She was barely through the door before he was speaking.
‘You’re pregnant.’
His voice seemed palpably colder now. More forbidding. Or perhaps it was just her nerves. Behind her the door closed with a soft click. It might as well have been the clang of prison gates but somehow it offered her the strength she needed.
‘Clearly pregnant,’ he added.
Had her hand wandered to the obvious swell of her abdomen before or after his observation? Lifting her head, Archie met his eyes, not allowing her voice to falter for a second. Though how she managed it, she would never know.
‘Yes.’
‘We used protection,’ he stated flatly.
A statement but not a defence. As though he didn’t exactly disbelieve her. She was grateful for that much, at least. It allowed her to soften her voice somewhat.
‘Not that first time.’
‘So he or she really is mine?’
It felt like a slap across her face, although she supposed it was a reasonable enough question. Still, she couldn’t seem to prise her jaws apart, answering him through gritted teeth.
‘Who else’s would it be, Kaspar? The invisible man’s? I’m not in the habit of picking up random men or sleeping around. Yes, it’s your baby. Our baby.’
It was impossible to follow the flurry of emotions that passed across his face. But, then, he had always been the poster-boy for denial. Pretending that he was happy, that his family life was fine, to his friends, his school, the world, when her family had seen first-hand how broken he’d been inside. How he’d spent every school holiday with them, along with his nanny, Maggie, just to avoid being dragged into yet another of his parents’ twisted games against each other.
‘He or she,’ he bit out flatly.
‘Sorry?’
‘Say he or say she. Don’t call the baby an it.’
She frowned, confused.
‘I don’t know whether it’s a boy or a girl. I didn’t find out. I didn’t want to.’
‘I don’t care,’ he growled, the unexpectedly menacing quality to his tone making her skin prickle. ‘This baby is not an it. Pick he or she, interchange them, or I’ll call her a she while you call him a he, for all I care. Just don’t ever use the term it again.’
Fury swirled in his words, but it was the look of torment behind his eyes that really clutched at her, squeezing at her heart. A torment that made her wonder about the childhood she’d pieced together from things she remembered, things her father had said, things she’d read.
‘Okay.’ She dipped her head. ‘I’ll say he, you can say she.’
He didn’t reply, but his lips curled in what she took to be a silent thank you.
‘So you’re...’
‘Twenty weeks,’ she cut in, barely able to help herself. Although he wouldn’t have any idea how significant that was to her.
‘You should have told me,’ Kaspar bit out, and she had to protect herself against the kick of emotion. The irrational fear that by talking about it she was somehow jinxing things.
‘Would you really have wanted to know?’
‘That has nothing to do wit
h it,’ he almost snarled. ‘You’ve had five months to tell me.’
He hadn’t denied it. And even though she’d known the answer before she’d even asked the question, it still hurt.
But she couldn’t let him see that. It took everything she had to keep her voice even.