Page 35 of Bound By Her Baby Revelation (Hot Winter Escapes)

The dark shapes of the bushes, foliage and silhouettes of the tall, gently waving coconut trees were glorious. She glanced at the villa, which wasn’t outrageously big, but perfectly proportioned, pink and white with a wide, wooden veranda encircling the entire property like a bracelet. The gardens appeared to be extensive and partially landscaped, and she could smell the salty tang of the sea and hear the rise and fall of waves behind all the other unfamiliar sounds.

There was some laughter and a few more pleasantries between Leo and the pilot, and then the helicopter was weaving its way back up, up, up and away, leaving the two of them together.

The silence was broken by Leo. He didn’t move towards her. He kept his distance, leading her into the villa, which was a marvel of tropical architecture. The blonde wooden flooring was interrupted by colourful rugs, and the breeze blowing through the shutters was helped along by ceiling fans.

‘So...’ he drawled, leading the way towards the kitchen. ‘You’re here.’

He faced her, his dark eyes skewering her to the spot and, in return, Kaya looked at him and tried not to drink him in, because she’d forgotten how much he meant to her, and how familiar she was with every angle and contour of his handsome face.

‘Yes.’ The bracing, impersonal speech she had rehearsed—which would have been followed by a swift escape to bed, having confirmed her return flight for Canada the following day—had vanished, leaving her to struggle with the business of actually being in his presence.

‘There’s no need to look so terrified,’ Leo said wryly. ‘I happen to be very glad that you changed your mind. You look good, Kaya.’ He cleared his throat and briefly looked away before returning his dark gaze to her face. ‘Sit. I’ll get you a drink.’

‘No! No, thank you.’

Leo’s eyebrows shot up.

Not the reaction he was expecting. Actually, her visible discomfort was not at all what he’d been expecting. Possibly a bit too soon to fall into each other’s arms, all things considered, but he had banked on more enthusiasm. Or perhaps it was his imagination playing tricks on him. After all, shehadmade the first move.

‘It’ll relax you,’ he drawled, but he remained where he was, staring at her from under his lashes. ‘I haven’t dragged you here, Kaya.’

‘I realise that.’

‘Do you want me to coax you out of whatever sudden bout of uncertainty you’re going through? Want me to tell you how glad I am you’re here? Want me to beg you not to have a change of heart?’

‘Would you? Beg me to stay? Because I don’t remember you doing that when you left.’

Kaya could have kicked herself for having said that, so she tacked on in a harried undertone, ‘But, no. I don’t want you to do any of those things, as it happens. I’m here of my own volition and I won’t be having a change of heart. I’ll have some water, please.’

‘You read the journal.’

‘Yes.’ Kaya could relax with this. With this, she could feel her anxiety and trepidation disappear under a wave of extreme sympathy for this wonderful, generous guy with all that baggage that had made him the wary, hands-off man he was. ‘I’m sorry, Leo. It must have broken your heart to have read about your mother.’

Leo flushed darkly.

Unaccustomed to sharing anything of himself or his feelings, he opened his mouth to shut down the conversation, but he didn’t. He remembered what this was all about, this spell she seemed to have over him. It was still there because he heard himself admit gruffly, ‘It was...good to have some answers.’

‘And yet you must wonder what might have been if she had sought you out. Or vice versa.’

‘Pointless to dwell on something that didn’t happen and now never will. But, like I said, it was good to know that...’

‘That although you ended up in foster care, it wasn’t because Julie Anne had put you there. No, she had been fed a lie by her parents. She had thought you were going to a good home. So really, you weren’t dumped, were you? Not really. Not as you described it to me once?’

‘Did I?’ Leo shrugged.

‘You did,’ Kaya told him gently. She momentarily left behind the anxiety over her reasons for being here and was caught up in the moment. Her heart swelled with tenderness for him, even though she knew that that very tenderness was a weakness she had to control.

Lord only knew what Leo had felt when he had read what Julie Anne had endured, but he was right—questions had been answered and for him it surely must have been sweet release to know that were it not for tragic circumstances, he would never have been given up for adoption.

And good for him to know that, as atonement for something she’d felt she could never rectify, Julie Anne had moved to the great British Columbian wilderness, disowned her parents—only taking with her the legacy left by her maternal grandmother—and devoted her life to doing good.

True to his word, the halfway house was already in the process of being modernised.

‘But we’re not here to discuss my past, are we? That’s not why you came, is it?’

He strolled across to the imposing American-style fridge to fetch her some water, and Kaya felt her tension levels ratchet up as reality reasserted itself.

No, they weren’t here to discuss his past—far from it.

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