Prince Nadir's Secret Heir(35)

                I’m a patient man. I can wait.

                So much for her earlier assumption that he didn’t want to sleep with her. The man would obviously sleep with anyone but he’d be waiting a long time if he thought he could use her to slake his hunger for a night. Been there, done that and now had the baby to prove it! A baby who didn’t need him.

                Deciding that starting with that statement would be like waving a red flag at an irritated bull, she went straight to the second half of her plan instead.

                ‘So.’ She cleared her throat yet again. ‘Given that you said that you wanted to be part of Nadeena’s life, I looked up some alternative options for us that don’t include marriage.’

                ‘Good for you.’

                His response was frosty but at least it cooled the air between them and she wouldn’t let it put her off. She narrowed her eyes as he crossed his ankle over his knee and then she calmly folded her hands in her lap. ‘So it’s obviously not an in-depth analysis, but from what I can tell there’s legal custody and physical custody and they’re quite different from each other.’

                ‘Are they?’

                His laconic response reeked of disinterest and Imogen did her best to cap her irritation. ‘Yes. They are. Legal custody is about who makes decisions for the child and can be sole or joint and physical custody is about seeing the child. Again, that can be either sole or joint and that breaks down into supervised and unsupervised and even virtual visits nowadays.’ She took a deep breath and rushed on before he could interject. ‘There’s also the issue of how to split the time and it seems that the most popular is for the father to visit the child every second weekend and on public holidays. Unless you want to go the virtual route, of course.’

                ‘Of course.’

                Imogen waited for him to say more. When he just smiled and curved his hands behind his head she suspected he was toying with her. ‘Well?’ she prompted stiffly.

                ‘I can see you’ve put quite a bit of effort into this.’

                Imogen sucked in a litre of air and released it slowly. Perhaps she’d been wrong and he wasn’t toying with her. Perhaps he was going to be cooperative and let her go. ‘Not really.’ She gave him a small smile that seemed to stretch her dry lips to the point of cracking. ‘But it’s a start.’

                And, perversely, the possibility that he might agree with her didn’t thrill her the way she had imagined it would. Instead, she felt unaccountably disappointed and realised just how much she still wished that their relationship in Paris could have progressed like so many other happy couples did. Couples like Minh and David, who loved each other so much they would do anything for the other person.

                She sighed. What had her mother always said? If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. Such an old-fashioned saying, passed down through the generations. Would she pass it on to Nadeena with that same air of inevitability?

                ‘Tell me,’ he began conversationally, ‘did the Internet mention the custody arrangements for a woman who kept her child’s birth a secret from its father?’

                No, he was not going to be cooperative and icy shivers tripped down her spine as she saw that she had angered him again ‘No,’ she bit out tersely.

                ‘Then you’re right—’ his smile was even tighter than hers ‘—when you say that your analysis isn’t very complete. And furthermore,’ he drawled with icy control, ‘while you might be happy sharing custody of our daughter, I am not.’