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Chapter 28
Ana
For a long time, Vahadr doesn’t do anything at all.
And when he finally turns to look at me, his face is entirely shuttered.
“Pardon me?”
I take another quick breath in, guilt and shame bubbling in me for having kept this from him for so long out of selfish, stupid fear. If I’d just swallowed my reservations, told him as soon as I’d found out, I could have saved him so much stress…
“She isn’t his biological mother,” I say quietly, and I feel horrible, so horrible. “I broke past the firewalls of the surrogacy company you used, and after a lot of digging I found…I found confidential records that prove he isn’t related to her in any way. The company lied, Nkina never supplied any of her eggs at all. They impregnated the surrogate directly with your sperm without her consent or knowledge and…and so, Nkina isn’t his mother. She doesn’t have any claim, she can’t take him.”
Vahadr continues to just stare at me.
“From everything I’ve seen and heard,” I continue, and I struggle with holding his eyes at the utterly blank, cold way he’s looking at me, “I think that Nkina must have paid the company to use somebody else’s eggs and keep it all hushed up. Maybe she knew she was going to leave you right from the start, maybe that’s why she didn’t want to really have a child with you.”
Slowly, Vahadr sits up. His expression remains eerily unchanged as he shifts his body to face me.
“How,” he says in a voice so blank and flat that it sends a shiver down my spine, “did you know that we used a surrogate?”
“What?”
“How did you know?” He leans his hand down against the mattress and stares at me. “That is not a matter of public record.”
For some reason, my heartbeat increases at his lack of expression, at the utterly still way he sits. “Oh, but…I thought people knew? You said the other day, with your mother—”
“I said that Asili was inseminated in a lab. I did not divulge that a surrogate was used, and certainly did not reveal which out of the thousands of surrogacy companies galaxy-wide we employed.”
I stare at him, and he remains unflinching.
“We moved to a private holiday house during the entire pregnancy term, and kept Nkina out of the media’s eye. The public does not know, the staff do not know, my own mother was not even told.” He shifts just a little bit forward, and his cold eyes bore into mine. “So tell me, Analina. How did you know?”
Why do I feel…kind of scared?
“Because my sister was the surrogate,” I whisper.
He takes a sharp breath in through his nose, and leans back. “And did you learn this before or after you so fortuitously stumbled across Asili at that press release.”
Suddenly, this is all looking a lot worse than I thought it would.
“Answer me now, Analina.”
“B-before.”
“I see.” He swings his legs off the bed, turning his back to me, and braces both arms on the mattress beside his thighs. When he leans forward slightly, the white expanse of his shoulders shrug up and his back muscles shift. When he speaks again, he doesn’t turn to look at me.
“Did you search out my son intentionally that day, despite your claims that you had no idea who he was?”
My breath hiccups in my throat, and I hug the pillow against my chest. “Yes, but, Vahadr—”
“That’s enough,” he says in a mild, clipped tone, and he stands up. All words catch in my throat as I watch him walk around the bed, pick up his clothes, and step into his pants with a calm efficiency.
“Pass me my com, will you?”
I’m almost on autopilot as I hand him his Snap, and he secures it around his wrist and shrugs on his shirt without buttoning it. Then he begins to pick up my clothes, and I force my voice out of my frozen throat.
“Vahadr, I don’t know what you think, but—”
