The Baby Pact (Babies and Billions #5) - Holly Rayner Page 0,50

on the patio,” he suggested.

“We have a patio?”

He inclined his head toward a room she hadn’t seen yet, and she followed him.

It turned out to be a bedroom, with a huge, soft-looking bed up against one wall. Opposite this was a sliding glass door that led out to a rectangular patio. Rhea stepped out and gasped in surprise yet again.

The patio didn’t lead to a lawn or a garden. Instead, it seemed to float in the air about a foot above a crystalline blue natural pool.

“The lagoon,” Zach said.

“It’s beautiful,” she breathed.

“We can take a swim later, if you’d like.”

“We’re allowed to swim in it?”

“Well, sure,” he said, smiling. “If we weren’t, there would be a railing or something around the patio. You’re supposed to swim in it.” He eyed her speculatively. “You can go in now, if you want to. I’d watch your towel for you.”

Rhea laughed in spite of herself and swatted his arm. “Don’t start.”

He grinned. “Sorry. I got some fish and vegetables. Iceland is famous for its seafood.” He held out one of the covered plates to her.

She accepted the plate, sat down on the edge of the patio, and after a brief hesitation, dipped her feet into the water. It was warm and extremely pleasant after the shower.

Zach began to eat slowly, trailing his own toes in slow circles through the water.

“I’m really glad you agreed to come here with me,” he said.

Rhea nodded. “I am too,” she said. “Thank you for talking me into it, and for bringing me.”

“Have you thought any more about… the reason we’re here?”

She sighed. “Zach, I don’t know if we should get into it right now.”

“Okay,” he said quickly. “That’s okay. We don’t have to talk about it until you’re ready.”

“I don’t know if I’m going to be able to give you the answer you want to hear,” she said.

“I know I’ve let you down,” he said.

“It isn’t just that.”

Rhea sighed. She really hadn’t wanted to have this discussion so soon after arriving. She had hoped they would be able to just enjoy this getaway for a while first, without addressing the heavy questions.

But maybe that wasn’t fair. Zach was entitled to answers.

“I just think that you and I disagree too fundamentally,” she said. “You think that what your father did was okay. I don’t. It’s not that I can’t forgive what happened in the past, but I don’t know if I can spend my life with someone who thinks there wasn’t anything wrong with it.”

“That’s not it,” Zach said. “It’s not that I don’t think there was anything wrong with it. I know it was wrong. My father was completely in the wrong, and I fully accept that. I just think the issue was complicated. I relate to what he must have been going through.”

Rhea didn’t know what to say. It didn’t seem that complicated to her.

Zach raked his fingers through his hair. “The thought of being someone’s father is so new to me,” he said. “It’s just hard to believe, right now, that there’s anything on earth that I wouldn’t do for my child. Maybe those feelings will settle down. I don’t know what to expect. But what I can promise you, here and now, is that I am devoted to our child. The only thing I want is to be a good father.”

Chapter 18

Zach

The suite was large enough to host a family, so Zach gave Rhea the bedroom they’d come through to go out onto the patio and went into the adjoining one.

But he didn’t sleep. He lay on his back, thinking about everything that had happened between them, both on their journey to Iceland and since they had arrived.

She said their disagreements were too big to get past. She said they couldn’t be together. But Zach thought the evidence suggested otherwise.

This wasn’t the same woman who had refused to take his phone calls for two weeks. She was clearly pleased to see him, to be with him, even if her feelings about him were complicated.

It would have been easy enough for Zach to flatly reject what his father had done. He could have told Rhea that he had done some thinking, and that upon reflection he had realized there was no justification whatsoever for his father’s actions. He thought she would probably believe that. It seemed clear to him that she wanted to believe the two of them could reunite.

But he wouldn’t lie to her. And the truth was that he didn’t feel the way