Rumours: The One-Night Heirs: The Innocent's Secret Baby (Billionaires & One-Night Heirs) / Bound by the Sultan's Baby (Billionaires & One-Night Heirs) / Sicilian's Baby of Shame (Billionaires & One-N

‘I can’t—he’ll call my mother and she’ll be worried.’

Raul wasn’t so sure about that. He rather guessed that Lydia’s mother would more likely be annoyed that Lydia hadn’t meekly gone along with their plans.

He watched as her phone rang again, but when she looked at it this time, instead of being angry she screwed her eyes closed.

‘Maurice?’

‘No, it’s my mother.’

‘Ignore it.’

‘I can’t,’ Lydia said. ‘He must have told her I’ve run off.’ Her phone fell silent, but Lydia knew it wouldn’t stay like that for very long. ‘I’ll ring her and tell her I’m safe. I shan’t tell her where I am—just that I’m fine. Can I…?’ She gestured to the double doors and it was clear that Lydia wanted some privacy to make the call.

‘Of course.’

It was a bedroom.

Her first time in a man’s bedroom, and it was so far from the circumstances she had hoped for that it was almost laughable.

It had been an almost perfect night, yet it was ruined now. Lydia sat on the bed and cringed as she recalled her entrance into his suite.

Lydia was very used to hiding her true feelings, yet Raul seemed to bring them bubbling up to the surface.

Right now, though, she needed somehow to snap back to efficient mode—though it was hard when she heard her mother’s accusatory voice.

‘What the hell are you playing at, Lydia?’

‘I’m not playing at anything.’

‘You know damn well how important this trip is!’

A part of Lydia had hoped for her mother to take her side. To agree that Maurice’s behaviour tonight had been preposterous and tell her that of course Lydia didn’t have to agree to anything she didn’t want to do.

It had been foolish to hope.

Instead Lydia sat there as her mother told her how charming Bastiano was, how he’d been nothing but a gentleman to date, and asked how she dared embarrass the family like this.

And then, finally, her mother was honest.

‘It’s time you stepped up…’

‘Bastiano doesn’t even know me,’ Lydia pointed out. ‘We’ve spoken, at best, a couple of times.’

‘Lydia, it’s time to get your head out of the clouds. I’ve done everything I can to keep us from going under. For whatever reason, Bastiano has taken an interest in you…’

Lydia didn’t hear much of the rest.

For whatever reason…

As if it was unfathomable that someone might simply want her for no other reason than they simply did.

It was Lydia who ended the call, and after sitting for a few minutes in silence she looked up when there was a knock at the door.

‘Come in,’ Lydia said, and then gave a wry smile as Raul entered—it was his bedroom, after all.

‘How did it go with your mother?’

‘Not very well,’ Lydia admitted. ‘I’m being overly dramatic, apparently.’

‘Why don’t you have a bath?’

‘A bath!’ A laugh shot out of her pale lips at his odd suggestion.

‘It might relax you. There’s one already run.’

‘I’m guessing I wouldn’t have been bathing alone, had I come up the first time.’

‘Plans change,’ Raul said. ‘Give me your phone and go and wind down.’

‘You won’t answer it?’ Lydia checked.

‘No,’ Raul said.

Her family was persistent.

Raul, though, was stubborn.

The phone continued to buzz, but rather than turn it off Raul went back to lying on the bed, as he had been when Lydia had arrived.

And that was how she found him.

The bath had been soothing. Lydia had lain in the fragrant water, terribly glad of his suggestion to leave her phone.

It had given her a chance to calm down and to regroup.

‘They’ve been calling,’ Raul told her by way of greeting.

‘I thought that they might.’ Lydia sighed. ‘I doubt they’ll give up if Bastiano hasn’t. Apparently Maurice has said he’ll meet him tomorrow and I’m supposed to be there.’

‘And what did you say?’

‘No, of course—but it’s not just about dinner with Bastiano…’

‘Of course it’s not,’ Raul agreed.

‘I think he wants sex.’

‘He wants more than sex, Lydia. He wants to marry you. He thinks you’d make a very nice trophy wife. Bastiano wants to be King of your castle.’