No! She gave herself a mental slap to the head. She refused to waste her time thinking about Shayne. Not now. Not after all the things he’d done. Wherever she was going, it would be much better than anything she could do with Shayne. Dominic Pirelli might be arrogant and controlling and judgemental, but he wasn’t cheap.
Wherever he had in mind for her accommodation for the next however many months, it wouldn’t be substandard. Maybe not because he cared about her, but because he wanted the best for his baby.
Which wouldn’t be so very hard to take, really. It would be like having a holiday at someone else’s expense.
A six-month holiday.
Why shouldn’t she at least try to enjoy it?
The snatches of sea became more frequent and the concept of a holiday more tantalizing and seductive by the minute. They were close to the beach now. She could smell the tang of salt in the air—such a different air to where she’d come from, where the air seemed weighted down with dust and heat and desperation. And then he pulled into a street filled with houses that looked like mansions where the sea lapped practically at their feet.
And, not for the first time today, anticipation changed direction and changed into a spinning ball of nerves. Surely not anywhere this grand? And then he slowed to enter a driveway blocked by a massive set of gates that must have stood at least ten feet tall in order to match the whitewashed walls either side.
‘This is it,’ he said. He turned off the radio and hit a button somewhere and the gates swung slowly open, her jaw also automatically swinging open, though much quicker than the gates.
This wasn’t a house, she could tell as he drove inside and the full splendour of the home was revealed. At least two levels. Probably three, all facing out to sea with what looked like a pool she could glimpse behind a bougainvillea-covered fence and with the sea lapping the rock-strewn shore below.
Definitely not a mere house. It was a mansion. Where was the unit or apartment she’d half expected—the place where he could easily keep an eye on her and monitor his baby’s progress—without her getting in anyone’s way?
‘But surely this is your home.’
‘It is.’ He cast an eye down to her belly. ‘And that’s my child. Where else should it be?’
She swallowed, thinking she might as well have shifted planets rather than suburbs, because to live here, in a place like this, was beyond her wildest imaginings. It was beyond…anything. But when she’d contemplated having this couple’s child, she’d always imagined remaining at arm’s length. She would have the baby and hand it over to its rightful parents after it was born. The last thing she’d expected was to move in with them for the duration. It wasn’t as if she was family, after all…
He opened her door for her and retrieved her bag from the back seat and still she hadn’t moved, but what else was new? Ever since that phone call she’d made yesterday—was it only yesterday?—things had been happening too fast for her to keep up.
‘Are you coming?’ Impatience threaded through his words and she realised he’d spent his entire afternoon chasing after her. No doubt he couldn’t wait to be rid of her and get back to making his millions. She’d probably cost him a fortune already.
‘Look,’ she said, unclicking her seat belt and stepping out reluctantly, but only so he didn’t appear so large beside her and so she didn’t appear like some recalcitrant child throwing a tantrum. What she really needed most was her own space, somewhere she felt comfortable—even if it was only a hovel compared to this palace—not to live cheek by jowl with the parents of her child. But refusing to come out of the car was hardly any way to convince him.
‘I don’t want to appear ungrateful, but I’m not convinced this is a good idea. I mean, how’s it going to look to everyone if you move some random pregnant woman into your family home? People are going to talk. I really think it would be better for everyone if I went somewhere else.’
He stiffened alongside her, the man becoming mountain again, his eyes darkly intense, his jaw as stiff as if it had been chiselled from stone. ‘There’s something you obviously don’t understand about me, Mrs Cameron. I don’t actually give a damn how things look or what people say or think.’