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Chapter 2
OF COURSE, HE CAUGHT her easily, his broad, muscular body dripping in water, his hand curving around her wrist possessively, slowing her until she turned to face him, his lips a grim line in his face as he stared down at her, as though he could read the truth simply by looking.
“Amelia?” He demanded, after a moment. But other than the sharp invocation of her name, he was speechless, the great Sheikh Zafar al Habib unable to form a sentence. His eyes bore into hers, and then, with sure, determined fingers, he loosened the belt at her waist, challenging her to refuse him, challenging her to say something to him.
She didn’t.
Amelia was held completely silent, the reality of their situation stabbing her from all directions, her throat thick with the power of what he was discovering, her mind racing with ways to soften this discovery for him.
The robe fell apart, revealing what he’d obviously glimpsed a moment ago. While she was still petite, it was impossible to disguise the burgeoning of her pregnancy, the life growing beneath her skin.
“You’re pregnant.” He said the words with unguarded surprise, as though she’d sprouted two heads, as though this was the very last thing he’d expected. And of course it was! Why should he have suddenly intuited that she was having his baby?
Heat burst through her cheeks and her eyes ran from his.
“Amelia?” He demanded, with urgency. “Is it true?”
“No, I’ve just had a big dinner,” she responded sarcastically. His face was like a thunderclap; she shivered. “Yes. I’m pregnant.”
She didn’t speak his language, but she understood a curse word when she heard it. “You’re having a baby.”
It was a reality she was still struggling to grapple with. Millie was on the brink of becoming a single mother. While lots of women seemed to do that effortlessly, Millie had experienced a front row seat to how hard it was and she didn’t know how she’d ever make it work. The question kept running through her mind, over and over again. How could she put her baby through this? And her mother, still grieving James’s death and paying for the experimental treatment in America, couldn’t offer help or support. Millie was completely on her own. She pulled her robe back in place, taking a step away from him and nodding her head once.
“But…how?”
She arched a brow despite the seriousness of their conversation. “Really?”
“You’re not married.”
“That’s not a prerequisite to making a baby, you know.”
His features grew more strained. “I’m aware of that. But you wanted ‘marriage, babies’. I distinctly remember the list you enumerated.”
She flinched, her naïve words taunting her through the corridor of time. What a fool she’d been then! To actually think this man would offer her that.
“Is it his?”
It took Millie several seconds to understand his meaning. He could only be referring to Gareth, given that they’d been dancing together at the wedding, hours earlier.
She was at a crossroads. How easy it would be to lie to him – even just to buy for time! To tell him the baby was indeed another man’s, push him away, and then, only when safely back in England, send him a polite email informing him of the truth. Zafar didn’t need to know he was the only man she’d ever slept with, the only man who could possibly be the father of her child.
But looking at him now, she was conscious of the baby inside of her—he or she deserved better than that lie. To cast even a hint of doubt on their parentage, just to escape an awkward conversation? That was beneath her.
Millie straightened her spine, forcing herself to meet his eyes even when the power of his look made her heart hurt.
“No. It’s not Gareth’s.”
“Then —,” he let the word hover between them, probing her, waiting, watching. Had he realised?
“I’m five months pregnant,” she said quietly. “I found out a month after your father’s funeral.”
Zafar’s gaze narrowed, disbelief etching lines at the corner of his mouth.
“The baby’s yours, Zafar.”
His eyes swept shut, immediately blotting her from being able to see and understand, pushing her away as he was so good at doing. Another curse hissed from his lips, and then he pierced her with his gaze once more.
“Are you certain?”
