Her jerky inhale wobbled the glass in her hands. ‘I said I’m not sick, but I can’t go to prison because I’m pregnant.’ She raised her head then, and stared back at him with eyes black with despair. ‘I’m carrying your child, Rahim.’
CHAPTER TEN
WITH THE LIFE-ALTERING words uttered, Allegra held her breath, expecting the world to crash around her. After all, who would want a virtual stranger with questionable integrity to suddenly announce they were to be the mother of your unborn child in a little over seven months?
Allegra hadn’t quite got over her shock of seeing Rahim again. She’d barely been able to keep it together on the stage after spotting him seated right in front of her, his body draped in a three-piece designer suit, and his face draped in volcanic rage.
Conducting her speech, knowing she faced an epic battle for survival that could very well end her once the conference was over, had been the most difficult thing Allegra had done.
Or so she’d thought...
At the continued thick silence that chilled her to the soul, Allegra glanced up. ‘Say something. Please.’
Rahim’s face was frozen. And ashen. Only his eyes moved. They searched her face, then dropped to her stomach for several tense heartbeats, before they snapped back up.
‘You’re pregnant.’ His voice was a rough husk, all emotion bled from it. ‘With my child. My heir?’
‘Y-yes.’
He jumped to his feet, paced with jerky strides to the opposite sofa. Shrugging off his bespoke Savile Row suit jacket, he flung it down. His vest and pinstripe tie met the same fate. Then he was heading back for her, his face an 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 swall
owed 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?’