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‘What difference would it have made?’
‘Well, for a start if I’d known that yacht was yours, I’d never have taken a job on it!’ she fired back unanswerably.
Raif compressed his lips. ‘There is little point in exchanging what ifs or might-have-beens. You cannot blame me for an accident of birth.’
‘You’re aroyal,for goodness’ sake!’ she reminded him sharply.
‘A minor one. I’m third in the line of succession after my father but I have two older brothers, both married and likely to produce male heirs and the birth of each child will push me further down the inheritance line,’ he explained. ‘I grew up in the UK. I’m not an important person in Quristan.’
‘And you’re very rich,’ Claire remarked. ‘I would never have got involved with you had I known how unequal we were in status.’
‘Attraction trumps all such differences. At the time such thoughts weren’t important to either of us. I did not set out to mislead you in any way,’ he countered gently.
‘But you were happy toavoidtelling me about your real status.’
‘Was that so wrong? To enjoy being accepted simply as a man? I had had an altercation with my father that morning. I found freedom and peace in that cove for a few minutes of relaxation.’
‘And then I entered the picture and everything went to hell,’ Claire inserted doggedly.
‘I have not a single regret about what happened between us,’ Raif told her with conviction. ‘It was the most real connection I have ever enjoyed with a woman. Why would I wish that we had never met at all?’
‘You’ll regret it deeply once I tell you what I have to tell you,’ Claire warned him tautly.
Raif frowned as he lifted his tea from the tray. ‘So, talk...’
‘I’ve done a test and I’m pregnant,’ Claire informed him quietly.
He set down the tea with a jarring rattle of china. ‘Are you sure of this?’
‘The test was positive.’
He was pale now, his bone structure starkly outlined by his tension. ‘I didn’t think—’
‘No, neither did I,’ Claire cut in. ‘But we took a lot of risks that night. We had the accident with the contraception and then we went ahead twice more without protection.’
His high cheekbones were edged with slight colour now. He had taken to sex with all the enthusiasm of a sex-starved healthy man. He had run an insane risk with very little encouragement. Keeping his hands off Claire had proved impossible and the withdrawal method he had sought to embrace had been more challenging than he had envisaged. He had had no restraint, no control with her and that was one very good reason why he had left her before he could succumb to the temptation of waking her upagain. And still he wakened every morning, remembering the hot, tight glory of her curvaceous body writhing against his own and the high of every single climax they had shared. She had blown his every expectation out of the water and he had gloried in every indulgent moment of their intimacy.
And now she was carrying his child. That knowledge stunned Raif. He could barely credit it when he had assumed that he would never have a family of his own. ‘When did you find out?’
‘Today. I didn’t do the test until I had to. I was avoiding it, burying my head in the sand. I’m at least two months along already,’ she admitted uncomfortably.
He pulled out his phone and rang a number, spoke in French to whoever was answering and at length. ‘We will see a doctor together this evening if it can be arranged. We need official confirmation of that test of yours before we go any further.’
‘There isn’t a possibility of a mistake,’ she protested. ‘And I need to get back to work. The excuse of needing a few hours off to take care of Circe has lasted long enough.’
‘You can’t work in a kitchen when you’re pregnant,’ Raif said with a straight face that told her he was being completely serious in voicing that belief. ‘You could have an accident. You could hurt yourself or the baby.’
‘Raif,’ Claire murmured gently. ‘Pregnant women have been cooking on everything from campfires to stoves for thousands of years.’
His ebony brows drew together. ‘Youwill not. I do not want anything to happen to either of you. I am sure any doctor would agree with me.’
‘So, you’re presumably not hoping that I will consider a termination or an adoption?’ Claire gathered with relief at that reasonable assumption.
‘Of course not. A child is precious and I could not bear to part with my own flesh and blood,’ he responded, frowning again. ‘How could you think that I would want or dare to suggest such remedies?’
‘We don’t know each other well enough for me to assume how you are likely to respond to this situation. But I do assure you that no doctor is likely to tell you that it’s dangerous for me to cook,’ Claire stated wryly.
His phone buzzed and he answered it with a frown, which slowly cleared. A couple of minutes later, he shoved the phone back into his pocket. ‘We have an appointment with an obstetrician in an hour,’ he informed her.
