The Sheikh's Sinful Seduction(53)

                “Are you surprised?” she asked as she realized how much easier it would be for him if she’d been promiscuous. And even as her mind told her to change her answer—make things easy so maybe he wouldn’t hate her— she blurted, “Sorry I’m not a slut with a list of possible fathers—”

                He swung his gaze back. The hardness in his aqua eyes buttoned her lip.

                She felt enough of a slut as it was, whether he wanted to call her one or not. She clenched her pale fingers together, rather wishing for the warmth of a blush to take away this bone-deep chill.

                “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, his tone so tight with fury she flinched.

                “I didn’t think you would want to know,” she answered, hating how thin her voice had gone.

                Again with the glare that encased her in ice.

                “Was there something in the way I treat Tariq that suggested to you I would take no interest in my child?”

                “No.” She bowed her head under his stark condemnation. His relationship with his son had actually tempted her to tell him, But I didn’t want you to think I did this on purpose. We both know this is... She couldn’t bring herself to call her baby a mistake, but the situation was far from ideal. “You’re not happy, Zafir. You’re barely holding on to a civil tone.” She squirmed her fingers together. “It seemed better not to tell you.”

                “And do what instead?”

                “What do you mean?”

                “Are you keeping it?”

                “Obviously.” She waved at the size of her belly.

                “I mean, are you thinking to give it up for adoption or something?”

                “No!” The suggestion astonished her, never once occurring to her as a realistic possibility.

                He looked away again, not giving her a chance to read his eyes, but some of his animosity seemed to ease as he said with a husk of emotion, “So you want this baby.”

                “Yes! Why would you imagine anything else?”

                “You tried to keep my child out of my life, Fern. It follows that you might want to purge it from your own.” He swung his attention back to her and the force of his gaze kicked her low and hard.

                Maybe that was the baby, scolding her. She had worried, for about ten minutes, that she would begrudge her child for coming along when she’d finally been free of family obligation. But it wasn’t as if she had had high career plans or wanted to live fast. While her mother had felt cheated as a single parent and had made sure to let Fern know it, Fern viewed raising a child alone as a challenge, yes, but a fairly common one. Many women managed this. Yes, she worried about her future, but because her baby would depend on her. Taking care of another life was a responsibility she wanted to get right. She didn’t want to mess it up.

                But while she’d glossed very quickly past any thoughts of not keeping the baby, Zafir had obviously convinced himself she wouldn’t.

                “I knew almost from the moment I realized I was pregnant that I’d keep it,” she told him quietly. “But when I looked at all the factors...” She frowned at her twisting fingers, still unable to bring all the dangling threads together into anything less than a messy, painful knot. “It seemed like putting you in this position of acknowledging your child was more unfair than keeping you ignorant of it.”