“No? And how do you know that?”
“Because I already am,” she blurted. “Your sure-fired way all the other times we came together . . . well, it’s not quite one hundred percent effective. Given my lateness, it probably happened the first time we were together.”
Ice swept over him. “You lie.”
She gasped and staggered a step back. Hellfire. Had he just accused her of lying? Of something like this?
He shook his head, feeling the warmth return to his face. “No. That is to say . . . you’re mistaken. It cannot be.”
“Oh. It can be. It is. I’m having our child.”
“You can’t know that yet,” he insisted.
“Oh, I know. I’ve been in denial, wanting to prolong telling you, but I am.”
He angled his head, an uneasy feeling stirring in the pit of his stomach. Something in her face. In her voice. She never looked so hard before. So untouchable.
She exhaled, a brittle smile playing about her mouth. “I’m already with child,” she repeated.
“You can’t be. I didn’t . . .”
“Yes, well, that apparently didn’t work.”
He grabbed her by the arms and gave her a gentle shake. “You are certain?”
“Fairly certain. I’m late . . .” She sighed. “I’m never late.”
He dropped his hands from her and took a step back. Then another one.
The idea of having a child . . . being a father . . .
He couldn’t wrap his mind around it. He had long rejected it as a choice or a possibility. He could not fathom it.
“This . . .” He couldn’t think what to say. How to react. It had only been two weeks since that night. She could be mistaken. “So you are not absolutely positive.”
She stared at him, the light fading from her eyes. A candle snuffed out, her brown eyes gazed flatly at him. “You can always hope.”
She turned then and continued to her room. She moved like she was tired. A tired, beaten woman. Not the vibrant lover who had moved over him just moments ago.
He opened his mouth to call out to her but no sound escaped. Nor could he force his legs to move to go after her. He watched her disappear inside her chamber. And still he stood in the center of the corridor.
The ground was no longer solid beneath his feet. Everything he ever thought he knew. Gone.
Aurelia carried his child. He was going to be a father. With a curse, he charged into his bedchamber and headed for the decanter of whiskey. He didn’t bother with a glass.
Chapter 24
The following morning, Aurelia didn’t wait for Cecily before she was up. Awake, dressed, and already packed.
The moment she entered her bedchamber last night, she had flung herself on the bed and had a long, bitter cry.
She had wept for herself. She wept for her unborn child. And she wept for Max. Because he would never allow himself the love she or this child could give him. One look at his face and she knew. He was horrified. He could not hide it. He could not pretend otherwise.
In a short time she had become his worst nightmare. Both his wife and the mother of his child. Neither two things he ever wanted.
Oh, she loved him. She knew it now. She doubted she had ever stopped. Not since she was nine. She slapped a rogue tear trailing down her cheek. Apparently she had not spent all her tears yet. But he wouldn’t let himself love or be loved. And she wouldn’t stay here, taking whatever scraps he tossed at her. She certainly couldn’t allow her child to feel that way. Ignored. Neglected. Occasionally acknowledged with just enough attention for he or she to know what she was missing.