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But when the alarm on her phone buzzed again, making her jump, she realised Alice Evershot’s request had managed to take her mind off Raif and that one seminal night in the desert for ten full seconds—a record for the last month.

Drawing a breath into her lungs, she reached for the test stick, finally ready to face what the rest of her life might hold.

The breath was released in a shattered gasp as she read the result.

CHAPTER TEN

KASIA RE-READ HER notes as the car drew into the forecourt of a landmark hotel on London’s Strand.

She stuffed the creased pages into her clutch bag and stared up at the silver-plated sign on the hotel’s Art Deco frontage.

She was no stranger to luxury, having lived in the Golden Palace for as long as she could remember before moving to the UK, but—as a uniformed doorman stepped forward to open the heavy glass doors with a flourish and the porter led her through the lobby area resplendent in Edwardian marble and gilt-edged antique furniture—the grandeur took her breath away.

But, then, she’d been struggling to catch her breath all day, ever since reading the results of the pregnancy test.

She pressed a hand to her stomach, her palm sliding over the sleek red silk of the cocktail dress she’d found at a second-hand boutique in Cambridge that afternoon.

She was going to have Prince Kasim’s baby. Raif’s baby.

Her breath seized all over again as it had so many times since that morning.

So many uncertainties and challenges awaited her in the weeks and months ahead—and most of them seemed insurmountable at the moment.

Somehow she would have to tell Cat and Zane that Raif was the mystery tribesman. That his burst appendix was her fault. And eventually she would have to tell the desert prince himself about her pregnancy. He had a right to know he was going to become a fa

ther.

But all the reasons she had run from him and her homeland a month ago still applied. In fact, this development would make them even tougher to negotiate.

Raif had obviously decided not to pursue marriage once he had recovered, but he might well insist on it again when he discovered she was going to have his child. And how could she expect Cat and Zane to protect her from such a union when they might be conflicted, too? Especially Zane. After all he had insisted on marriage with Cat when she had become pregnant with his child. And Raif was his brother. Where would his loyalties lie? With her—however close she was to the Royal household—or with his own blood?

Overwhelmed didn’t even begin to describe how she had been feeling about her condition ever since she’d seen the fat red plus sign. But despite all the questions and uncertainties, and the impact her baby would have on her academic career, the one thing she did know was that she wanted this baby. Raif’s baby. Very much.

She pushed the recurring questions to one side, or tried to, her clutch purse instinctively guarding her belly as the porter directed her through the inlaid silver doors of a lavish ballroom.

At least she had time to consider her options. Once she’d told Cat, she could talk the situation through with her best friend, figure out how best to break the news to Raif and when. Luckily, having Raif thousands of miles away gave her a buffer zone from having to confront anything before she was ready.

Right now, all she had to do was absorb the surreal joy at the prospect of becoming a mother in approximately eight months’ time. Something she’d always dreamed of being. Maybe she wouldn’t have planned for it to happen this way, but once she got over the shock—and worked out how and when to tell the father to avoid an all-out war on the Narabian peninsula—she could embrace the awe. Luckily, she’d always been a positive, self-sufficient person who knew how to think on her feet—or she would be, once she got over the feeling that the rug had just been pulled out from under said feet.

As she stepped into the crowd of elegantly dressed guests—the men in tuxedos and most of the women in ballgowns—she recited her speech again in her head while searching for the Devereaux College representative she had been told would be there to introduce her to the potential donor.

She walked through the room, faking confidence. With her wild hair tamed and curled after an hour spent with her trusty curling irons, the high heels she’d borrowed from another post-grad student and her newish dress, at least she knew she looked good.

She took a moment to calm her erratic heartbeat. She needed to remember the speech she’d worked on to charm the billionaire donor she wanted to impress. Securing funding for her PhD was very important now, or her future—and her baby’s future—would be even more insecure.

French doors lined one side of the high-ceilinged hall, affording the guests a stunning vista of the Thames at twilight. Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament were spotlighted from the balcony at the far end, while the London Eye lit up the Georgian splendour of the old County Hall building across the water.

The clink of glasses and the hum of polite conversation covered the delicacy of a Brahms concerto being played by a string quartet in one corner while discreet wait staff passed around gold trays of canapés and vintage Champagne.

The scene really was breathtaking. Who knew there was this much money—and glamour—in university funding initiatives?

‘Miss Salah? You made it.’ The familiar face of one of Alice Evershot’s assistants popped up beside her.

‘Yes. Hello, I—’

‘Come this way.’ The young man interrupted her attempt at polite introductions to direct her through the crowd. ‘Mr Khan is impatient to meet you and I really don’t want to keep him waiting any longer,’ he said as he moved swiftly through the throng.

She had to speed up to keep pace with the young man. Her heartbeat became erratic again as they stepped out of the French doors. A man stood at the far end of the balcony alone, in an expertly tailored tuxedo, his tall muscular frame silhouetted against the Houses of Parliament. This was the donor? She’d expected someone much older. Even from behind this man looked young and fit.

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