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“Well, just try to stick to your side,” she sobered, pulling the soft cotton sheet up to beneath her chin. She’d lost track of time – it was somewhere around midnight, just before, perhaps just after. The night was warm, the desert breeze offering little relief from the heat. She lay there, clinging to the edge of the mattress, eyes on the wall across the room, heart thudding too fast for sleep.
His breathing was rhythmic, and she listened to it with increasing envy. Of course he’d fallen asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow. Leave it to Zafar to be able to blot out the turmoil of the day as though it had never happened. What did she expect from someone who didn’t care about marriage? He never wanted to get married, so why would it matter that he now was?
She shifted a little, curving her hand over her stomach, feeling the roundness there and connecting with the little person growing inside her. Their baby. Would their child have Zafar’s complexion? His nose? His expressive eyes? Would the baby love swimming, as she did? And reading about history? Would they get dimpled cheeks like hers when they laughed? Strange, as a nineteen year old, grieving the loss of her brother, Millie had let her imagination run away from her. She’d imagined having a baby with Zafar – not immediately, but one day, and she’d seen that little person so clearly in her mind. She’d imagined herself pregnant with a shrunk down Zafar, and she’d loved that little person, just as she did this one.
It was almost as if this baby had been conceived the night they’d met. What else could explain the overpowering attraction she’d felt for him? The fact she’d been drawn to him again and again, including as recently as five months ago, when she knew who he was and what he wanted from her? Maybe, on some subconscious level, she’d wanted to fall pregnant? Except they’d used protection, and she’d been totally bowled over when she’d done the pregnancy test.
“If you keep wriggling like that, neither of us is going to get any sleep.”
She flopped onto her back, angling her face to his. “You were already asleep.”
“Guess again.”
Her stomach rolled in a familiar way, her awareness of him burning through to her core.
“What is it?” He pushed up onto one elbow to study her.
Millie pulled a face. “Do you even need to ask?”
His response was a simple lift of one eyebrow. “You’re upset?”
“No. I mean, yes. I don’t know. I’m — weirded out, I guess.”
“Weirded out?” He repeated with a lift of a brow.
“In a million years, I never thought I’d be in this position. Married to you, expecting your baby. If you’d told me this when I first left Abu Qara I would have said it was impossible. I was determined then that I’d never see you again.”
“So why did you?”
“What do you mean?”
“The funeral. Why did you come? You knew I’d be there.”
“Umm, I came for Farrah,” she reminded him. “Remember? My best friend?”
“She had Arthur with her.”
“So? That doesn’t change anything. Of course I wanted to support her. Do you have so few friends that the concept of that kind of loyalty is foreign to you?”
His lip tightened into an approximation of a smile. “Do you realise you go on the attack when you feel backed into a corner?”
“I don’t feel backed into a corner and I’m not attacking you. You’re just so incredibly egocentric to think that I came to the funeral for you. You’re the one who came to my room, who kissed me. You’re the one who made love to me then disappeared into thin air the next morning.”
“And if I hadn’t come to you, would you have sought me out?” He pushed, and either Zafar or Millie had moved, because there wasn’t a gulf of bed between them anymore. Just a few inches of crisp white sheet separated them.
“No.”
“You would truly have left Abu Qara without speaking to me?”
“I didn’t come here for you,” she reminded him darkly.
“I don’t believe it.”
“Why not?”
In response, he lifted one bronzed shoulder, so her eyes fell to the movement, his skin smooth and supple. Her fingertips ached to reach for him. She kept her hands curled around the sheet. “Because we’re magnetic.”
It was a strange, apt thing to say. She’d felt that too – an overpowering compulsion to be near him, even just in his orbit. His eyes held a silent challenge as his hand reached out slowly, giving her plenty of time to stop him. His fingers unfurled the sheet, the challenge still there, as he laced their fingers together.
“See?”
She did see, but she wasn’t ready to admit that to him yet. She pulled her hand away, flipped onto her side and squeezed her eyes shut. The sound of his sardonic chuckle filled her ears and eventually her dreams. Four months, and then they’d divorce. She could stay strong for that window of time, couldn’t she?
