The Skipper & the Billionaire Playboy

She was due to fly out to Fiji in a couple of days, but Nadia didn’t feel right about leaving without telling Sawyer’s family about the baby first. It wasn’t a guilt-trip tactic, or some way to force him to be caught up in their child’s life. She had meant it when she’d said she didn’t want him involved. He clearly wanted no part of fatherhood, and she wasn’t going to have him around the baby if he was bitter and resentful, making no attempt to hide how he truly felt.

His family was a different matter entirely. She knew they would be supportive and would love her child even if Sawyer didn’t. If she didn’t tell them, she was certain he never would. If and when he returned, he would be relieved to find her gone and would perhaps convince himself she had aborted the child. More likely, he wouldn’t care either way and would never think of it—or her—again, as long as it wasn’t his problem.

She hadn’t yet figured out how to make her stance clear to his family—that she invited them to be part of the child’s life, but they weren’t to involve Sawyer. It sounded harsh every time she tried to find a way to phrase it, and she couldn’t completely explain why she felt the way she did without giving all the details.

Part of her thought he deserved it if she let his grandfather, mother, and sister know just how horrible he had been about the baby, but she couldn’t do it. She didn’t want to wreck his family, or their impression of him. They all loved Sawyer, in spite of his faults, and she couldn’t strip their illusions completely from them. It wasn’t for his sake but for theirs that she had to be diplomatic.

With her flight time approaching, she knew she’d have to talk to them soon. Her bags were packed, and most of her possessions were already in a shipping container bound for Fiji, due to arrive a week or so after she did. She was still in the guestroom of their home, allowing herself to indulge in their hospitality without being fully honest. It went against her nature, and she vowed she would tell them the truth at dinner.

Or at least a carefully edited version of the truth, one that didn’t leave them with such a horrible impression of their family member, while somehow keeping them from seeing her as the one taking away his child. Yes, that should be no problem at all, she thought with an irritated grunt.

A knock at her door interrupted her reverie. “Come in,” she called, expecting to see Caitlin, Kiersten, or perhaps one of the maids with a message for her. Instead, Sawyer stood in the doorway.

She had the irrational urge to scream at him to get out. She had her life figured out, or at least the next few months, and she had a plan. He had already derailed her plans far too much, and in light of their last exchange, she had no desire to see him at all. “What do you want?” she asked coldly.

He winced, but that was his only outward reaction to her tone as he came deeper into the room. “We need to talk.”

She scowled. “No.”

Sawyer blinked. “What do you mean, no? I’m requesting a conversation with you.”

“And I’m saying no thank you,” she said in a hard, brittle voice.

“Be reasonable, Nadia. There are things to discuss.”

“There’s not a damn thing to discuss. You said it all the last time we saw each other, when you told me to get rid of it, and I’m not willing to do that. I’m keeping my baby, and we don’t need you.”

He exhaled raggedly, surprising her by appearing relieved. Her anger mixed with confusion when he spoke.

“Thank god you didn’t have an abortion yet. I’m so sorry I said that. It was a knee-jerk reaction brought on by panic.”

Despite her resolve not to indulge in a conversation, she couldn’t seem to help responding. “You think I was all handstands and lollipops at the idea, Sinclair? I was freaked out, scared, and worried too. In spite of that, my knee-jerk reaction wasn’t to arbitrarily decide to abort our baby.” She winced at the slip of using our instead of my. She wanted it clear that he had no part in their child’s life. Her child. Her child’s life.

“I get that, but I guarantee there’s no way you were as terrified as I was.”

She snorted. “No, of course not. I just had a silly dream of racing in the America’s Cup, and having a child derails my entire life plan. Why the hell would I be as terrified as you?”

“Because I assumed our baby would die a horrible death.”

She flinched as her mouth gaped open in shock. “I don’t understand.”

Gingerly, he sat on the edge of her bed, but made no attempt to reach out for her. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t very clear. Let me try to explain it better.” He took a deep breath, as though fortifying himself. “I figured I had passed on the gene that would doom him or her to an early death from a horrible disease. Have you ever heard of Huntington’s?”

Nadia shrugged her shoulder. “I think it was on some medical show I used to watch, but I don’t remember the details.”

“It’s a degenerative neurological disease that destroys nerves in the brain. That process shuts you down slowly, in painful and torturous ways. It can steal your memories and knowledge, make you unable to move around independently, cause mental disturbances, and difficulty swallowing. A repetition of a section of one gene can make you lose your motor functions, your reasoning ability, and just about everything that made you who you were. My dad went from having no symptoms to severe symptoms in less than six months.”

She was still angry, but sympathy was creeping in. “I’m sorry. That must have been difficult.”

He nodded in acknowledgment. “It was hard on him, too hard. I don’t begrudge him for what he did, because I’d sure as hell do the same thing in his p

lace.”

A headache started at her temples, and she rubbed the spot carefully. “I’m sorry, but what did he do that you would do as well?”

“He killed himself.” Sawyer made a finger pistol and put it to his temple, mimicking the motion of a firing gun. “He did it at our storage space near the marina, where we kept our supplies for a wooden sailboat he used to own.

“Of course he didn’t expect me to find him. He’d sent a note to my mother, telling her what he had done and asking her to request a coroner. I didn’t know that, and I popped by to surprise him.” His face had gone pale, his expression slack. “I was the one who got the surprise, finding Dad on the floor with his brains spattered across our spare sails and riggings.”