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‘I should probably head home,’ she said, more firmly. ‘It might be a bug and I don’t want you to catch it, too.’

He hadn’t said anything, hadn’t even moved.

She swallowed down the lump of shame at her deception. She couldn’t deal with him now, not in this condition.

If she could just get out of here, she would be able to regroup, recharge, re-evaluate. At least her stomach had finally settled.

But as she dropped the towel on the vanity and turned to go, his fingers closed around her biceps. ‘Not so fast. Look at me, Kasia.’ He grasped her chin.

Their gazes connected and the guilt exploded in her chest like a nuclear bomb as he studied her face, the mushroom cloud billowing across her collarbone and rising into her cheeks.

‘We ate the same thing, and I am not sick,’ he said, but she could hear it already in his voice—the edge of suspicion. And see it in the hooded look in his dark eyes. ‘And if it was a stomach bug, I doubt it would have resolved itself so quickly.’

‘Please, I have to go.’ She tried to wrestle her arm free, the frantic urge to flee overcoming her, even though a part of her knew it was already too late.

Raif was not a stupid man, and he could read her far too easily.

His grip on her arm tightened, a muscle in his jaw flexing as his gaze dipped to take in the swell of her cleavage. And assess the size of her breasts again, which he had noticed the night before were larger than they had been. When his gaze returned to hers, the last of the warmth and concern had leached away, to be replaced by the brutal chill of anger.

Guilt and regret combined in the pit of her stomach to create a deep well of sadness.

The guarded, wary cynicism in his eyes, which had been banished the night before—as they’d eaten and talked and bathed together, as they had made love—had returned.

The closeness, the connection was gone so quickly she wondered if it had ever really existed in the first place, especially when he spoke again, the bite of contempt evident in every syllable:

‘Answer me without lying this time, are you carrying my child?’

Raif could see the answer in her face before she replied.

‘Yes,’ she said, then ducked her head.

The slow-burning fury in his gut turned to white-hot rage but worse than that was the stabbing pain of her betrayal.

Kasia carried his child and she had not told him. Had she ever intended to tell him?

She had said nothing all through the night they had spent together. While he had taken her with fire, with passion more times than he could count. But also while they had talked, and communicated with more than words.

When he had woken up a few minutes ago, the first thing he had done was reach for her. The wave of panic when he had found her gone had been real and devastating and not just because of the painful erection he’d been sporting. He hadn’t just wanted to take her again, he had wanted to hold her, to touch her, to capture her in his arms and keep her with him. He had never had that need for any other human being in his entire life. He had tried to dismiss it, forced himself to control it, but that instant visceral yearning had scared him on a fundamental level.

The sound of her in the bathroom had brought with it a wave of relief, which had only disturbed him more.

As he had stared at the ornate plasterwork on the ceiling, willing his erection to subside—not easy while her scent filled his nostrils—he had forced himself to assess all they had done the night before, and had tried to figure out what had happened to him.

Kasia had captivated and aroused him, intoxicated him with her passion, her wildfire responses, yes, but more than that he had found a closeness with her during the hours they had spent together. As they had talked, as they had teased each other.

He had spoken of things in his life he had never told another living soul. Not just the truth about his mother, but the truth about the tattoo—how his father had him branded like cattle. The more he’d thought about everything he had said and done, the weaker he’d felt.

Why had he trusted her? When he had never truly trusted anyone in his life? And after so short an acquaintance?

But then his hearing had tuned into the noise from the bathroom and he’d realised she was being sick. All he’d wanted to do was help her.

She’d looked so fragile, seemed so shaky in his arms. He’d held her while she’d retched and felt wretched himself.

That, too, had been a brand-new sensation. If he had been in a similar situation before, not that he ever had, his inclination would have been to allow his lover her privacy. But with Kasia, as with everything else about them, he had been determined to intervene.

Had he sensed her condition the night before? Was that why he had felt this weird connection to her? Had revealed information that he had never trusted anyone to know before now?

It had to be, he thought, desperate to dismiss the hollow feeling that had started to seep into his bones.

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