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Chapter 6
NOT ONLY WAS ZAFAR awake when her eyes blinked open, he looked as though he’d been awake for hours. He wore only a pair of sweatpants, his torso bare, covered in perspiration, his hair wet.
“I’ve been for a run,” he explained, catching her staring.
Heat suffused her cheeks. “So? I don’t need you to account your whereabouts to me, Zafar.”
She brushed her hair behind her ears, feeling self-conscious despite the fact she’d woken up with him many times in the past. This was different. They were married now. Her eyes strayed to the enormous diamond she wore on her ring finger, glinting back at her until her eyes ached from the brightness.
“I wasn’t sure if you can drink coffee, in your condition,” he said, avoiding her confrontational rejoinder. “So I asked for both tea and coffee, in case.”
“I — my doctor says a little coffee is fine.”
In response, Zafar sat on the foot of the bed, his body language relaxed. In direct contradiction, her own heart rate accelerated with his proximity. She fought an urge to slip out of the other side of the bed, running away from him.
“What else does your doctor say?”
She swallowed past a thickening throat. “In general?”
“No, specifically about our baby.”
Millie’s fingers glided over the sheet. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything.” The intensity burning in his eyes underscored that.
A sense of something like relief passed through Millie. He wanted to know about the baby. He cared about their child. This was why they’d married.
“Okay,” she nodded slowly. “Then we’ll talk. Can you give me a few minutes though?”
His impatience was obvious. It sparked from his eyes and into the room, lighting invisible fireworks around them, but he stood, acquiescence in his features. “Fine.” He moved towards the door and hesitated a moment. “I’ll wait out there.”
She didn’t intentionally delay, but the shower felt so good, the warmth on a sore lower back and aching breasts providing relief she badly needed, so that Millie found herself standing under the warm water for a long time, consciously pushing thoughts from her mind and allowing herself to simply be in the moment. It was a coping technique she’d learned after Jack’s death. At times, the grief had threatened to envelop her completely, thoughts of ‘what if’ and ‘why him’ running around and around in her mind until she wanted to scream! But forcing herself to concentrate on small things in the present, her breathing, the lighting in the room, the sensation of water on her back, had given her the ability to temporarily dull her mind to the noise of pain.
Zafar was standing when she entered, still shirtless so it was impossible for her steps not to falter as her gaze skidded to his chest, undertaking a swift, hungry inspection of his etched pectoral muscles. Heat fired through her, and she pulled her attention away, focussing on the coffee cup in his hands instead.
“Would you like one?” His voice was calm, not revealing if he’d seen her blatant staring or not.
She nodded. “Coffee, please. I don’t really drink much, but I didn’t sleep that well last night. You know, a new bed and all that,” she murmured, feeling heat burn her cheeks.
“That and the fact I take up too much space?”
A hint of a smile teased her lips. “And that.”
He smiled back at her and Millie’s heart shifted tempo. Careful. It had always been easy to enjoy herself around Zafar, but she couldn’t allow her guard to drop this time.
A beautiful silver tray rested on the tabletop. Zafar poured a coffee from an ornate pot with a very long spout, the steaming liquid aromatic so Millie breathed in deeply to catch as much of the fragrance as she could.
“Thank you,” she murmured, moving forward to lift the cup, forestalling the need for him to lift it and hand it to her. She cradled it in both hands, skirting around the table and taking a seat opposite.
“There are pastries, fruit, yoghurt. You never used to like cooked breakfasts, but if that’s changed, I’ll have something else sent up.”
It meant nothing that he remembered her breakfast preferences. He was just wired that way – a man who paid attention to details, who recalled everything. “This will be fine.” She reached for a pistachio and pear pastry, placing it on a delicate plate then lifting her fingers to her lips and tasting the sticky glaze. Her eyes swept shut at the delicious flavour, and when she opened them, he was watching her in a way that was definitely bad for her blood pressure. She dropped her hand swiftly.
“You always loved these.” His accent was more pronounced, darkened by something that she could almost have said was pain.
Millie straightened her spine. “Yes. Well, they’re delicious. Who wouldn’t?”
Her pragmatic tone seemed to cut through whatever he’d been thinking. Zafar took the seat opposite, stretching out his long legs beneath the table and crossing them at the ankles, so that they brushed Millie’s feet and she startled.
