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‘The instructions suggest it is best to do it first thing in the morning, when the hormone levels are strongest.’
She put the fork back down on the tray, her fingers trembling.
Maybe, if she were pregnant, he would want her? But as soon as the thought struck, she hated herself for it. A baby couldn’t make him love her. And even thinking that would just make her more pathetic.
‘If you don’t wish to eat, I will understand,’ he said with his typical pragmatism.
Why did the easiness with which he read her only make the yearning worse?
She nodded. He lifted the tray off and placed it on the side, then handed her a robe as she climbed off the bed.
She wrapped the robe around herself as he passed her the pregnancy test.
But as she reached for it, instead of releasing it, he pulled her close and cupped her cheek. His gaze roamed over her face, the affection, the desire, so bold and unabashed it only made her feel sadder and more inadequate.
‘Whatever the result, we will deal with it together,’ he said, his voice steady, his eyes kind. ‘Okay?’
She nodded, and he placed a kiss on her forehead, then let her go.
It was the honourable thing to say. And she knew that he meant it, because he was an honourable man. But as she walked into the bathroom alone, the pregnancy test burning a hole in her palm, she knew that, whatever the result, it couldn’t alter the fact he hadn’t known who she was when they had made love without protection.
And he could never love her, even if he had.
Leo had never believed that one’s heart could actually get lodged in one’s throat, but something was definitely beating heavily there and threatening to strangle him as he waited for Juno to come back out of the bathroom.
He had tried not to think about the possibility of a pregnancy, had certainly not gone so far as to imagine himself and Juno parenting a baby. But as he showered in one of the lodge’s other bathrooms and got dressed, he found himself imagining Juno’s slender frame ripe with his child, and the tidal wave of possessiveness, protectiveness, was unmistakeable.
He tried to even his breathing as he waited on the bed they had shared twenty minutes later, the door to the bathroom still closed.
He heard the tap running, then cutting off. At last the door opened.
She stepped into the bedroom, still wearing the silk robe he had given her what felt like a lifetime ago, tightly knotted around her waist, the stick swaddled in toilet tissue in her hand.
Her head lifted and he could see the shattered shock in her eyes.
‘It’s positive?’ he asked, but it wasn’t really a question.
Her head bobbed. ‘I... I think so. I reread the instructions several times.’
He strode across the room and lifted the stick from her trembling fingers. She looked so fragile, so he slung a steadying arm around her shoulder as he read the result for himself.
The wave of possessiveness peaked as he stared at the two clear blue lines.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I read the instructions several times myself,’ he admitted as he handed the stick back to her. ‘Have you decided if you wish to have the child?’ he asked.
Say yes.
He wanted to watch her grow heavy with his child, wanted to hold her and support her as she gave birth. But most of all, he wanted the chance to keep her by his side—warm, compassionate, honest, funny, forthright. Why had it never occurred to him that this could be a solution, not a problem?
He had wanted a queen. Why could that queen not be Juno?
She moved away from him and stood staring out into the snowy landscape beyond the bedroom. With her arms clasped tightly around her midriff, and her shoulders slightly hunched, he sensed her battle to hold in the swell of emotion too.
She seemed smaller somehow, and so young. This was a huge step for both of them, and something that had been forced on them by accident.
‘You don’t have to decide yet,’ he murmured, his heart threatening to choke him as he waited for her answer.
She looked over her shoulder. ‘I... I want to have it,’ she said.
