‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea.’
‘And I’m not sure what choice we have. I can’t see that getting to know each other is optional, now. I know where you live—where you work. I’ve even seen you in action. Don’t you think it’s fair that you see a little of my life, too?’
She nodded. ‘Perhaps I could come for the day.’
‘Honestly, by the time you’ve travelled, you’ll want to stay longer,’ Leo said. ‘Plan to come at the weekend. Stay Saturday night. I have a guest room,’ he added, no doubt noticing the refusal that was about to leave her lips.
She tried hard to think of some way to skewer this logic, some way to get out of this scenario that had her holed up with a man she found dangerously irresistible—the man who had got her pregnant. But whichever way she looked at it, she could see that he was right.
‘Okay,’ she said eventually. ‘I’ll come.’
LEO COLLAPSED ONTO the sand, chest heaving and limbs comfortingly heavy.
A baby. He still couldn’t quite connect that concept with his life. How had that even...? Okay, so it wasn’t as if he needed a diagram, and it wasn’t as if he didn’t believe Rachel when she said she’d taken the morning-after pill. They were just that tiny fraction of a per cent that the maths for a double contraceptive fail worked out as. Maybe at the end of this weekend—he glanced at the sun; Rachel would be here in a few hours—it would feel more real.
He rubbed the heel of his hand against his forehead as he tried to think, the rhythmic crash of the waves on the sand soothing in its familiarity. Was real—knowing that there was absolutely, definitely no way of getting out of this—going to feel better? How could it? He’d all but walked away from his family. Had been happy managing on his own. But what could he do now? He’d enjoyed every minute of what had got them here, and he would take responsibility for what they’d done.
His head should be spinning. These past few days he should have wanted to scream, or run, or, God, faint or something. But instead, he felt nothing. A blank, empty space filled his brain, keeping feelings at bay.
But as he sat, thinking, he noticed a warm yellow glow creeping around the edges of that numb void. A hint of some emotion that was waiting, just out of reach, but heading closer.
He flopped back onto the sand, covering his eyes from the intense glare of the sun with his arm. Part of him wanted to go. To turn around and walk away and just imagine he’d never laid eyes on Rachel. Pretend that one night, one night that had tied him into a lifetime of commitment, had never happened. But then a flash of memory assailed him—a gentle, lazy smile on Rachel’s lips in the dim early-morning light. Too tired for games, too sated for self-protection, he’d seen for the first time the real, unguarded woman, with no barriers, no motives, no second-guessing. He couldn’t make himself regret that moment, that instant connection.
And there went the ‘numb’ phase, as the memory of his desire and passion that night was chased from his body by nausea-inducing fear. He let out a long, unsteady breath. God, he wished he’d appreciated ‘dazed’ more.
For a moment the thought of that commitment, the inescapable permanency of it, threatened to paralyse him, bringing back every nightmare and the sleepless nights between. The last time Leo Fairfax had been this frightened of the future.
But he was going to be a father. He and Rachel—that fascinating, maddening, excessively disciplined woman he’d been unable to shake from his mind for weeks now, had somehow, against all her best-laid plans, and his lack of them, created a new human life. The magnitude of the realisation stole his breath for a few long moments as he looked up and out across the water, trying to imagine who he was, this whole new person that they had created. But the vision remained hazy, too unformed to be anything more than broad strokes of a life.
* * *
Rachel stepped out of the taxi—she’d insisted to Leo that she could, and would, get to his place under her own steam—and gasped in horror. He’d warned her on the phone that he was doing some renovations, but this was...it was ramshackle. The ground all around was either churned up or covered in bags of building materials, and the windows were still covered by plastic sheeting. Most concerning of all, the roof seemed to consist of a couple of blue tarpaulins, flapping gently in the breeze. She glanced up further, relieved to see that the sky was still a clear, sunny blue, without a cloud in sight.
Thank goodness she had a list of practically every hotel in Dorset, sorted by distance from the coastal village Leo’s postcode had directed her to. And a list of taxi companies, too. And train times back to London. As she’d saved them all on her tablet, just in case she found herself out of network coverage, she’d hoped that she wouldn’t actually need them. She wanted to use her time here to get to know Leo better—it was essential, in the circumstances. And staying in a hotel the whole weekend would mean less time together. But she wasn’t sure that a building site was the best place to get to know each other, either.
She’d give it a chance, she told herself, but double-checked that she had signal on her mobile, just in case. Tentatively, she picked her way along the path from the road, and as it passed around the corner of the cottage she stopped and dropped her bag. Okay, so this she could stay for. The cottage was perched on top of a rocky cliff, with views all around the bay, from majestic, prehistoric coastline at one end to brightly coloured beach huts and umbrellas at the other. The clumpy grass she’d been cursing for catching on her heels gave way to sand and rocks, and a path meandered down to the narrow sandy beach.
She breathed in a couple of good lungfuls of sea air, but her brief moment of tranquillity was interrupted by a mechanical scream from inside the house. The noise made her jump, but—curious—she ventured towards the door, certain that a whole crew of builders must be in there to make such a racket. A troop of roofers, she hoped, casting another glance at the tarp.
‘Hello?’ she shouted, once she’d grappled with her bag and made it to the door.
But when she caught sight of Leo, she fell silent, leaning against the door frame to enjoy the view. He wore jeans—faded and worn, moulded to his body in a way that told her they were well loved and often worn. His T-shirt was white, damp down the back and clinging in all the right ways. The powerful swimmer’s muscles of his shoulders and back were outlined by the soft cling of the jersey, and rippled as he handled planks of wood and an electric saw with ease.
All day her thoughts had flip-flopped between terror and excitement at the thought of seeing Leo again. They had drifted his way often in the weeks since she’d seen him, reliving that night over and over again. But it wasn’t just the sex that had stuck in her mind. It was the way he’d smiled at her on the dance floor as he’d figured her out, and found which buttons to press to help her change her mind. The sparkle in his eyes as he’d watched her figure him out, and find a way to take him home.
It was the way she’d let go as she’d moved in his arms, following his lead, taking it back, following her body and his, improvising. Exploring every possibility thrown up by this totally unplanned—she could admit it to herself, if not to him—encounter. But the things she’d found with him that night were exactly the reason she was nervous now. How would she keep control over the rest of her life when she’d failed so spectacularly to keep control even over her own body?
Well, she told herself, the first defence was easy—no repeat performances. She had to keep her head. Which meant she had to put the brakes on this little ogling session and somehow get his attention. Not easy when he was wearing ear protectors and making an unholy racket.
It didn’t seem wise to sneak