He nodded, and strolled back to the table. Grabbing a white paper bag, he handed it to her. ‘Before the doctor comes let’s make absolutely sure of your state, shall we?’
Still frowning, she took the bag, looked inside. ‘A pregnancy test...’ She wasn’t sure why the band tightened around her chest. She’d planned on getting one anyway. But Gael doing so seemed...hurtful.
‘We need to be equipped with as much information as possible going forward, do we not?’
The explanation dissolved a little of her hurt, but not all of it she noted as she nodded and headed for the bathroom.
Gael was standing at the wide rectangular windows staring out at the view when she emerged from the bathroom. He turned immediately when she walked into the room, his narrowed eyes piercing hers before dropping to the two sticks clutched in her fist. Quick strides forward brought him unapologetically into her personal space.
‘Well?’ he breathed, his eyes gleaming with a feverish look.
Goldie swallowed. ‘Yes.’ She handed him both sticks.
He stared down at the tests, his gaze riveted on the writing displayed on the tiny screen.
Pregnant. 3+ Weeks
After an age, he tossed both tests onto the console table behind her. Closing the gap between them, he speared his fingers into her hair, angled her head up so she couldn’t look away from him.
‘You’re carrying my child.’
The primal claim in those four words was unmistakable.
Her breath shook as she nodded.
The palms cupping her cheeks firmed, as if he was focusing her attention ready for his next words. He pulled her close until their faces were inches from each other’s.
‘Do you accept that this fundamentally changes your life, Goldie?’
The depth of his belief in the words almost shook her enough to frighten her. But she’d worked too hard for the life she’d chiselled out for herself to cower beneath anyone’s will.
‘No, I don’t. I’m sorry, Gael, but it doesn’t.’
CHAPTER NINE
IT DOESN’T.
For a few seconds Gael was sure he’d misheard. Then he remembered exactly who he was dealing with. A woman with an iron will almost as strong as his own.
The woman carrying his child.
Surprisingly, his senses had stopped reeling somewhere in the middle of the night—between Goldie’s first and second vomiting sessions. The test he’d procured first thing, when he’d thought she was still sleeping had merely been the instrument to slide that last one per cent of doubt from red to green.
The one and only time
a woman had tried to trick him into fatherhood before, her quest had been tentative and ultimately bungled. Heidi had hinted at pregnancy towards the end of their time together—most likely to test the waters and her chances in the marital stakes. Gael’s firm shut-down had resulted in a firm retraction of her fictional state.
Not so with Goldie. Her conviction had been firm, which in turn had cemented his.
She was carrying his child.
He was going to be a father.
But she didn’t think it was a life-changing situation for her. What did that mean?
‘Perdón?’ Realising he’d lapsed into his mother tongue, he shook his head. ‘What do you mean, it doesn’t?’
She licked her lower lip, triggering a wave of heat through his groin. Nothing that had happened in the last twelve hours had changed the red-hot chemistry between them. If anything, the changes in her body had lent her skin a deeper glow, made her even more voluptuous and unbelievably stunning and heightened the awareness between them. A fact his body was reacting to in the most primal way.