“What would you say if I did?”
A prickly silence engulfed them. “If you truly cannot see reason by Wednesday, then you can leave. Of course. Ofcourseyou can leave.”
She looked towards the windows, out at the desert, and felt a kicking in her gut. Did she want to leave? No. She was terrified by how much she wanted to stay. But love made fools of the best of people and she was aware of how head over heels in love she now was with Samir. This was a stinking mess.
“But I know you’ll choose to stay.”
“How can you be so confident?” She asked, eyes huge.
“Because you love this child,” he said, simply. “And being here is the right thing for them.”
She swallowed past a throat that felt filled with razor blades. She hated that he was right. She hated how messy and complicated this was. She hated, most of all, how richly she cared for him, how strong her feelings were.
“I would like to get you a plate of food. Then, I would like us to sit at that table, in the shade, and I would like to calmly and rationally discuss our shared future. Can we do that?”
Unlike in the plane yesterday, this version of Samir was calm and in control. The shock of her pregnancy had obviously settled for him, and now, he was focused purely on how to move forward. It should have calmed her, because that was what she wanted too, but instead, his lack of emotion felt like a brick falling through her body.
“I’m not very—,”
“You must eat.” There was a pleading tone to his voice that made her gut twist.For the baby, she reminded herself. And it was imperative that she remember how much he’d fought any real relationship between them—almost as much as she had. She looked away from him, towards the table, and her stomach gave an unexpected growl.
Maybe shewashungry? For the first time in months…
“Okay,” she lifted her shoulders. “Thank you.”
He turned away, but not before she saw the way he grimaced in response to her gratitude. He piled two plates with food—hers a more moderate serving, but still more than she thought she could stomach, and carried them to the table, his eyes briefly glancing across her figure before he frowned and put the plates down.
“Thank you,” she said again, intrigued by the same reaction crossing his features as before, when she’d thanked him. What was going on?
“It’s just breakfast.”
“I only meant—as a courtesy.”
“Right.” He took the seat opposite her, his long legs brushing hers beneath the table. Flames licked her skin; she stabbed a green vegetable, lifting it to her mouth without thinking. The flavour was divine. Garlicky and lightly spiced. She stabbed a second piece quickly and closed her eyes this time, savouring it more completely.
Samir didn’t eat. He sat back, watching her, eyes hooded.
Finally, he spoke. “I can agree to separate bedrooms, if that is important to you, but it makes more sense for you to move into my apartment.” She opened her mouth to object but he quickly continued. “It’s more than large enough to accommodate your wish for privacy. However, we could then share parenting duties. This is important to me.”
Her eyes lifted to his, and her heart slammed into her chest. “Why?”
“Because I want to be in my child’s life. If they wake overnight, I don’t want to hear about it from you a week later.” His lips moved as though he was grinding his teeth.
“Why?” She repeated.
He lifted his fork, hovering it over some baked tomato halves. “It’s just how I think it should be.”
“But not how your parents were,” she surmised softly.
His eyes shifted to hers almost against his will. “No. Adan and I were raised largely by palace staff.”
Cora’s lips pulled to the side.
“Which isn’t to say we couldn’t use nannies. Of course, some help is probably a good idea. But not as an alternative to my presence.”
Stupid, over-sensitive pregnancy hormones filled her eyes with tears.
“You hate the idea so much,azeezi?”