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Alexio looked inscrutable and then said, ‘It’s up to you.’
Sidonie wrenched her gaze away from his with more effort than she liked and looked at the doctor again. She said hesitantly, ‘I...I think so.’ And then more firmly, as a sense of excitement took hold, ‘Yes. I’d like to know.’
The doctor beamed at them. ‘I’m very pleased to tell you you’re having a baby girl.’
Sidonie felt something joyous erupt in her chest and heard a slightly choked sound coming from beside her. She looked up to see Alexio’s eyes fixed on the screen, and there was an expression on his face that she’d never seen before. A kind of wonder.
Her belly swooped. She’d never allowed herself to imagine this kind of scenario. She’d expected to have the baby and then see how she felt about informing him, making sure she did it in such a way that he knew she wasn’t telling him in order to get his money.
The thought of being likened to her grasping mother again had made her feel sick. But now that had all been taken out of her hands and she had the very uncomfortable sensation that Alexio was about to get a lot more prominent in her life.
Especially when the doctor wiped the gel off her belly, rearranged her clothes and said, ‘We’ll keep you in for one more night to help you get your strength back, and then I’ve been assured that your partner here will be getting you the best care and attention until you’re back on your feet.’
Sidonie’s head swivelled from Alexio’s determined expression to the doctor’s equally stern-looking face. Her partner. The words sent more flutters into her belly. After three days of being followed, she knew the likelihood of shaking Alexio off when she was feeling weak and vulnerable was extremely unlikely.
She looked at Alexio and said, ‘I don’t have much choice, do I?’
‘No,’ he agreed equably.
And that was that.
A week later
‘You’ve done what?’ Sidonie’s mind was hot with rage and she felt her heart-rate zooming skyward, the flutters increasing in her belly. She even put a hand there unconsciously, barely noticing how Alexio’s eyes dropped to take in the movement. She was too incensed.
Alexio faced her across the expanse of the beautiful first-floor apartment living room, overlooking the Jardin du Luxembourg. He was dressed in a steel-grey shirt and black trousers and Sidonie didn’t like the way she was so aware of his physicality. The way she became even more aware of it each day as she grew stronger.
Alexio’s voice was low, deep, ‘I should have known Tante Josephine couldn’t keep it quiet. I asked her not to say anything until you’d had a few more days’ rest. But I didn’t want her to be worried with you out of work.’
Sidonie struggled to take this in—along with the reminder that Alexio and Tante Josephine seemed to have forged a mutual admiration society.
Sidonie had been in this apartment, which Alexio was renting, for almost a week now. A week of Alexio being cool and solicitous. The consummate host. Paying for a nurse to come every day to check on Sidonie. Taking her outside to the Jardin du Luxembourg across the road to get some air. He was seemingly unperturbed by her continued campaign of obdurate silence, which was more due to her wish to avoid this reckoning and his probing gaze than to anything else. Her searing anger had been proving hard to hang onto, as if merely being in his presence on a daily basis was wearing away at it.
Except now it was back, and Sidonie welcomed it.
Her aunt had just left, to be taken home by Alexio’s driver, but before she’d gone she’d spilled her secret.
Sidonie had marched straight into Alexio’s office without knocking and declared, ‘We need to talk.’
He’d looked up from his papers and sat back, arching a brow. ‘Now you’re ready to talk?’
Before she’d had time to regret her impetuous action Sidonie had turned on her heel and walked into the vast living room, not liking how intimate the office space had felt. She had also been very aware that his assistant, who was there every day, had left. Until now she’d been a master at staying out of Alexio’s way in the spacious apartment.
Sidonie crossed her arms over her chest and almost winced at how sensitive her breasts were. They had grown bigger. That awareness made her voice curt.
‘Answer my question.’
Alexio looked as immovable as a rock, tall and intimidating. At that very moment Sidonie had a vivid memory of lying nak
ed beneath him, spreading her legs wide to accommodate his body, feeling the bold thrust of his arousal against her slick body. Her legs wobbled alarmingly but she held firm.
Thankfully Alexio spoke before Sidonie’s wayward memory could take over completely.
‘I have paid off all of the debts and ensured that your aunt’s mortgage has been paid in full.’
The sheer ease with which he’d been able to magic their debts away made her feel disorientated.
‘How dare you?’
