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She slumped back on her haunches. A wet cloth covered her forehead as Kasia knelt beside her; her eager grin had a strange feeling of unreality settling over Cat.
But beneath that was a deep drawing need that was impossible to suppress.
‘I can’t be pregnant,’ she said. Determined to believe it and ignore that strange wave of need—and something even more disturbing—making her hands shake.
A pregnancy would be a disaster, for her as well as Zane.
‘I ate all that you ate, and I am not sick,’ the girl replied. ‘You are tired now these past days, and your breasts...’ The girl’s gaze dipped to the bodice of Cat’s robe, which tightened around her torso like a titanium corset. ‘They are more full, yes?’
‘I can’t be pregnant, Kasia,’ Cat murmured again, starting to feel positively drained—the fear consuming her. She didn’t want to cause a constitutional crisis, or force Zane into a marriage he didn’t want. But what would happen if she were?
You’re getting ahead of yourself, again. Nothing’s confirmed.
‘But you have not bled since you first lay with the Sheikh? Is this not so?’ Kasia said, sounding perplexed at Cat’s failure to be as overjoyed as she clearly was at the prospect of an unplanned pregnancy.
Cat dismissed the foolish clutch in her heart—and tried to control the terrifying emotion that had assailed her once before when she’d contemplated the possibility of carrying Zane’s child.
‘What’s the actual date today?’ she asked, her throat raw. She needed to get a grip. She wasn’t always that regular. And she’d had a period only four days before her first night with Zane. And they hadn’t used penetration during their night at the oasis. Surely there was no need to panic.
‘The fifteenth of April,’ Kasia said, starting to look concerned.
Cat frantically calculated the dates. Her heart jumped into her throat as she completed the maths.
Thirty-eight days since her last period.
She pressed a hand to her stomach. The panic and confusion accompanied by a deep jarring surge of protectiveness and that strange emotion she hadn’t been able to name all those weeks ago at the oasis.
She sat down heavily on the divan. ‘Oh, God,’ she mumbled.
She’d never been this late before. Not even close. Against all the odds, she could be carrying the Sheikh’s child. Zane’s child.
Vulnerability opened like a huge chasm in the pit of her stomach.
‘I think now the Sheikh will have to come back to the palace and speak with you,’ Kasia said, her tone confident and amused at the prospect of that meeting.
The opposite of what Cat felt, because she now knew what that unnamed emotion was—however foolish and inappropriate in the circumstances—which had begun to choke her.
Not panic or shock or fear... But hope.
* * *
Your Divine Majesty,
Dr Smith has asked me to relay a request. She asks if she can make an appointment to speak with you on your return from Zahar and wishes to know when that will be.
Regards,
Your humble servant,
Ravi
Zane stared at the note that had been passed to him by one of his advisors. The rambling welcome from the Crown Prince of Zahar in a dialect he didn’t understand faded into the background as his gaze ran over the lines of the short missive again. And again. Emotions he’d struggled to tame over the last few weeks—during a series of increasingly desperate and interminably dull diplomatic missions—sprang up his torso. Alive and vivid and stronger than ever.
Passion. Desire. Concern. Surprise. But perhaps, most disturbing of all, a fierce sense of responsibility.
What possible reason could Catherine have for contacting him? Other than the obvious reason?
He’d been calculating the dates of their first encounter. And each day that had passed, his agitation had increased. He should have gone to see her, to confirm that she had had her period, long before now. But each time he had returned from another trip or tour, he had forced himself not to give in to the urge. Because he still hadn’t managed to control the needs that raged through him every night.
