CHAPTER ELEVEN
SHE REMAINED FROZEN, struck dumb, as he strode determinedly to her bedside. Fervently he searched her features. His fingers flexed at his sides but he didn’t reach for her.
‘How do you feel?’
Her fingers tightened on the luxurious bedspread as she fought to keep her crazy pulse from leaping out of control at his breath-stealing masculine beauty. He was barred to her, she reminded herself. Completely and conclusively. Somewhere in the last hour she’d accepted that her time with Remi was limited. This was her last chance to hoard memories of him.
She licked nervous lips and forced herself to meet his gaze. ‘I’m fine. The headache is gone.’
Those all-seeing eyes lingered, dropped to her mouth, and just like that the atmosphere thickened. But this time it was overlaid with an intensity unlike anything she’d ever known.
‘Fate hasn’t been good to me...’
‘Whatever that entails, we tackle this...’
‘What...what exactly do you want to tackle?’
He didn’t speak immediately, simply continued to watch her with a spine-jarring ferocity that stole her breath.
Time ticked by. The merest frown creased his eyebrow before his face slowly went slack. It was the kind of expression triggered by dawning realisation. Or emotionless calculation.
Self-preservation screamed at Maddie to turn away, to hide from that look in his eyes. But she couldn’t move.
Whatever the future held, it was time for her to face it.
* * *
Remi stared down at his wife, the staggering realisation of the last hour slaying him anew.
The last three weeks without her had been hell, with each day worse than the last, because she was the missing part of him he’d never even known he’d lost. He’d planned to tell her that tomorrow. To lay it all on the line when things weren’t so volatile between them. But he hadn’t even been able to undress, never mind find any semblance of respite.
The staggering notion that time was slipping through his fingers had been overwhelming. And, really, hadn’t he wasted enough time? Hadn’t he known from that moment she got into his car that Madeleine Myers possessed the ability to shift his world off its axis in the most profound, life-changing way?
How could he have slept, knowing that tomorrow might be too late? That he might lose the woman who held his heart, held his child within her womb?
He shifted his gaze over her face again, fighting the trepidation in his chest, scrambling for words adequate enough to combat that look in her eyes he knew didn’t bode well for him. For weeks he’d pushed her away. What if...?
‘Madeleine...’
‘What is it, Remi? What did you come to say to me?’
He took a long, ragged breath. ‘That I’m a husband who has neglected his wife for far too long. I won’t be making that mistake again.’
Her breath shook but she held his gaze. ‘If this is about confirming my pregnancy, you can go ahead and call the doctor. Neither of us is going to get any sleep anyway. It’s best we find out now. But you should know that after that things will change, Remi.’
His heart dropped into his stomach, ice and heat engulfing him simultaneously. He wanted to prolong the eventuality. Wanted to speak the words tripping on his tongue. But for the first time in his life the right words wouldn’t form. So he picked up the phone and summoned his physician.
He arrived within half an hour. Endless minutes during which his words still remained locked in his throat, his fate hanging on a knife-edge.
‘Royal protocol dictates that the test result be as accurate as possible. A blood test is the most definitive,’ Remi heard the physician tell her.
‘Right. Of course. And how long before...?’
Remi’s vocal cords finally unfroze. ‘A matter of hours, I believe?’ he replied, his heart racing frantically.
Maddie’s breath caught, her gaze finding his. ‘Are you...are you going to stay?’
Remi nodded, walked to her side on legs that felt unsteady. ‘If it pleases you, I’d very much like us to find out together.’