Their Secret Baby by Walker Kate

Author:Walker, Kate [Walker, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin Presents
Published: 2010-06-21T06:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

RHYS was the first to recover.

While Caitlin still stood frozen to the spot, staring wide-eyed in shock and disbelief, it was Rhys who moved forward, switching on a ready, charming smile that clearly had exactly the effect he wanted.

Mandy melted like ice in the sun just at the sight of it.

‘Hi,’ he said smoothly. ‘I’m Rhys—I’m afraid I’m the reason why Caitlin’s been delayed so long. I’m sorry about that.’

‘No problem.’ Mandy’s eyes were huge with astonished delight and she was practically drooling.

Oh, great! And now the whole hotel staff would know that Rhys Morgan had spent the night here, Caitlin thought bitterly. Knowing how much Mandy loved to gossip, she clearly couldn’t wait until she got back and told everyone all about it.

‘And you’re—?’

‘Mandy.’

‘OK, Mandy—let me take the little one from you…’

No!

The word screamed inside Caitlin’s head but she didn’t dare give voice to it. For one thing she didn’t want to frighten the little girl. And for another, she was afraid that any false move on her part might just push Rhys into reckless action. The door was still wide open behind them, the car park only a few metres away. If he decided to turn and go with the baby neither Mandy nor she would be able to stop him. He could be in his car and gone…

Swallowing hard, she forced herself to find the strength to speak.

‘I’ll take her…’

‘No, it’s fine,’ Rhys dismissed her feeble croak with a single arrogant glance. ‘I have her.’

I have her, and I’m going to keep her, his tone said only too clearly to Caitlin’s over-sensitive ears. Or was that just her desperate feeling of horror, the result of tightly stretched nerves, distorting her hearing? Mandy didn’t appear to find anything wrong at all but handed over the shawl-wrapped bundle without a qualm.

‘She doesn’t like strangers,’ Caitlin tried again.

Then watched in despair as the baby blithely proved her wrong by not only stopping the petulant wail she had been indulging in, but also settling down into Rhys’s arms as if she had been born to be there. The tiny head, covered in downy dark hair, rested securely in the crook of the man’s strong arm, and her wide blue eyes blinked once, then stared up into his face in apparently fascinated delight.

‘Hello, little one,’ Rhys murmured, and the softness of his tone caught on something desperately raw and painful in Caitlin’s heart and twisted a brutal knife agonisingly where it was already wounded.

Through the blood that was pounding in her head, she heard Mandy say something, though what she had no idea, but she nodded all the same. Dimly she was aware of the other woman turning, leaving, and shutting the door behind her, but she didn’t see her go.

The only thing she could see, the one thing that held her gaze, was the tall, dark, stunning man before her. The big man and the tiny baby held so securely in his arms. And that, the one thing she had

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