‘That was childish, sorry.’
Ben tried to hold on to his anger but the glimmer of tears in her big green eyes made it slip away. She looked so vulnerable that he had to fight down the urge to offer her words of comfort. Instead he dropped down onto the wooden step beside her and waited. None of this was turning out the way he’d imagined.
Lily stiffened as the painted wood creaked slightly. Though she stared straight ahead, in the periphery of her vision she was aware of him brushing sand from his trousers before resting his hands on his thighs.
‘I know we need to talk,’ she finally conceded, turning her head and angling a pleading look at his face. ‘But can it wait until later?’
There was no receptive softening in his face to her appeal. ‘I think I’ve waited long enough, don’t you? I haven’t been there for my kid because I didn’t know she existed.’ He dealt her a grim, twisted smile. ‘What’s your excuse?’
Her chin lifted as her cheeks heated with a combination of lust and guilt. She surged to her feet bristling with hostility as she stared down at him. ‘What do you mean by that?’ she tossed back in a low, throbbing voice.
He shrugged. ‘I’m not the one who dumped her baby on her mother to cavort half naked on a tropical beach.’ And she’s not the one who is struggling to focus past half-naked.
‘I didn’t dump... I’ve never spent a night away from Emmy before...’ A suspicious furrow appeared between her feathery brows. ‘Are you trying to make me out to be a bad mother? Are you trying to take Emmy away from me?’ Breathing hard, she pushed away, a paralysing stab of visceral fear hitting her. If he wanted a battle she would give him one, but she would never give him Emmy.
‘Don’t go paranoid on me.’ Ben roughed out his annoyance, giving way to admiration as he got to his feet and stood looking down at her.
Her determination to regard him as a threat continued to be maddening and frustrating, but her tigress-like reaction to a perceived threat to her child...he couldn’t help but admire that.
‘You love her,’ he conceded with a shrug.
‘Of course I do! I’m her mother!’
Ben found himself almost envying the fact that she took this as a given. What would Lily make of a mother who had no problem with her baby calling his nanny Mummy? A situation that his own mother had been quite happy with until the nanny had been caught in bed with her husband.
‘I can see that. And because you love her I’m assuming you agree that she needs stability.’
‘She has stability.’
‘So what happens when in the future—’ A future that would include men... His jaw clenched as he imagined a procession of faceless lovers drifting in and out of his daughter’s life—and Lily’s bed.
‘When what?’
‘My child—’
Lily felt something inside her snap. ‘Your child. Where were you when your child had colic or when she...?’ Closing her eyes for the count of ten, she dug deep for calm, which she claimed after huffing out several breaths.
‘Sorry, that wasn’t fair, but neither were you.’ She flashed him a look of simmering reproach through her long curling lashes. ‘I may not be a perfect mother.’ It was a steep learning curve. ‘But I’m the best one I know and my mum is backup if I need it. Right now I’m going into my room to take a shower. It might not be a bad idea if you did the same—you look pretty awful,’ she lied.
Dragging a hand across his stubble-roughened jaw, he regarded her with an expression of stark incredulity. ‘You can’t close the door on this or me.’
‘I know that, I just... Why did you come here like this—for me to apologise for having Emmy?’ She lifted her chin and shook her head. ‘It’s never going to happen, and even if I had told you I’d have never let you convince me to have a termination.’
‘Is that what you think I’d have done?’ A look of stark incredulity spread across his lean face as her comment sank in. ‘Is that why you didn’t tell me?’
‘I had enough to contend with without having to fight with you too.’ She closed her eyes, a brief respite from the intensity of his cobalt stare. She tightened the hold on her towel before continuing in a slow, carefully controlled voice. ‘I know you don’t want children. It’s not like it’s a secret. That’s your choice. Mine was to have Emmy.’ There had been enough voices that suggested she shouldn’t, without adding another.
‘You think I would have coerced you?’ He struggled to hide how much the idea shocked him.
‘It was not your choice to make,’ she said evenly. ‘But don’t try and tell me you’d have been happy if you’d known about Emmy. We had casual sex and I got pregnant. Everything that happened after that was my choice, my responsibility.’
‘What world do you live in that you think my child is not my responsibility? I could have walked past my own daughter on the street and not known who she was...’ He closed his eyes and let the pent-up breath in his chest escape before fixing her with a steady look of intent and warning. ‘If you think I’m going to walk away now, forget it. It’s not going to happen and all the talk and protests and blame-laying is not going to change that.’
Lily’s chin lifted. ‘I might have been wrong not to tell you about Emmy—’
‘Might?’
‘You’re looking for a reason to be mad with me!’ she charged.
His pressed the heels of his hands to his brow and shook his head slowly.
‘It’s true! But you have no right to—’
His hands fell away and landed on her shoulders. Enough was enough. ‘Look at me...’
She struggled with all her might to resist his demand, but the compulsion was too strong. ‘I have rights. You may wish it otherwise, but I am the child’s father and I intend to play a part in her life.’
His hands fell away and Lily’s slender shoulders sagged in defeat. ‘So what happens now?’
Good question. ‘We talk. I’ll pick you up at...’ he glanced at his watch and thought a moment before adding ‘...seven. In the hotel foyer?’
Too drained to argue, she watched him go before turning and entering her bungalow.
She flung herself face down on the sofa and, feeling emotionally battered, cried herself to sleep.
SHE WAS STILL lying there several hours later when the maid brought her some afternoon tea.
‘Are you all right, miss?’
Lily pulled herself upright and pressed a hand to her head. ‘I had a headache, Mathilde.’ It was no lie; her head was pounding.
The maid made sympathetic noises and carried on chatting as Lily went off in search of an aspirin for her pounding head. Finding some in her flight bag, she swallowed them down. The scene from earlier replayed in her head as she washed her face and smoothed down her hair with a hand before returning.
The maid was still there emanating an air of barely suppressed excitement, which was explained when she tipped her glossy head towards the tray. ‘You have an important message, miss, right there.’
Lily opened the blank envelope that lay on the plate beside the basket of bite-sized savoury scones and sandwiches. Aware of the curious eyes trained on her face, she slid out the single sheet of hotel