Baby's On The Way!: Bound by a Baby Bump / Expecting the Prince's Baby / The Pregnant Witness

She raised her eyebrow slightly. He’d take that as a yes.

‘Okay, so it sounds kind of weird. I’ll warn you, it might get weirder. I just wanted to touch the wood. It was as if I could see, no, feel, something beneath the surface. So I got some tools and started carving. It was as if the wood came to life under my fingers, and I found something beneath the surface that no one else could see until I revealed it.’

‘You’re right. Weird.’

He laughed.

‘In a good way,’ Rachel clarified, bumping Leo with her hip as they walked along. ‘Weird, but cool. And there’s a market for this? Secrets lurking in driftwood.’

‘I know, it surprised me, too.’ Leo smiled, thrilling at the energy Rachel’s smile and teasing could create in him. ‘But there is. A bigger one than I’d imagined, actually. Enough for me to put down a deposit on a shell of a house and to keep me in tarpaulin until I stumble upon some roof tiles. Anyway, we’re here,’ he declared as they rounded a corner and the studio came into view.

* * *

She ran a hand along the workbench, and enjoyed the sensation of the wood—warm, dry and gritty on the soft pads of her fingers. It was like meeting Leo afresh, seeing this room, and for the first time she was aware of how much she’d underestimated him. One glance at his beach-ready hair and surfers’ tan and she’d written him off as a beach-bum trust-fund kid.

But this room showed her how wrong she’d been. It wasn’t just the evidence of how much work had gone into the place—hours to fit out the studio: floor-to-ceiling window panels, cupboards and work surfaces. It was the art itself, each piece like a little peephole into Leo’s character. Almost every surface carried pieces in various states of completion. The centre of the room was dominated by an enormous piece of wood. It must have been three feet across, and was nearly as tall as she was. And it seemed to be moving. It wasn’t, she saw as she moved closer. It was just light playing over the wave-like carvings that made it seem that way. Constantly changing; constantly keeping her guessing. As she took another step closer she realised that it wasn’t just one piece of wood, it was many, woven and flowing together. She wanted to glance across at Leo, to tell him she thought it was beautiful—more than that, it was astonishing—but she couldn’t drag her eyes away. At last she reached out, wanting to feel the waves and light beneath her fingers, but Leo gently grabbed her wrist and stopped her.

‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have just—’

‘Normally I’d say touch away. But I treated the wood this morning. So, what do you think?’

She finally managed to pull her eyes away from the piece and flicked her gaze up to his face. He looked a little anxious, she realised, as he waited for her verdict on his work.

‘Leo, it’s beautiful. I had no idea.’

‘Ah, well, you know, I only come down here when the waves are rubbish.’

He was still standing close, his fingers still wrapped around her palm, and she pushed him lightly with her other hand. ‘If I remember rightly, you told me you “sort of” had a job. I’m sorry, but this isn’t sort of anything. You are an artist.’

He nodded. ‘Like I said back on the beach. This is worth the scavenging, then?’

She nodded, her gaze fixed back on the waves, trying to see what it was that made the solid wood seem to shift before her eyes. Leo finally nudged her with his hip—‘Earth to Rachel. I’m glad you like it. Really, I am.’

Suddenly she was aware how close he’d stepped to stop her touching the sculpture. How his hand still gripped hers, although it must be minutes—longer—since she’d dropped it away from the driftwood.

Though she’d felt hypnotised by the piece, it slowly filtered through to her that it and Leo couldn’t be separated. The beauty of his work was part of who he was. And something about that made her feel as if she didn’t know him at all. Didn’t understand him. As if she no longer understood the situation they found themselves in.

She turned her face up to his, and tried to see the Leo she thought she knew in the features of this talented, passionate artist. She thought back to how quickly she’d written him off as spoiled and undisciplined when he’d told her he “sort of” had a job, and could have kicked herself for that lazy assumption. If she’d taken the time and care to actually ask him more about himself, she wouldn’t be so blindsided now.

She’d turned her body when she looked up at him, and could almost feel the attraction pulling them together. He seemed taller—much taller—when she was in her flats, and from here she had a perfect view of his broad chest and shoulders, courtesy, no doubt, of hours in the water. Leo seemed to be studying her as closely as she was him, though she wasn’t sure why. He wasn’t the one who’d just had his entire perception of their circumstances change—again. But the intensity of his gaze was intoxicating, and she found that once her eyes met his she couldn’t look away.

‘I’m sorry—’ Rachel hoped that speaking out loud might break the dangerous connection. Help her to re-establish some sort of calm. But Leo laid a gentle finger on her lips.

‘You don’t need to apologise.’ The finger was replaced by a thumb, which rubbed across her lower lip, bringing sensation and longing with it. She felt her flesh swelling beneath his touch, ready for his kiss, begging for it. And Leo was reading the message loud and clear. He dipped his head, and Rachel let out a little sigh, remembering all too clearly exactly what one of Leo’s kisses promised. As she breathed in, and got two lungfuls of his salty, sea-tanged scent, she was tempted—God, so tempted—to forget the last point she’d made in her plan. The one she’d set in red, bold and underlined: NO SEX.

Leo’s lips brushed against hers and she turned her head, so his kiss grazed across the corner of her lips and her cheek. She stifled a groan, half kicking herself for writing that into the plan, and half impressed with herself for making a decision when she was thinking more clearly than she was right now. Because she strongly suspected if she hadn’t had a plan to follow in that moment, she would have been in serious danger of repeating past mistakes.

She took a deliberate step away from him, still not quite able to trust her commitment to her plan. Leo raised an eyebrow in question when she finally lifted her face to meet his gaze.

‘I’m sorry. I should have been clearer before now.’ Rachel took another step away and leant back against one of Leo’s workbenches to steady herself. ‘I enjoy your company, and I’m glad we’re getting to know one another. I hope that we can be friends. But that’s all that’s on the table—friendship.’

Leo’s hands dug into his pockets and he watched her from under heavy brows. ‘You enjoy my company?’ She could sense embarrassment washing over her features at the slow, deliberate way he spoke the words, conjuring memories of every pleasurable moment of their first and only night together.

His voice was low and gravelly as he spoke again. ‘I would have thought a decision as important as that would have been in your plan.’

She opened her mouth to tell him that if he’d made it to the last page, he would have seen, would have known that it was. But he obviously read her expression too well and finally lost his serious look, bursting into an unexpected laugh.

‘You did! You wrote “no sex” into the plan. You astound me, Rachel, honestly.’ Except he looked more amused than astounded, what with the laughing and everything.

‘It’s important to know where we stand,’ she told him, a little offended, if she was honest, that he could laugh so soon after their aborted kiss.

‘Well, consider me well informed.’

Shouldn’t he be a bit more...disappointed? Rachel thought as Leo walked over to the other side of the studio and started sorting through a stack of driftwood and bric-a-brac in one corner. It didn’t make sense, the hollow, sinking feeling in her belly. Because a purely platonic relationship was exactly what she’d wanted. But Leo’s easy acceptance of her rejection was as good as a rejection in itself.

‘Here they are. I knew there were a couple in here.’ From the pile he pulled two glass bottles, similar to the one she’d just plucked from the beach. ‘They look nice together, don’t you think? Perhaps for the windowsill in your room?’

He lined them up on the bench, but she was more interested in why he’d been so keen to walk away from that kiss. He was the one who’d started it, wasn’t he?

‘So you’re happy to just be friends. You’re not interested in anything more.’ She tried to keep the words casual. To show only the friendly interest her head told her was reasonable, and not the roiling discomfort her heart demanded. ‘Because I think if there’s anything we need to talk about, we should do it now.’

The smile actually dropped from his face, and he looked a little worried, she realised.

‘“More” is an interesting concept.’

Interesting? Of all the words she would use to describe what happened when they went for ‘more’, interesting would not be high on her list.

‘If “more” is another night like that one back at your place, then I’m all for “more”. As much “more” as is on offer.’

She actually felt her cheeks warm again—she’d not blushed like this since she was a girl.

‘But I suspect that for you, “more” is something, well...more than that. If we can’t do one without the other, then you’re right. Friends is best.’

And again with the sinking disappointment. So he wouldn’t mind more sex, but he didn’t want a relationship with her. Well, then, they were in perfect agreement.

‘Back to the house?’ she asked, faking a jollity she didn’t feel. ‘My train’s in an hour, so I probably need to make a move.’

‘Of course. Don’t forget your bottles.’ She scooped up the antique glass and with a last look at the sculpture in the centre of room, she swept out.

‘What’s the hurry?’ Leo jogged up the path behind her, lagging behind because he’d had to lock up the studio.

‘Oh, I didn’t realise I was.’ A lie, of course. Because much as she knew that she couldn’t allow herself to want a relationship with Leo, as much as the thought of being involved with someone who was happy to live with no roof till the right tiles came along filled her with dread, she still wanted a little time and space to lick her wounds. Just because she’d decided not to want him didn’t mean she didn’t want him to want her—however ridiculous that might be.

As they turned the corner and the house came into view, the sight of it made her feel better and worse at the same time.

‘So the roof,’ she said, as Leo overtook her along the path and held out a hand to help her over a small crop of rocks. ‘Is there a...?’

‘A plan?’