Page 41 of Bound By Her Baby Revelation (Hot Winter Escapes)

The veranda, which tempted her to go outside via a door built into an archway next to the windows, was broad and sheltered and there were chairs and low sofas dotted here and there.

It was the stuff that dreams were made of—not appropriate, given the nightmare she had brought to his door.

She thought back to his reaction. He’d been shocked but he had risen to the occasion without blinking an eye. He had proposed marriage—for him a telling sacrifice, something that showed how serious he was about taking responsibility. She had thrown his offer back at him, but he hadn’t tried to force her hand, even though she knew that driving him would be his own past experiences of making it on his own without the support of family—a number in an institution going it alone. It had trained him to go it alone for the rest of his life until she’d rocked his world with an unplanned pregnancy.

Her bag looked sad, small and vulnerable sitting on the ground by the wardrobes. She got dressed quickly. She didn’t know what the day held in store. She’d brought precious few clothes with her—a stern reminder that she wasn’t off on some kind of exotic tropical holiday—but she was concerned at how sparse her supply was, some underwear and some random light clothes, last worn last summer and various summers before that.

She looked around her as she headed for the kitchen. The villa really was very big. All the rooms were super-sized and the flow of cool, blonde wood, shutters and faded Persian rugs emphasised the space. The art on the walls was all local, colourful and vibrant. For a house that was apparently seldom used, it was comfortable and luxurious at the same time.

She heard Leo before she saw him, hearing the sound of him in the kitchen, the pad of footsteps and the clattering of crockery.

Heart suddenly pounding, Kaya slowed her pace and then, once at the kitchen door, simply stood and looked at him for a few stolen seconds when his back was turned as he busied himself at a high-tech coffee machine on the counter.

He was so beautiful—tall, athletic yet as graceful as a jungle animal. He was in a pair of low-slung khaki shorts and an old tee-shirt. He was barefoot and he looked fabulously, carelessly elegant.

She cleared her throat.

Leo turned. Of course he’d sensed her approach,sensedthat she was in the kitchen, before she chose to make her presence known. When she had first texted him, told him that she wanted to see him, he had assumed it would be a straightforward case of picking up where they had left off, and he’d been elated at the thought of that. Having spent two weeks asking himself questions he couldn’t answer, and feeling things that made no sense, it had been a relief to be presented with what he understood: sex. An affair. Passion.

But then to be told that he was going to be a father... He’d felt shock, the bottom falling out of his world, a future he had never factored into his present and something else: the stirring of masculine pride, a sense of joy and the need for this woman carrying his child to be the one at his side.

He had offered marriage, and he was ashamed to admit that it hadn’t occurred to him that she wouldn’t accept his offer. Why not? She’d acted as though it was a tawdry business transaction, but it wasn’t. They’d been lovers and he still turned her on, and what more glue was there for a relationship than a baby?

But then, how could he have forgotten that she didn’t jump to the same tune as all those other women he had dated in the past? She was her own person; she had turned him down flat and there was nothing he could do about it.

She wanted what he was incapable of giving: love. He’d never been taught how to do that, how to love. He’d been taught how to survive, how to conquer and how to be self-reliant.

Yes, that journal had put a completely different spin on things, had made him revise the circumstances of his past, but too much had been etched in stone to be reversed. Abandonment had turned him into a self-contained fortress and that was something he couldn’t reverse.

Love wasn’t in his remit.

Which didn’t mean that he was going to give up on his determination to keep them together as a family. To marry her.

He would just have to adopt a different approach.

If he couldn’t explain the advantages of staying together, then he would have to show her. He would have to lead her to the very conclusion he wanted. He would have to entice her to come to him, because he couldn’t and would never force her to do anything against her will.

He looked at her, expression shuttered, for a few silent seconds. She was long, brown, slender and stunning in a washed out yellow dress with thin straps that fell shapelessly to her knees. And she was wearing trainers with thin socks. With not much effort, he could have kept staring at her until he embarrassed himself.

‘How did you sleep?’

Leo broke eye contact and returned to the coffee, but he was aware of her moving to one of the chairs, and it wasn’t difficult to imagine her hesitance and wariness as she sat down. He knew this wasn’t what she’d planned, just as her bombshell hadn’t been on the cards for him. He’d looked forward to resuming what they’d had but she’d aimed to lob her hand grenade and then disappear once the deed had been done, with consequences to be dealt with at a later date.

‘Great. Thank you. The bed was very comfortable.’

Leo turned, brought her some coffee and went through the business of asking her what she wanted to eat. He’d been here off and on over the years but it was a first for him to have a woman in here with him. For him, the villa was a sanctuary from the pace of life he led. He could have afforded to have help—a housekeeper, a chef, whatever the hell he wanted—but he had always chosen not to. He liked the uncluttered business of not having anyone around. He enjoyed the solitude of losing himself in the peace and calm the island afforded.

However, the down side was that now, in these awkward, challenging circumstances, there was no one to break the intimacy between them—because therewasintimacy. How could there not be?

Whether she cared to admit it or not, they’d been lovers. He’d touched her everywhere, just as she had touched him. Her head might insist on forgetting that little technicality but her body would certainly remember every second of what they’d shared. It had remembered fast enough last night, just something else she wanted to pretend had never happened.

How could she not see all the advantages of the arrangement he had put on the table? How could she not appreciate the importance of providing stability for the child they had created together? It wasn’t as though they didn’t get along. It wasn’t as though they weren’t still hot for one another.

Why couldn’t she see how superfluous the business oflovewas? That abstract dream that people always seemed to insist on chasing, even though reality always ended up stepping in to remind them that it was a chimera.

How could she not see that all he wanted was for his offspring to have the sort of family life he’d never had?And it would be a good life. No way was he going to let her disappear without some delaying tactics... If he had to buy time, then that was what he was going to do.

They ate a breakfast of local, buttery bread with cheese and fresh orange juice.

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