‘What is it?’ Shahir asked instantly.
‘Pain,’ she framed breathlessly. ‘It’s really bad!’
His magnificent bone structure set hard below the bronzed skin. He addressed his brother in urgent Arabic and then bent down to lift Kirsten slowly and gently up into his arms. ‘You should be lying down.’
‘Shahir, I’m scared…the baby!’ she sobbed fearfully, and then she bit back any further words—for he scarcely needed to be told that she was afraid that she was having a miscarriage.
It was not a fear Kirsten had had to deal with before. But it swiftly became a terror that engulfed her in a tidal wave of bitter regret. She had taken the stability of her pregnancy and the health of her unborn child for granted while she complained about the nagging nausea that continually spoiled her appetite. That acknowledgement filled her with guilt and dread. She had hardly dared to appreciate the miracle of conception, or look forward to the birth of her future son or daughter. Her rigid upbringing had inhibited such free thinking. S
he had been desperately ashamed of being an unmarried mother-to-be, and she had punished herself by refusing to find anything positive in her situation.
Was this, then, to be the price she paid for her blindness? she asked herself in a panic. Was she about to lose her baby?
Her fingers splayed against the taut curve of her stomach. Right from the beginning she had loved the tiny life growing inside her with protective intensity. But she had not allowed herself to visualise a little boy with Shahir’s silky black hair and raw energy, or a little girl with a feminine version of his imperious brows and the dazzling gift of his charisma. That would have been a step too far for her—an exercise in self-indulgence that she could not allow herself to enjoy.
Choking back a sob, she squeezed her eyes tight shut and prayed.
Shahir made her lie down full-length in the limousine, and positioned himself by her head. He wound her fingers comfortingly within his. ‘We will be at the hospital within five minutes, and the best of care will be yours.’
‘I bet you weren’t expecting this today,’ Kirsten muttered jaggedly.
‘Try to keep calm…’ Shahir smoothed the hair back from her temples in a soothing gesture. ‘When I am with you, you should not be afraid. I will not allow any harm to come to you, and no trouble is so hard to bear when it is shared.’
Kirsten tried to comfort herself with the hope that her pregnancy was far enough advanced for the baby to have a good chance of survival if she went into premature labour. But what if there was something wrong and she was losing their child?
The medical facility she entered was unlike any hospital she had ever visited. The last word in high-tech gleaming luxury, it was a private clinic attached to the charitable foundation that Shahir ran. She was whisked into an examination room at speed. A consultant arrived, and told her that she would have to be admitted and that the following few hours would be crucial.
Helped into bed by a nurse, Kirsten was relieved that the cramping little pains which she had been suffering seemed to be in the process of subsiding.
‘You should go and get something to eat,’ Kirsten told Shahir, when he entered her private room ten minutes later.
He studied her in polite astonishment. ‘Are you joking?’
‘There’s no reason why you should go hungry.’
‘Right now I’m staying here with you.’
‘You don’t have to,’ she told him, but she didn’t mean it; just at that moment she did not want to let him out of her sight.
‘No matter what, I’ll be here.’
That declaration impressed her, and the worst of her tension seeped away. She made herself a little more comfortable in the bed, and a yawn crept up on her out of nowhere. ‘I’m so tired…’ she whispered apologetically.
‘Then try to sleep,’ Shahir suggested. ‘I’ll wake you up if anything happens.’
A drowsy giggle escaped her as she tried to imagine what could happen that she might contrive to sleep through.
She had not actually believed that she would sleep, but she did manage to doze for a while. When her eyes opened fuzzily again the first thing she noticed was her own hand, where it rested on the pillow, and her wedding ring glinting shiny and new on her finger. Shahir was lodged by the window, his back turned to her. Raw tension was etched into the set line of his broad shoulders and the spread of his long powerful legs.
‘I bet this isn’t how you planned to spend your wedding day…’
Shahir swung round, glittering golden eyes zeroing in on her with an amount of concern that surprised her and made her regret her tart comment. ‘If you are well at the end of it, I will have no complaints. You don’t look so pale. Any more pains?’
She shook her head slowly. She was finding it a challenge to remove her attention from him. He was incredibly attractive.
A relieved smile curving his handsome mouth, he approached the bed and gazed down at her. ‘You are strong, and so is our child.’
‘Will I have to stay in here tonight?’