"Remember we talked about the possibility of opening some stand alone boutiques over the next couple of years? I've been doing some research and I think it's got potential." She sifted through the paperwork quickly, frowning. "I made some lists..."

Sophie reached out and stilled Kara's increasingly erratic hands. "Kara, stop."

"No, it's here somewhere. I made lists... locations..."

Sophie squeezed her fingers, knowing full well that Kara was using work to block out thoughts of Dylan. "Okay," she said. "We'll find the list, and we can talk about work if you want to, but you can't pretend that this hasn't happened forever, you know?"

Kara withdrew her hands and propped her forehead in them instead.

"It's all I've got right now, Soph." She sighed heavily. It wasn't all she wanted, but it was all she'd got. Every time Sophie came she battled with herself not to ask questions about Dylan. Today, she lost her battle.

“Have you spoken to Lucien today?”

Sophie nodded. They spoke all the time. She stroked her wedding ring beneath the table top, wishing he was here instead of still wrapping things up on Ibiza. A one-night honeymoon wasn’t what they’d had in mind.

“And is he still there?” Kara asked tonelessly, and Sophie didn’t need to wonder who she meant. She faltered, wondering how her friend was going to take the news.

“For now. He told Lucien yesterday that he’s decided it’s time to move on.”

Kara let the information sink in. “Move on where?”

“He didn’t say. Back to the States, I expect?”

The man Kara had thought she knew wouldn’t head back to the States. A slow, cold creep of panic stole over her bones.

He was going to disappear, and she’d never see him again.

But so what, she hated him.

He was going to disappear, and she’d never get the chance to force him to answer all of the questions that haunted her.

But he wasn’t worth even one single moment more of her time.

He was going to disappear, and she’d never have the chance to beat her fists on his chest until he was as black and blue on the outside as she was on the inside.

But he didn’t deserve to feel the touch of her hand ever again, even in anger.

He was going to disappear.

Dylan needed to disappear. It had been two weeks since Kara had left, two weeks since Billy had arrived.

It seemed a lifetime longer on both counts. He needed to step up to the plate and make a plan for the future, find some place to lay down roots for Billy, a job with regular hours.

The baby had turned his entire world upside down and inside out. He wasn’t just a tiny person. He was a mini-dictator, and Dylan his foot soldier as much as his father. The first few days had been a living hell of not knowing why Billy was screaming or how to make it stop, but little by little, he was learning to read his son’s cues. He wasn’t confident that he was doing a very good job, but he did at least feel pretty sure that he could keep Billy alive and well, which was several significant steps forward from the day Suzie had left him literally holding the baby.

He owed most of his new knowledge and a big debt of gratitude to Lucien. He’d fully expected to find himself unemployed and unwelcome, but Lucien had turned out to be a measured, loyal friend who didn’t turn away in times of trouble. Dylan knew that Lucien had found himself caught in the most delicate of positions, and his admiration for the other man deepened ten-fold as he observed how he managed to remain true to himself without feeling obligated to entrench himself on one side or the other.

Instead of firing him, he’d given him paternity leave. Paid paternity leave. Company rules, he’d said.

No big deal, he’d said.

But it was a big deal. A big, huge deal. It was the gift of precious breathing space, of time to get a handle on the enormity of what had happened to him, to get to know his baby, to grieve for the love he’d lost.

Billy was the most effective distraction imaginable when he was awake, but when he slept, Kara came. She came to Dylan in his daydreams and in the snatches of sleep he managed at night, sometimes smiling, sometimes furious, and beautiful all the time. His whole body ached with missing her, as if he’d been trampled by wild horses.

The only time of day when he could find any solace at all came at sunset. Most nights, Billy’s fledgling routine allowed for him to be fed, winded and bathed by then, and they’d developed a habit of sitting up on deck, one man and his baby, to watch the horizon darken.

Billy seemed able to sleep easiest held skin to skin, his tiny chest against his daddy’s, his blanket tucked around him until just his small round face and wild-child hair poked out above. Dylan often found his own eyes closing too, drifting into a doze along with his son.

It was there, in that exact position, that Kara found him, two weeks and two days almost to the hour after she’d left.

Chapter Forty-Three

It was the way he cradled the damn baby that made her cry. All of that big, powerful strength rendered gentle and tender by the presence of the infant in his arms. How could a man who held a baby with such infinite care be the same man who’d broken her heart?

Kara wiped her fingertips over her damp cheeks, glad that Dylan was sleeping. He didn’t deserve to see her tears.

She wavered, uncertain, considered walking away. She’d come here in anger, with an outraged sense of unfinished business, fury that he’d left her feeling a million times worse than Richard had. If she let it go by the wayside without ever setting the record straight, she feared that she’d never trust her own instincts again. Her self respect was a cause worth fighting for. But now he was here in front of her, she realised she’d come for something else too. She’d come to be near him one last time: her traitorous heart hadn’t yet completely cast him out and the knowledge of this scared her witless. If he opened his eyes now and lied some more, would she believe him? Her faith in herself was on the floor because of Dylan Day.

Then he opened his eyes.

“English.” He spoke on the softest of intakes of breath as he looked at her, and the expression in his eyes confirmed Kara’s fears. She was in trouble, because she could see him going through the same overwhelming emotions that she’d experienced herself a few minutes earlier. She saw it all play out on his face: incredulous surprise, the bright, against-all-odds flare of hope, and then the bitter, crushing weight of disappointment.

Kara didn’t speak because she found herself out of suitable words.