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Her heart hammered.
If his words hadn’t driven his intention home before, it certainly did now.
‘Joao...’
‘Not now, Saffie.’ His lashes swept down as if shielding his thoughts from her. She wanted to believe he was shaken by the news but she couldn’t be certain. Not with that fierce light she’d glimpsed in his eyes.
After the machine was wheeled out, Dr Chang delivered a short lecture on pre-natal care, left her with the appropriate vitamins, then made himself scarce.
Joao, who’d planted himself at the window of her bedroom, finally turned around when they were alone.
For the longest moment he said nothing.
Nerves ate at her as she slid out of bed. ‘We need to talk.’
‘Were you on the Pill in Morocco?’
She inhaled sharply, sagging back into bed. ‘I hope you’re not suggesting this was a deliberate act on my part?’
He frowned. ‘That did not occur to me. I’m merely trying to work out the evolution of our current situation.’
Our situation. Two words that drove home in no uncertain terms that he’d placed himself firmly in the middle of her future. ‘Oh, Okay. Well, thank you. No, my old Pill wasn’t agreeing with me so I was between prescriptions. I didn’t say anything that night because you used protection when we...’
His eyes glinted darkly. ‘When we had sex. It’s not a dirty word, Saffie.’
She flushed. ‘I know it’s not.’
‘Protection which failed, obviously.’
Her breath shuddered out and she couldn’t stop her hand from stealing over her stomach.
Twins. Conceived on the night when she’d gone insane and thrown caution to the wind. A night that was about to come back to haunt her?
She flicked a glance at Joao’s face but, with the sunlight at his back, his expression was unreadable.
‘Obviously this changes things,’ he intoned.
A vice tightened around her chest, making her light-headed. ‘In what way?’
He sent her a droll, mocking look. ‘In every way you can think of, I imagine.’ He strolled towards the door. ‘But at your insistence, I rescheduled my meeting with the Shanghai team, so we’ll have to dig further into this later.’
She rose, straightening her clothes as she followed him out. ‘I’ll tell the driver to meet us downstairs in five minutes.’
He stopped with a hand on the front door. ‘I’m going alone, Saffie.’
The vice around her chest tightened. ‘Why? Have I suddenly turned invalid?’
‘No, you haven’t. But you are carrying twins. And whether you wish to admit it or not, news like that takes getting used to. I’m simply giving you the time to accustom yourself to it. And I would prefer it if you did that in bed.’
‘So why does that sound uncannily like an order?’
He released the door and retraced his steps back to her. Without warning he spiked his fingers into her loosely bound hair, and one thumb grazed over her lower lip. ‘I don’t doubt your ability to shoulder this news and do your job. But I think you need time to absorb the news properly, do you not?’
Her chin lifted. ‘Are you calling me emotional, Joao?’
‘Sim, I am,’ he stated boldly.
And to her eternal shame, she confirmed it with a great big lip wobble, one overwhelming feeling after another chasing through her.
