LITMIR.BIZ

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icy, furious mask as he bent towards her, hands planted on either side of her. ‘We created a child together two months ago...and you were planning on telling me when?’ Eyes like twin black vortices filled her with blinding dread.

      Allegra nervously licked her lips. ‘I’d planned to get in touch after the conference.’

      ‘Because your schedule was too tight in the eight weeks prior to make time to deliver the news to the father of your child?’ he blazed down at her.

      ‘I didn’t find out until last month,’ she retorted.

      He gave a single dismissive shake of his head. ‘Don’t hide behind semantics. Did you plan this?’ he grated.

      She sucked in a horrified breath. ‘No!’

      ‘So we find ourselves in the position of being the one percent of individuals to suffer a failure of contraception.’ His eyes darkened and he straightened to his full, regal and bristling height. ‘Nevertheless, Allegra, you’ve known for a whole month.’

      ‘And it’s been a month of hell, I assure you,’ she countered before she could stop herself. ‘Don’t think I’ve had it easy, Rahim.’

      He stilled, his gaze narrow-eyed and piercing. ‘Define hell, if you please.’

      Despite the insanity of her situation, her pulse tripped at the exotic intonation of Rahim’s words. ‘You mean besides the twenty-four-hour nausea and the knowing I’d have to account to you at some point for what I did? Or that my child would suffer for any mistakes I make?’

      ‘Explain,’ he reiterated. ‘Make me understand how anything less than a personal catastrophe that rendered you deaf, dumb and blind excuses you from not telling me the moment you found out.’

      ‘How about being terrified that I’ll be a terrible parent?’ she slashed back, her innate flaw that had lived with her for so long surging to the surface.

      He propped his hands on his lean hips, a frown still wedged firmly between his brows. ‘I may be wrong in my assumption, but I doubt that expectant parents get the perfect blueprint detailing their potential brilliance in child rearing.’

      ‘Perhaps not, but templates matter. Whether we like it or not our pasts have a direct bearing on our future. It was why I never wanted children.’

      Colour leached from his usually vibrant complexion. ‘You want to get rid of the baby?’ he whispered jaggedly.

      ‘No!’ Allegra’s hand shot up, the very thought of not having this baby growing inside her filling her with desperate desolation. ‘It was what I believed I wanted before this happened. But now it’s here... I want it more than anything. Please believe me.’

      Rahim swallowed hard, his chest moving deeply as he exhaled. ‘I’m sure you’ll agree that asking me to believe you on anything will be a leap for me. How do I know you won’t change your mind again a week or two down the road?’ he asked imperiously from his eagle-eyed stance across the room.

      ‘I won’t!’ Her hand cradled her flat belly, her words and gesture both woefully inadequate against the ire raining down on her.

      ‘And I’m just to take your word for it? After you’ve admitted contemplating not having children in the first place?’

      Allegra scrambled round for the words to explain how she felt without exposing herself and her many flaws. ‘That was because I don’t know... I don’t think I’ll be a good mother, Rahim. Some women are built to be mothers. I’m not one of them.’

      ‘Why not? Because you take drugs on a regular basis, perhaps?’ he asked. ‘Tear around New York City while off your head with booze, hurling abuse at every child you come across?’

      ‘Of course not!’

      ‘Do you plan to?’ he pressed.

      ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Rahim.’ She stopped and calmed herself down. ‘I had planned to tell you about the baby, but I wasn’t sure how you would take it...whether you’d even want this child, especially...’

      ‘Especially what?’

      Her breath stuttered in her lungs. ‘With me as its mother.’

      He regarded her for a solid minute. His square jaw tilted upward, his whole body vibrating with suppressed anger. ‘I am a sheikh, Allegra, and you’re carrying the heir to my throne. That is the situation we find ourselves in. Wishing the reality we’re faced with to be different is a futile exercise.’

      Like a moth seeking a deadly flame, Allegra wanted to ask him to state in plain terms what he truly believed—that given the choice his heir would’ve been born by a different woman. A suitable woman. But she pulled back at the last moment, the sick dread and pain dredging through her already too much.

      ‘There is only one way to take this. For me to be fully involved in our child’s life,’ he stressed.

      ‘Rahim...’

      ‘There’s nothing more to say on the subject. If you truly want this child, then the only way is forward.’ Rahim’s frowning glance raked her from head to foot. ‘Is the morning sickness the reason you’ve lost so much weight?’

      She shrugged. ‘I guess.’

      ‘And you didn’t think to cancel this conference?’

      ‘I’m pregnant, Rahim, not suffering from a debilitating illness. This conference was important. Maybe even to Dar-Aman...’

      His head snapped up as if she’d offended him. ‘I see we’re back to dangling empty promises.’

      She sat forward and set the glass on the table. ‘It’s not an empty promise. I’ve done some more research since I got back. I think I can help the situation in Dar-Aman.’ She thought about what he was asking, and took a risky gamble. ‘If you could see it in your heart to let my grandfather keep the box, I’ll give you whatever...’

      ‘I don’t give a damn about the infernal box! Dammit, Allegra, you’re carrying my child. You think I care about a blasted trinket?’

      ‘I don’t know. Do you?’ she countered, unable to come right out and ask how he felt about the baby, besides the imperious and proprietorial claim he’d made on it.

      A single Arabic curse vaulted from his lips and he resumed pacing.

      Allegra stared, heart in her mouth, as he caught the top button of his pristine white shirt and ripped it open. His chest heaved, as if he was gripped in a fever. For endless minutes, he paced a tight circle in front of her. Just when she thought he’d rip a hole in the carpet, he snatched up his jacket.

      ‘I need to get out of here.’

      The breath exploded from her lungs at the thought that he was leaving. ‘What?’

      He launched a tight-lipped smile. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be back. And just in case you get it into your head to sneak off, I’ll be posting a bodyguard outside your suite. For your sake, I hope you don’t attempt anything foolhardy.’

      Allegra opened her mouth, but no words emerged. The sheer volley of emotions wrung from her in the past hour seemed to have affected her ability to speak. Silently, she watched him stab his arms through his jacket sleeves, the raised collar bracing his nape. For the first time since she met Rahim Al-Hadi, he looked dishevelled, but God, even that state was dangerously sexy enough to trigger a series of ripples through her belly.

      Her breathing altered, her pulse racing wildly as her gaze raked upward from his washboard torso, past his broad shoulders to his mouth.

      When her gaze clashed with his, Rahim froze, his eyes darkening dramatically as the air thickened and pulsed with volatile sensual charges.

      Pushing back the heavy fall of her hair, Allegra licked her tingling lower lip, the need cloying through her body almost unbearable.

      ‘Rahim...’

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