Page 5 of Bound By Her Baby Revelation (Hot Winter Escapes)

More than that, he was right insofar as they were stuck here together in a snow storm and would have to work around one another, however much neither of them might want that. So wouldn’t it be wise to keep her counsel? Give herself time to find out what she was dealing with—whoshe was dealing with? Give herself time to adjust to this unwelcome situation?

He didn’t look like a down-and-out lucky enough to have landed himself a house and land. There was something smart and sharp about him, something undeniably refined, but she wasn’t going to be an idiot and trust first impressions.

She was briefly reminded of the way time and again her mother had fallen for first impressions, for the rich guy, the smooth talk and the easy charm.

Kaya was too streetwise when it came to stuff like that ever to trust what her eyes saw rather than what her brain said. Right now, her brain was telling her to get the lay of the land.

She duly made something and nothing noises about neighbours before falling silent.

‘Talk to me,’ Leo urged. ‘You’re tired and confused, but one thing you shouldn’t be is afraid. Where have you been? Have you been away on holiday? Work? Visiting family—a boyfriend?’

They had begun to walk out into the hall and down the stairs, then back on themselves to the spacious, warm kitchen that faced extensive fields and land behind.

Kaya pushed open the kitchen door, switched on the light and looked around at a space that was no longer hers. She watched as he moved with confidence to one of the cupboards and reached for a couple of squat glasses to pour them both something amber-coloured and neat.

‘I went to New Zealand to visit my mother,’ Kaya said, backing away as he approached and sitting on one of the chairs at the kitchen table. Her voice was level and polite, her dark eyes watchful and guarded, noting everything about him—from the way he moved to the rich, golden colouring of his skin and the hard, cool contours of his extraordinarily handsome face. ‘She moved there a few years ago when she remarried. I...needed to get away after Julie Anne’s sudden death.’

‘Julie Anne...’ Leo murmured, shielding his dark gaze. ‘And you returned to this house because...?’

‘Because this is where I happen to have been living for the past three-and-a-half years.’

‘Living here? You’ve beenlivinghere?’

‘That’s right.’

Leo hadn’t seenthatcoming, but then again from a million miles away the situation had seemed pretty straightforward.

A letter had come from nowhere and it had blown a hole in his extremely controlled and highly regulated life. A buried past had resurfaced in the form of an inheritance from the woman who had dumped him into foster care at birth.

Leo had sat back and read the contents of that letter with bitterness, tempted to shred it and dispose of it in the bin. He had gazed around him, taken in the opulence of his New York penthouse apartment, one of several uber-luxurious apartments he owned in the various cities where his companies were based, and pondered the life he had conquered without the help of his flesh and blood, who had seen fit to get rid of him as a baby.

Memories he had locked away had resurfaced. He thought back to his young self, getting older in the nice enough foster home outside Brooklyn where he had been a number amongst other unwanted numbers. He’d thought back to the hopes and dreams of being rescued by his mum or dad gradually fading away, until steel had settled in his soul as he’d accepted the permanence of his surroundings.

He’d get out. He’d rule the world. He would become invulnerable.

And he had. He had worked longer, harder and with more determination than everyone else. He’d got into Harvard a year younger than everyone else and had breezed through a first in law, then moved on to get an MBA, and thereafter the world had been at his fingertips. He had joined a failing company with potential, bargained his way into being paid in shares and made a fortune when he had helped it go public.

He had been twenty-four.

He was thirty-one now and his fortune had multiplied so many times in the ensuing years that he was where he had always planned to be—on top of the world, occupying a place where he was untouchable.

Yet all of that success had faded in the face of that unexpected letter. His mother was dead and he was the beneficiary of everything she possessed, left to him by the woman who had given him up—some kind of token gesture to buy her way past the pearly gates. He had no time for that. It had been way too late for a guilty conscience.

‘So you were saying...?’ he drawled, shaking himself free from inconvenient trips down memory lane. ‘You lived here with Julie Anne...’

‘I did.’

Kaya heard the cold cynicism in his voice and stiffened, because whatever secrets her friend had concealed there could be no denying her warmth and generosity of spirit.

‘How did that come about?’

Kaya shrugged. ‘I returned from university, had nowhere to stay and couldn’t afford the rent, at least not to start with. It’s expensive here, with it being so close to Whistler.’

‘And so this woman decided to step in and fill the gap, no questions asked?’

‘I had known her since I was a kid so, yes, there were no questions asked. There were no strings attached to the offer. I wasn’t made to rise at five and sweep floors until I collapsed.’

‘Very generous of her.’

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