Page 24 of The Maid's Pregnancy Bombshell

‘We’ll have certainty very shortly after we land,’ Ares declared. ‘I’ve organised a doctor to do the test. Isn’t that test a little overdue?’

Alana could feel her face getting as hot as a bonfire and guilt squirmed inside her. ‘I wasn’t in a hurry to find out,’ she acknowledged between the clenched teeth of mortification.

‘I am,’ Ares admitted.

‘A doctor isn’t necessary. I have a simple test waiting at Templegreen,’ she pointed out.

‘A simple test that you could have used sooner,’ Ares qualified crushingly.

‘It’s not your body, it’s mine!’ Alana shot back at him angrily. ‘It’s easy to be judgemental when it’s not your life being potentially derailed. I was nervous, I wasscared... OK?’

‘OK.’ Ares compressed his lips at that admission, feeling like a bully. He didn’t think it was the moment either to point out that his life would also be derailed if she was carrying his child.

‘And while you’re sneering at me about taking too much time to do that test, does it occur to you thatyouare the one to have neglected contraception?’ Alana hissed, her emotions all over the place and violently stirred up by his unnecessary comments.

‘I assumed you were on the pill at the villa. But I’m aware that nothing other than celibacy is full proof.’

‘I’m afraid not,’ Alana confirmed in a curt, driven voice.

‘It doesn’t much matter how it happened if it’s happened,’ Ares remarked drily. ‘Bestowing blame will not fix anything.’

‘Oh, stop being so pedantic about it!’ Alana flared back at him, her temper rising in spite of her efforts to tamp it down.

‘The likelihood of conception is—’

‘Don’t say another word,’ Alana warned him furiously. ‘We don’t need some mathematical take on the probability right now!’

Ares breathed in slow and deep. How did he get across to her that she didn’t need to think and behave like a terrified teenager facing single motherhood? Alana was his wife. Suddenly, it seemed, hisrealwife because only a genuine wife could be giving him a child, he reasoned hesitantly. Yes, she was upset, he conceded, but his own brain wasn’t exactly functioning at its usual speed either.

It wasn’t thathewas upset. He didn’t do messy emotions, he reminded himself. Of course, he wasn’t upset. Possibly a little shocked, he conceded, but definitely not upset and it was presumably shock that had given him the irrational urge to simply drag her into his arms in an effort to provide comfort. Irrational, out-of-character, foolish behaviour that such a pointless act would have been.

‘You should have shared your concern with me the moment you suspected the possibility,’ Ares murmured in a tone of finality.

‘That wouldn’t have changed anything,’ Alana pointed out defensively.

‘No, however, you would not have been worrying about this alone and getting all worked up about it—’

‘I’m not worked up!’ Alana flared in furious rebuttal, putting her hands down to release her seat belt as the whine of the engines kicked higher and the jet proceeded to race down the runway.

Ares was up in a flash, big hands engulfing hers to secure the belt again. Alana felt as though she were about to explode with rage and she closed her eyes then, rested her head back and counted slowly to ten, praying for the seething emotions that were so close to the surface to simmer down again.

When she finally opened her eyes they were airborne and Ares was ordering coffee.

‘Herbal tea for me,’ she intervened stiffly, because she knew that some people avoided caffeine during pregnancy and she didn’t want to risk anything.

‘I’m excellent in crisis management,’ Ares intoned softly.

Alana almost rolled her eyes at him. He was so clever but he just didn’tgetit. Her baby, if there was one, was not a crisis to be managed. Her baby would be a little part of her and a little part of him and she already felt hugely protective of that tiny potential being.

‘And I’m very calm, which would appear to be a useful skill in the present climate,’ Ares remarked.

And that fast Alana wanted to hit him again. She set her lips firmly together. She lifted her magazine and commenced staring blindly down at it again while recalling how wild and passionate Ares was in bed. How did she equate that passion with the chilling detachment of the guy she was currently dealing with? Of course, that was sex, not the emotional relationship stuff that appeared to terrify the life out of him. Yes, she understood that he had had a ghastly early childhood and that that had scarred him, but did that mean that he had to regiment his entire life like some frightening genius robot and feel absolutely no warmer thing for anyone? Evidently to Ares, itdidmean that, she thought with a sudden flood of compassion that infuriated her even more. Why was she feeling sorry for him? Was she truly insane?

Ares was relieved that it was such a short flight. He didn’t like Alana being silent and still. It made him uncomfortable. It made him start wondering what would make her happy and then it worried him even more that he didn’t know. And yet he was trying, he really wastryingto be what his brain told him she needed. Supportive, strong, unselfish. Only as he handed her into the limo collecting them in London to take them to the doctor he had engaged, she wasstillsilent.

The silence in the medical surgery was profound. The middle-aged female consultant chatted inconsequentially to the nurse and the ultrasound technician since she could barely squeeze a word from her new clients.

‘There...you see,’ she remarked, pointing to the screen. ‘Eight to nine weeks.’

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