Page 40 of Bound By Her Baby Revelation (Hot Winter Escapes)

‘Of course. And I imagine it would be sooner rather than later.’ His voice was casual but his narrowed eyes were sharp. He picked up the shock in her voice as she was forced to envisage something slightly different from whatever scenario had been playing out in her head. Well...wasn’t all fair in love and war? It wasn’t as though he was fabricating anything, although it wouldn’t hurt to bring the timeline for this sudden marriage-to-a-suitable-woman idea forward by a few years...

‘You can’t just pluck a candidate from a line-up and put a ring on her finger, Leo.’

‘That’s not how it would work foryou, because you would insist on your “ideal, for-ever guy” checklist. For me, take love out of the equation and I’ll be perfectly happy to have a partner I get along well enough with, who doesn’t expect what can’t be given but appreciates what can, and is happy to be a mother to my child. I wouldn’t be fussy with the detail and I wouldn’t be looking for the impossible.’ He smiled to cement his point.

Kaya felt the colour drain from her face. It was a realistic scenario. This was a man who wasn’t on the hunt for love and wouldn’t see marriage to an amenable and appreciative woman as making do. He would see it as perfectly acceptable.

And when he said sooner rather than later...? She could imagine the queue of woman who would give their eye teeth to have Leo’s ring on their finger. She could imagine more than that. She could imagine how it would feel to share custody with him and his newly acquired wife. To know that, as much as he’d said he would hate the thought of another man being involved in the upbringing of his flesh and blood, she too would hate another woman having a say in her child.

‘Of course,’ Leo resumed briskly, leaving her to stew in the perfectly plausible scenario he had created, ‘I would insist on a very generous maintenance package.’

‘Of course,’ Kaya said faintly.

Which led her down another alley, one that led to their child having to balance extreme privilege—which he or she would encounter on every trip to visit Leo—and a far more modest situation with her because she could never feather her nest at Leo’s expense.

And how would their child feel, should he or she ever find out that she had rejected marriage in favour of singledom? Deprived? Angry? Judgemental? All of the above?

‘We can carry on this conversation in the morning,’ Leo said helpfully and Kaya blinked.

‘I’d actually planned on returning home tomorrow,’ she confessed.

‘I’m afraid that won’t be happening.’

‘But I’ve said everything I came to say.’ Had she? Yes, of course she had, although with what he had just said he’d thrown a curve ball, and she was reeling from it.

‘In which case, I’ll do all the talking.’

He rose to his feet and stood back, a towering and imposing figure, eyes flinty-hard, allowing no argument.

‘I hadn’t quite foreseen your surprise visit turning out like this,’ Leo admitted, flushing and shoving his hands into the pockets of his loose linen trousers. ‘But all the bedrooms are prepared. You can choose which you’d like.’

Kaya stood up as well, hot, bothered and in a muddle she should have foreseen but hadn’t. She knew what he’d expected, and the thought of them together in bed made her body burn and filled her with a yearning she didn’t want or need.

‘It’s late.’ His voice gentled. ‘Yes, it’s been a shock to me, but I hope I haven’t worn you out by insisting on thrashing this...situation...out without you first catching up on your sleep.’ He looked at her hesitantly. ‘I... You should have something to eat. I expect, er, you must be hungrier than usual...or are you?’

‘Hungrier than usual?’

‘In your...condition.’

‘I’m okay. I... I’ll take some water up, please.’

‘Tomorrow I’ll show you around the island,’ he murmured.

‘I haven’t come to take in the sights.’ Kaya dredged up some asperity to remind herself that this was no longer about emotion but about business.

Leo paused to look at her. ‘What else do you suggest, Kaya? That we sit in here, working out the complexities of this situation like two business associates thrashing out a thorny deal? We were lovers. We were also, I’d like to think, friends. We can surely communicate whilst having a tour of the island and making an attempt to relax in one another’s company?’ He remembered how she’d yielded in his arms earlier, her body betraying her, telling him how much she still fancied him.

Kaya nodded.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said without inflection in his voice. ‘There’s a way forward to be found and, whether we approach the situation as business acquaintances or ex-lovers, that way will be found. I’ve said what I had to say on the matter of my idea of a solution, which you’ve refused, so...’ he shrugged ‘...we’ll work a way past that to something satisfactory. And then I’ll have you delivered back to Nassau for a flight to Vancouver.

‘I’ll bring your bag up and show you to the bedrooms. Like I said, take your pick.’

Kaya woke the following morning, alert to her surroundings and without the luxury of any temporary amnesia as to where she was and why she was there.

She’d barely taken in her surroundings the evening before but now she did. She slipped off the bed and stared. The bedroom suite was huge. The bed was the size of a football field. The wardrobes were all built-in, indigo-blue and, as with everywhere else in the villa, the floor was a marvel of pale wood.

She strolled to the bank of windows, pulled open the wooden shutters and gazed out at a sprawling panorama of greens in every shade. Manicured lawns undulated to a distant strip of swaying coconut trees and, beyond the trees, she could glimpse a ribbon of blue sea. There was a refreshing coolness to the breeze and a fragrance to it that made her nostrils flare. It was the fragrance of a thousand different kinds of shrub, bush and flower and, across the lawns, she could make out those very flowers and see splashes of vivid colour, oranges, reds and yellows spilling out of giant pots and clambering around the trees.

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