If he made promises to Kit—stayed and tried to build a life with her—eventual y she’d come to see him for who he real y was.
And then she’d leave him, divorce him…and she’d take his child away.
He had to stay strong. Damage control—that was al he could do now.
‘You must be ready for a break, Alex. You’ve barely stopped working al day.’ Ice chinked invitingly in the jug on the table beside her. ‘At least have a drink.’
‘Just one more board to go,’ he grunted, working the crowbar again. Tomorrow, with Frank’s help, he’d replace these boards.
That would be one more job done. Kit’s house would be one step closer to being ready.
And he’d be one step closer to leaving here.
He didn’t turn as he spoke. He needed a few more minutes to find his composure, to make sure when he joined her he could resist the spel she threatened to weave around him.
No matter how hard she hoped and wished, she couldn’t make him a better man—the man she needed for her child, the kind of man who could share her life. But the thought of the child growing inside her…
Every day the evidence hit him afresh in the shape of her gently rounded abdomen, her heavy breasts.
Every day. It worried at him until he felt he had a blister on his soul.
Final y, he turned. Kit smiled, but her hand shook as she poured him a glass of fruit juice. He pressed his lips together hard. At certain moments she could make him believe this life could be his. She could make him forget what it had been like living with his grandfather, make him forget Jacqueline’s betrayal.
She could make him forget that his heart had grown as cold and hard as his grandfather’s.
It was dangerous forgetting those things.
It was dangerous believing in fairy tales.
He had to focus on what he had explicitly promised her—to get her house fixed. Nothing more.
Against his wil , his eyes travel ed to her stomach.
How hard would it be to be a part-time father? To see his child three or four times a year and make sure it had everything it needed?
To make sure Kit had what she needed?
He glanced up to find her watching him again. He swal owed and took the glass she held out, moving back a few steps. He didn’t sit in the other chair arranged so cosily next to hers. He didn’t want her sunshine-fresh scent beating at him. He wanted to keep a grasp on reality. He sure as hel didn’t want the torture of being so near and not being al owed to touch her.
Would Kit mind if he did touch her, though?
He backed up another step. Perhaps not, but if he made love to her she’d think he was ready for al this…this domesticity. He didn’t feel any readier for it than he had on the first day he’d stalked into her back garden.
back garden.
That thought almost quel ed his raging libido.
If he made love to Kit, she’d expect the works—
marriage, kids and everything that went along with it.
They couldn’t unmake the baby they’d created, but he could prevent himself from compounding the mistake.
He surveyed her over the rim of his glass. When she realized he’d caught her out staring at him again, she sent him an abashed grin. ‘I don’t get it,’
she confessed.
Al his muscles were primed for flight. ‘Get what?’
‘For the eleven months that I worked for you, Alex, you’d come into the office every day the epitome of the assured businessman…’
He relaxed a fraction. ‘And?’
‘Look, I understand your roots lie in manual labour, but…’
His gut clenched. ‘But?’ Jacqueline had hated that about him.
‘But I don’t understand how you can stil be so comfortable and capable and easy with this kind of work.’
Her admiration—admiration she didn’t even try to hide—made him stand a little tal er. He drained his juice and then shrugged. ‘It’s like riding a bicycle.’
‘Believe me, I’d wobble. I’d stay upright, but I’d wobble.’
She made it so easy to laugh.
‘Top up?’
She held up the jug and, before he knew what he was about, he found himself ensconced in the other chair, sipping more juice. ‘I have had some recent practice,’ he found himself confessing. ‘In Africa.’
She leaned forward. Her lips twitched. ‘Did your cabin fal down or something?’
He tried to warn himself that this was how her enchantments started—teasing, fun, laughter. He promised to bring a halt to it soon and get back to work. ‘How much would you laugh if I said yes?’
Her eyes danced. ‘I’d bray like a hyena, but…’
She suddenly sobered. ‘I understand you did some aid work?’
It was hardly a question, more a statement, but he nodded anyway. ‘How d’you know?’
‘The rumour mil at Hal am’s was ful of it before I left.’
‘I was part of a team that helped to build an orphanage.’ When he’d read the brochure he’d hoped that building an orphanage would help him forget Kit. And that it would help al ay some of the guilt raging through his soul.
She waved a finger at him. ‘You might like to act al hard and self-contained, Alex Hal am, but I have your number, buddy.’
He went to correct her, to tel her he was hard and heartless and that she’d be wise not to forget it, but before he could get the words out she said, ‘You’re nothing but a great big mushroom.’
That threw him. ‘Mushroom?’
She stared back at him in incomprehension for three beats, and then she chuckled. ‘Oops, marshmal ow. I meant to say marshmal ow. Baby brain, I tel you.’
He grinned. ‘Is this where I point out that hyenas don’t bray?’
‘Of course they do.’
She promptly gave her impression of a braying hyena and Alex almost fel out of his chair laughing.
‘That’s not a hyena, it’s a donkey!’
‘No, this is a donkey.’
When she gave her impression of a donkey, he lurched out of his chair to roar at ful -stretch on the ground. When he opened his eyes again he found himself staring up at an elderly lady.
Her lips twitched as she stepped over him on stil spry feet. ‘So kind of you to vacate your chair for me, young man.’
‘Hi, Grandma.’
Kit’s grandmother! Alex shot to his feet and did his best to dust himself off.
‘Alex, this is my grandmother, Patricia Rawlinson.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Mrs Rawlinson.’
‘It’s Patti, dear.’
‘Grandma, this is Alex Hal am.’
‘Ahh…’ Those piercing amber eyes—so like Kit’s
—turned to him again. ‘So you’re Alex. I’ve heard al about you.’
She said it exactly the same way Caro had on his first morning here. The col ar of his polo shirt tightened around his throat. Was she going to threaten him with a meat cleaver too?
‘I hope you mean to do the right thing by my granddaughter and great-grandchild.’
‘I…um…’ Al the fun and laughter Kit had created in the garden bare minutes ago fled now. He had a in the garden bare minutes ago fled now. He had a feeling ‘doing right’ meant more than fixing Kit’s house up.
Those amber eyes gleamed and he didn’t trust them. He didn’t trust them any more than Caro’s spitfire green. ‘I’d eventual y like to see you make an honest woman of my granddaughter.’