hard now that the journey to see him was nearing its end. She didn’t feel prepared. At least, notenough.

With a hitched sigh, she looked down at a swirling panorama of blue and white: sky and puffy clouds, the sort of to where place people went to relax and have fun.

Not for her.

She didn’t quite know when, amongst all of this chaos and unhappiness, she’d suddenly realised that her period was late. And then she quickly realised a few other things as well: the metallic taste in her mouth; the way she’d gone off coffee; those little bouts of nausea...

She had known what the result of that pregnancy test would be before she’d taken it and yet, when it was confirmed, she had still frantically done three more and, with each successive positive, she’d felt a little sicker as her world dismantled in front of her.

And her choices? Few.

Certainly, there was no question that Leo would have to be told—he deserved it.

She had taken a couple of days to come to terms with theeverything, then she had texted him.

She’d decided clearly on how to handle things. She would be calm, matter-of-fact, reasonable and undemanding.

The one thing she would not do was become emotional, because this situation demanded a cool head.

Yet here she was. The whole cool-headed approach had disappeared roughly when the plane had started climbing for take-off. She surfaced now with the realisation that the helicopter was dipping, swinging in an arc, its rotor blades slowing. When she looked out of the tiny window, it was to find it circling over an illuminated circle, with a giant ‘H’ marking the spot where it had to land.

Leo’s villa.Her mouth went dry.

She steeled herself as the helicopter ground to a complete stop and then there was gradual silence as the blades stopped whirring then, as the door was pushed open, superseded by the call of insects that was nothing like anything she had ever heard before.

For a few seconds, standing in the open air, readying to disembark, Kaya closed her eyes and just listened. Insects called one another, high and shrill, and mingled with the throaty undertone of frogs, all competing with the rustle of warm breeze through lush shrubbery.

And then his voice...low, velvety and darkly, sexily familiar.

Her eyes flew open, adjusted and then there he was, larger than life and a lot more drop-dead gorgeous than she remembered. He was framed in the doorway of a villa that was picture-perfect, from what she could make out in the enveloping darkness, for out here, with only the light from the stars and the moon, it was inky-black.

‘So you came...’

There was mild amusement in his drawl and Kaya was galvanised into motion as he strolled towards her.

He was in a pair of loose, draw-string linen trousers, an old tee-shirt and some flip-flops and he looked more eye wateringly gorgeous than he ever had.

Her mouth went dry, her heart sped up and she hurried down the stunted metal steps just in case he decided to help her down. She wasn’t sure if she could face the physical contact.

Behind her, the young, enthusiastic pilot, who had done his best to engage her interest on the brief hop to the island, followed with her bag. There was a moment’s reprieve while Leo chatted to him, leaving her time to gather her thoughts and pay some attention to her surroundings.

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