The Magnate’s Baby Promise / Having the Billionaire's Baby: The Magnate’s Baby Promise / Having the Billionaire's Baby

Ava swallowed. Even though she’d given Jillian the sanitised version, her aunt was a perceptive woman. “Not exactly. Apparently he thinks I’m trying to blackmail him—and with this place teetering on the verge, I can’t say I blame him.”

Jillian whirled, her lined face a mask of shock. “Oh, my. That’s not good.”

Ava sank into a kitchen chair and put her face in her hands. “I don’t believe this. And now he…” She sighed. “Jillian, I have to tell you something. Sit down.”

Jillian kept right on putting away the groceries. “If it’s about you being pregnant, I already guessed.”

Lord, did the whole world know? Ava’s jaw sagged until she snapped it shut with a click. “How? When?”

“You can’t hide a sudden craving for cheese-and-pickle sandwiches. Plus,” she gently reached out and smoothed Ava’s hair, “your hair went curly. Your grandma and I were exactly the same. It’s a Reilly thing.” Jillian quickly enveloped her in a hug. “Darling, are you okay with this?”

“Yes.” With a relieved sigh, Ava let herself sink into the embrace even as her head spun with the last hour’s events. “You’re not upset I’m not married?”

“It’s not the Middle Ages, darling. And I’m not your father,” she added pointedly.

Ava just squeezed Jillian harder. “Cal thinks I did it on purpose,” she muffled against the woman’s soft shoulder. When Jillian pulled back, Ava avoided her aunt’s eyes, unable to face the questions there. “And now he’s demanding we get married.”

Jillian went back to unpacking. “That’s very chivalrous of him, especially in this day and age.”

“No, it’s not! I can’t even begin to list the things wrong with this—we’re complete strangers, we live separate lives, have careers, not to mention what the town would say—”

“Oh, my giddy aunt!” Jillian slammed a can of tomatoes down on the counter. “Your business is about to go under, you’re pregnant by a rich, attractive, single man—a man who wants to do the right thing and marry you—and you’re worried about what a bunch of old busybodies would say?”

Ava stared at her, stunned. Her Aunt Jillian was the most easygoing person she’d ever known. She’d never raised her voice in anger, never blown her top.

“You’re saying I should marry him?” Ava said slowly.

“I’m saying a child has a right to know his father. From what I’ve read, Cal Prescott never knew his.”

“His mother remarried. He has a father.”

“But his birth father ran out. ‘To know the man, at first know the child.’”

“What?”

“Cal Prescott is a man with obvious trust issues, dear, which can make people do extreme things,” Jillian explained as she started unpacking the apples. “I do wish you’d pay attention a bit better.” Her face suddenly softened. “Or are those hormones kicking in already?”

Ava sighed. “It is not hormones. And don’t change the subject.” She leaned back in her chair, her mind tossing and turning. “I just don’t know what to do.”

Jillian rolled her eyes. “You both have something each other wants. So you make a deal.”

“Have you not been listening about the whole blackmail thing? The only thing he wants is the baby.” She laid a protective hand over her belly. “And he’s not getting that.”

“Darling, do you think he’d actually try to take away your child?” Jillian asked with a shake of her head. “Sounds to me the man just wants to be a father. And he can save Jindalee into the bargain. Unless…” she hesitated. “You don’t want Jindalee.”

Ava flushed. Jillian knew her better than anyone, even her own parents. Jindalee land had been in her family for over a hundred years. The sheep station had been her father’s dream, a culmination of hard work and town status. Ava had known from a very early age she was a distant fourth in his affections, streets behind the land, her mother, then her younger sister, Grace. The uncompromising man had often accused her of being too wild, too selfish, too carefree. And she’d proved it in spades at twenty when she’d single-handedly destroyed everything.

Not selfish anymore. She closed her eyes, picturing his silvery head held proud, a dark frown set in a face lined with age and the elements. She’d put her own share of worry lines on that face.

Her eyes shot open when Jillian placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “You don’t have to prove anything anymore, Ava,” the older woman said softly. “He’s gone. He loved this land, but—”

“So do I.” It was the simple truth. She loved the gently sloping hills, the craggy gum trees that housed the native corellas and lorikeets. The kangaroos that grazed in the morning mist and the stunning sunsets that spread across the big navy sky. It made her heart expand with joy every day at the sheer beauty of the land. Her land.

“Ava,” Jillian said now, her eyes sympathetic. “It doesn’t have to be so hard. No one will think less of you if you sell.”

“But I would.” Ava stood, walked over to the counter and began washing the apples. She’d not sunk everything into this property just to see it fail. And if Cal was on the level, then she didn’t even have her neighbour’s buyout offer as backup.

Hope bloomed, a tiny thread of light bobbing along a sea of uncertainty. She let it sit there for a couple of seconds until caution doused it. Before she charged into any decision, she had to pin down the details. Cal was offering her a chance to save Jindalee. She might be guilty of many things, but looking a gift horse in the mouth was not one of them. It’d be a cakewalk compared to what she’d already been through.

A cakewalk.

On Saturday at 10:00 a.m., after her two paying customers had checked out, Ava knew she couldn’t stall any longer. She’d called and offered to drive the twenty minutes to Parkes, but Cal had preempted her. Now as she watched from her porch, a brand-new red Calais slowly made its way down the dirt road. It finally stopped in the small designated parking area, directly below the huge gum tree.

Ava took a breath, then another, dragging in the comforting kitchen smells to give her strength—vanilla, coffee and fresh-baked apple pie, aromas that said “welcome, come on in!”—or so she’d read in a decorating magazine.

When Cal finally unfolded himself from the car, she did a double take. She’d expected expensive casual: a polo shirt, sharply pressed pants, imported Italian shoes. But he surprised her in a pair of faded Levi’s, work boots, a brown leather jacket and white cotton T-shirt, the latter hugging like cling wrap, outlining every muscular dip and curve of his chest. Natural command and raw sexuality oozed fromhis every bone andAva couldn’t help but stare.

He stalked purposefully up her steps with a long-legged stride that indicated he’d no place else to be, his dark eyes shuttered and focused squarely on her. She threaded her fingers once then released them and suddenly the air was filled with his warm, spicy scent.

“Ava,” he said, making her name sound sexier than the promise of a hot, wet kiss. Lord, he undid her. Did he remember how in the dark of night, she’d confessed her name on his lips made her want to melt in a puddle at his feet? How he’d sensuously turned that confession against her and sent her body into a whimpering frenzy with every word, every whisper?

She quickly turned and walked in the kitchen door, but not before she caught his mouth twitch for one brief second. She groaned inwardly. He remembered.

Thankful that the warm kitchen disguised her flushed cheeks, she said over her shoulder, “We’ll go into the lounge room.”

As she led him down the hall, the tide of impending doom tugged at her legs. Her lounge room was welcoming and expansive, with cream walls and pine colonial-style furniture, but she couldn’t help but think Cal could buy a place like this a thousand times over. He was decisive, powerful and obscenely rich. If Jillian thought to sell her on all those attributes, she was sorely mistaken. It only proved to her that Cal was unfamiliar with the word “no.”

His closed expression pitched her stomach into queasy unrest. This man, with his brooding thoughtfulness and silent staring, who’d stormed back into her life and accused her of blackmail, was a complete stranger to her.

What on earth was she thinking?

She sat on the chaise longue and folded her legs under her, watching as he remained standing.

“I apologize,” he began stiffly, “for yesterday. I believe I could have come off a little…”

“Pushy?” she offered, surprised.

“Determined,” he amended firmly. “I’m not used to making deals based on…” He ran his eyes over her and for one second, something flared in the dark depths before he shut it down. “…personal matters.”

Ava could only stare. When he unflinchingly met her eyes, something clicked. He was actually embarrassed at admitting that—a man worth billions, a business genius who was a dead ringer for Russell Crowe and attracted women by the boatload. Yet his expression said he’d rather eat glass than reveal any emotional vulnerability.

Despite herself, despite his demands, she felt a tiny thread of sympathy unfurl. Yet before she could say anything, he crossed his arms and swiftly changed the subject.

“What I’m offering is a business proposition. You need money. In return, the baby—and you—will have the Prescott name and all that entails.”

The smooth conciseness of his proposal took her aback for one heartbeat. In the next, she realized exactly what was happening: Sheer brute force hadn’t worked, so he was playing his next hand. Calm reasoning. She wondered what he’d try next if she refused. Seduction, perhaps? To her annoyance, a gentle anticipatory buzz tripped over her skin.

“Won’t a wife put a downer on your lifestyle?” she said now, shoving those distracting thoughts aside.