‘You’re not prepared to wait another few days for a more accurate confirmation so we’ll try things your way. But I’m agreeing on the basis that we will follow it up with more precise blood tests when the time comes.’
She’d had time to grow more familiar with the intricate layout of the Royal Palace in the last week and a half, so within a minute she knew they were headed for
Zaid’s private chambers.
‘We’re going to do the pregnancy test now?’ she blurted, suddenly unsure whether she was prepared for it. Whether she was prepared for her future, her possible departure, to be made finite.
He slanted her a narrow-eyed look. ‘Isn’t that what you’ve been angling for?’
‘But we... I don’t have any kits.’ She’d been unwilling to ask Nashwa to buy any for her because she hadn’t wanted the speculation she knew was brewing to overflow.
She watched Zaid calmly extract his phone and hit dial. After a few terse words were exchanged he hung up. ‘Problem solved.’
She’d got what she wanted. And yet apprehension clawed up her spine the closer they got to his private wing. In minutes she’d know if her fate would be sealed with Zaid’s for ever, or whether the clock would be starting a wind-down of her time in his life.
Esme wasn’t surprised to see Fawzi waiting inside Zaid’s lush, private living room with a rectangular box that looked like it had been dug straight out of Aladdin’s treasure chest. With a deep bow and a cryptic look at her he handed the box over and left the room.
Zaid released her, then lifted the lid of the box. Inside, on a bed of red velvet, lay two early pregnancy test kits still sealed in their containers. He picked them up and held them out to her.
Her breath stalled in her lungs. The moment of truth.
Her fingers trembled as she took the items from him. A look at his face showed he too was in the throes of a deep, earth-shattering emotion. He set the box down and silently walked her through a set of white double doors that led to a bathroom.
The space was as jaw dropping as the rest of the palace, if not even more so. But all Esme could concentrate on was the fate that awaited her minutes from now.
And fate rammed home, loud and terrifying, in two sets of thick blue lines.
She had no recollection of walking back to the bathroom doors or opening them. Only of Zaid, tall and proud, breath held and immovable before her.
Waiting for the words she couldn’t keep inside any more. ‘I’m pregnant.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
SHE DIDN’T RECALL much of the moments following her announcement. It was as if those two words, once uttered, had expanded to fill every atom of her life. But, somehow, between one moment and the next, she was lying on a long velvet sofa with a grim, slightly pale Zaid crouched over her.
‘What...what happened?’ she ventured.
Eyes turned a dark bronze pierced almost accusingly into her. ‘It seems I was wrong in thinking rationality would prevail once you had your answer. Instead, the knowledge that you’re pregnant with my child seems to have adversely overcome you. You delivered the news and then promptly collapsed,’ he stated sombrely.
Esme felt the room sway as the reality of it kicked her hard. She was pregnant. With Zaid’s child.
Oh, God.
She shut her eyes. Took a shallow breath, then another when the first didn’t quite make it to her lungs. When that didn’t work, she gulped some more.
‘It would please me greatly if you would stop hyperventilating.’
Because it wasn’t good for the baby? She forced herself to take the next breath more slowly.
‘Open your eyes, Esmeralda. We need to face this together,’ he instructed heavily.
She obeyed only because he was right, no matter how much she wanted to slip into oblivion. He looked graver than before. ‘Zaid...’ Her voice was a choked noise that sounded worse lying down. She started to sit, only to find herself being pressed firmly back.
‘Don’t get up. The doctor is on his way.’
She started. ‘What? I don’t need a doctor!’
‘That’s a matter of opinion. Unfortunately for you, fainting into my arms takes the decision out of your hands.’