Page 39 of Sheikh's Unexpected Triplet Babies

If someone had told her that Jahin would say such terrible words to her, she would have expected to burst into tears. However, it seemed as if some things were beyond tears, beyond grief, and instead, all she could do was muster up a wild, lost and cold feeling, one that felt as if the life had been taken out of her.

Tentatively, she got out of the bed, finding herself satisfactorily stable. Her purse and things were laid out for her on a nearby table, but she felt a distant chill when she realized that her phone and identification were gone. She could feel a distant echo of the violation and fury that she would feel later, but right now, it was all she could do to hold herself together.

"We're going to be all right," she whispered to her belly. It was still hard to believe that there could be three children in there. "I promise, we'll all be all right."

***

JAHIN HAD SAID that he was going off to think, but the truth was he was going off to drink. He was not a man who was given to strong drink at all. He’d had a few wild nights while he was at school in England, but overall, he was much better off without the stuff.

Apparently, there were some pieces of news that called for alcohol, however, and he went back to his penthouse with that in mind.

After slamming back a shot of good whiskey and relishing the burn, though, he realized how empty it felt. No matter how numb he got, the feelings would still be there waiting for him, and eventually he would have to deal with it.

He would have to deal with the fact that Bedelia had tried to leave him, and he would also have to deal with the fact that unless he had come home early, he would never have known, and he would never have been able to stop her. There was something terrible about that most of all, how close he had come to losing it all.

In another world, one in which he had simply stayed in Dubai, she would be in the United States before he figured out what was going on, their children living who knows where and completely unaware of their heritage at all. It was enough to drive something in him mad.

He reached for the whiskey again, but then, shaking his head, he put it down. There was nothing there for him, and if he was to consider what needed to happen next, he needed a clear head.

Jahin sighed.

If he were a wise man, he would never see Bedelia again. He would wait until she bore the children, and then he would send her away. Throughout her pregnancy, he would keep her in the lap of luxury, making sure she got everything she needed, and he would keep his damn distance. There was something about her that altered his judgment, that kept him blind to what was going on around him.

In a word, she was dangerous, and no sheikh could allow his judgment to be compromised like this.

He sighed, shaking his head.

That was going to be impossible. It might be the smarter thing by far to do. It might be the thing that would save his sanity and his emirate. However, Jahin knew himself and his heart well enough to know that he couldn't do it. There was something that bound him and Bedelia together. The ancients might have called it fate, or perhaps there was some darker word for the pull between them.

No, he couldn't be rid of her, and he couldn't go to her as he wished to do, either.

For a moment, unbidden, he fell into a fantasy of what he should be doing right now. He itched to see her naked body, to catalog all the ways that it had changed since she had started growing the new lives inside her. He wanted to touch her, even now, run gentle fingers over her curves, see her smile, lean down and kiss her, gently at first and then with more passion. It seemed like the cruelest thing in the world that he could not do so.

Jahin shook his head, going to his desk. There was no reason to put it off. He needed to be prepared, and he had to make sure that he was protected, that their future children were protected, and he even needed to make sure that Bedelia was protected.

His heart felt as if it was being torn apart, but he sat down, and he started to work.

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