Sanchez—so important that it was impossible to get in touch with him like any normal mortal—wouldn’t just let this go. And she had to concede that this had to be a huge shock for him. As much as it had been for her, and she’d had three months to absorb it now.
As if it was paining him to ask, he said, ‘Do you want something? Tea? Coffee?’
Skye appreciated the fact that he patently didn’t want her there but was being forced to be civil. ‘Maybe a glass of water?’
She was also starving. This was usually the best time of day for her to eat, when she could keep it down, but she didn’t think Lazaro was about to order her a club sandwich and fries—her current craving.
He came back from the drinks cabinet and handed her a glass of water, which she accepted gratefully. He had a glass of something for himself that looked like brandy or whisky.
He went and stood in front of one of the windows and Skye felt awed. He really did look like a titan. Master of his universe.
‘You must have known who I was,’ he said.
Skye looked at his back. ‘Excuse me?’
He turned around. ‘You knew who I was and you targeted me.’
Skye stood up, incensed, water splashing unnoticed from her glass to the rug on the floor. ‘I beg your pardon? You walked into my restaurant and sat in my section.’
Now he flushed, and a bolt of heat went straight to Skye’s groin because it reminded her of his flushed face after they’d made love. He’d looked so…sexy.
She sat back down again. ‘You didn’t tell me your name until you gave me your card and asked me to meet you at your hotel.’ She winced inwardly. It sounded so sordid when she said it like that.
‘You would have had time to look me up then—maybe that’s why you decided to meet me…when you knew it was worth it.’
‘Maybe I didn’t look you up,’ Skye shot back. ‘Maybe I decided to go because you were the sexiest man I’d ever met and I knew if I didn’t go I’d regret it.’
She stopped and bit her lip, aghast at what had just tumbled out of her mouth.
She lifted her chin. ‘I will admit that I looked you up the following day. And then I realised that you were…someone.’
It was a ridiculously ineffectual way to describe a man who had become a self-made millionaire by the time he was twenty-five after setting up his own hedge fund. He’d since become a billionaire, by diversifying into the real estate market. His signature move was buying up old decrepit buildings in up-and-coming areas and restoring them.
‘So that’s when you decided to take advantage of the situation?’
Skye stood up again. ‘Unbelievable as it might seem to you, my life plan wasn’t actually to get pregnant at the age of twenty-two.’
‘Oh? And what was it then? To become the manager of that restaurant?’
‘That’s not fair. You have no idea who I am or what I want.’
Lazaro took a step towards her and said with an infuriatingly smug tone, ‘On the contrary. I think we established pretty effectively what you wanted that night.’
Skye’s cheeks were burning now, her hand gripping the glass hard. ‘There were two of us in that room, and as I recall it any wanting was pretty mutual.’
He gritted his jaw at that. ‘Why did you really come?’
‘To tell you. Don’t you want to know that you’re going to be a father?’
He studied her for such a long moment that Skye fought not to squirm, and then he shook his head.
‘You’re not just here to impart this news out of the goodness of your heart.’
Skye struggled to hold on to her temper. ‘You are being incredibly negative. Would you really have preferred that I didn’t tell you? That you had a child out in the world that you knew nothing about?’
To her surprise he blanched slightly at that, and then his face became shuttered.
‘If you are pregnant, and if the baby is mine, then of course I want to know about it. I’ll admit it’s not something I was prepared to deal with quite yet, but no child of mine will want for the lack of a father.’
His eyes glowed with an intensity that caught at Skye inside. She realised then that she hadn’t seen anything about his parents in the information she’d found about him online, and she wondered about that now. But before she could say anything else a wave of dizziness took her by surprise and she swayed on the spot.
Instantly he was at her side, taking the glass out of her grip, a hand around her arm. ‘What is it? You’ve gone as white as a sheet.’
She was trembling. ‘I think I need to eat something…’
‘When was the last time you ate?’
Skye just wanted to sit down. ‘Breakfast?’
If you could call a banana and a croissant that had later made its reappearance in the airport toilet breakfast.
Lazaro made a rude sound and led Skye over to a chair to sit down. He handed her the water. ‘What do you want to eat?’
She hated being weak and vulnerable like this. She’d wanted to come and face Lazaro, give him the news and then walk away with her head held high, knowing she’d done the right thing.
‘Maybe a sandwich? And some fries?’
He went over to a phone and made a call.
When he came back Skye said, ‘Thank you. I’m sorry. I really didn’t intend to cause such an upset and I didn’t intend taking up your time like this.’
He looked at her and put his hands on his hips—which only drew Skye’s attention to that lean waist.
‘So you were going to come, drop your bombshell and then leave?’
Skye winced at his thunderous expression. ‘I just wanted to let you know. I don’t expect anything from you. Maybe once the news has died down you can repair things with your fiancée…’ She saw his expression darken even more and corrected herself. ‘Sorry, ex-fiancée.’
He dismissed that with a wave of his hand. ‘I told you—Leonora won’t have anything to do with me after this.’
In fairness, Skye had to admit she had looked like a nice person. A person who didn’t deserve to be upset in public like that.
Her insides cramped with remorse. She hadn’t handled this very well at all.
Just then a chiming sound rang through the room, and Lazaro sent her a dark look before he went to the door. He came back with a tray. On it was a plate covered with a silver dome.
‘Come into the kitchen.’
Skye
