Page 3 of Bound By Her Baby Revelation (Hot Winter Escapes)

A spectacularly beautifulhalf-nakedman, and heaven only knew what was happening underneath the duvet. Was hecompletely naked?

Her mouth went dry.

His clothes were strewn on the ground. Glancing quickly at the scattered pile, she got the impression that they weren’t off-the-shelf cheap. From where she stood, primed for flight if need be, the coat dumped on the ground looked very much like cashmere.

Gripped with sudden confusion, she remained dithering, her empty threat dangling in the air between them.

‘Well?’ Leo prompted. ‘No, scrap that. I have no idea what’s happening here, but I think it’s worth a discussion, not least because I have no intention of stepping out into that blizzard and taking my chances because you’ve decided to point me in that direction.’ He flipped back the duvet, stood up and Kaya...stared.

She was tall, taller than a lot of the guys she knew, but this man was considerably taller. He stood well over six feet...and he was all muscle, sinew and six pack.

Black boxers were slung low, revealing a flat stomach and a spiral of dark hair going down to...

She licked her lips and looked away hastily but she was burning up.

She was also at a loss as to what to do. The man was right—there was no way she could chuck him out into that snow storm. The taxi she’d taken to get here had been fully equipped with all the necessary fittings to deal with severe weather, but even so it had struggled. She hadn’t seen any car out the front, so what was he supposed to do—walk until he could no longer fight the weather?

‘It’s late and I’m tired,’ she said tersely. ‘You’re in my bedroom and I want you to get out of it. I don’t care where that takes you.’

‘Yourbedroom?’

‘I can’t make you leave it, because you’re bigger than me and stronger than me, but don’t for a minute think you scare me becauseyou don’t.’

‘You think I wouldever...? No... I can’t believe I’m hearing this! And what do you mean byyourbedroom?’

‘I just want to sleep.’ Tears of frustration, disbelief, confusion and sheer rage threatened her composure.

Leo shook his head, raked his fingers through his hair and stared at her for a few long, silent seconds.

‘Okay,’ he conceded slowly. ‘I’ll decamp and let you have the room, although I have no idea why, considering you’ve broken into my house. Call me a sucker for a damsel appearing to be in distress.’

Kaya’s mouth fell open.

‘Broken intoyour house?’ But already the wheels were turning in her head as shock and panic slowly began to give way to a creeping sense of dread. No! Surely not...?It can’t be, not yet...

Leo didn’t answer.

‘We can discuss this in the morning.’ He began reaching for the clothes he had discarded: the tee-shirt on the ground, the jeans slung over the back of the chair and his computer because he might write a few reports even though with no connection he couldn’t send them anywhere.

‘In themorning?’

‘I believe you said you just want to sleep.’ He vanished into theen suitebathroom, leaving her to stew. In his experience, silence could be a man’s best friend when it came to getting someone else to talk, and whatever the hell was going on here a talk was needed. He grabbed the towel he had been using and returned to find her barring his exit from the room, the very essence of feminine fury.

‘This is where I live and I want to know why you’re here!’ Kaya shouted at him, but her head began to throb as they stared at one another, and she could detect a creeping hesitancy in her voice. Those piercing dark eyes pinned to her face made her think that he could read every thought in her head.

He’d said he’d entered ‘the legitimate way’. All the signs were pointing in one direction, but she didn’t want to read those signs, and the destination to which they led was one she had resolved never to visit.

She’d disappeared off to New Zealand to see her mum and stepfather, to escape the cloying misery and sadness she had felt when Julie Anne had died. She hadn’t been able to focus, hadn’t been able to get past her feeling of drift—she had just needed toget out.

Of course, she’d worked remotely from New Zealand, doing the accounts for a range of local and not so local businesses, but aside from that she had just taken time off.

Having spent her youth making sure her mum was all right, supervising her relationships and being the shoulder to cry on, for the first time she had gone to her mother for support. With oceans and continents separating her from her woes, she had allowed herself to forget the reality of what might be happening back in Canada.

It was enough that she had had to deal with the secrets Julie Anne had carried with her so once she’d left Canada she had turned her back on all of that, swept it under the carpet.

‘Where have you been?’ Leo asked, tiptoeing around her with the delicacy of a hunter well aware that the beautiful, snarling cheetah might attack at the slightest provocation. ‘No, perhaps I should ask you first of all what your name is.’

‘Kaya.’

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