Page 47 of The Desert King's Kidnapped Virgin
But she’d been focused on the rest of it.Love isn’t a disease, Cyrus. And I was the virgin when we met, yet even I knew that since we weren’t particularly responsible about protection, a baby was always a possibility.
That wasn’t strictly true. She’d known, yes. But after a lifetime of not understanding why any woman would have sex with a man if she couldn’t talk to him about protection, she’d found that she always had better things to talk to Cyrus about.
Somehow, the subject never came up.
I thought this was what you wanted, she’d said to him, all the while thinking that maybe it was what she’d wanted, actually. Way down deep where even she didn’t know, maybe she’d longed for happy families all along.
And wasn’t that a shock? When she’d long since thought herself far too worldly and sophisticated to believe in such fairy tales.
No, Cyrus had said in that gruff, low voice that hurt her to hear, his dark eyes so grim, so lost.This was not at all what I wanted.
Hope would have taken a moment to take stock of her new surroundings now, but it didn’t require a moment. There was nothing here but bars on the door in front of her, a slightly raised hole in the floor she didn’t care to consider too closely, and the cold stone floor.
This was well and truly an underground cell, as promised, with only the faintest sliver of a tiny window that she imagined might let in the sun in the morning.
If the sand didn’t cover it first.
“At least the cell is dry,” she said, cheerfully enough. Because she’d chosen this, after all. “It doesn’t feel too warm or too cold, which is lovely. Honestly, Cyrus, if I hadn’t spent the summer being fussed over in the harem, I might not have noted much of a change between my old flat in London and this. I’m happy to stay here for some time.”
“Happy,” he echoed. “And do you know,omri—? I believe you mean that.”
Cyrus stared back at her as if he was looking for some kind of answer on her face. Hope kept her smile welded into place. Then he made a low sort of noise, wheeled around, and walked off down the hall. Back the way he’d come.
That was just as well, Hope told herself. Because she had been the one falling apart upstairs. She was the one who had come perilously close to an implosion.
Demanding the keys to his dungeons when he’d been implacable about leaving her here had felt like the only thing she could do.
Now, alone in her cell, Hope wondered for the first time in her whole life if she was more like her mother than she’d ever believed possible.
Because if she wasn’t mistaken, she’d just pitched what could only be called a scene. Though if ever there was a time to do it, she had to think being rejected by the man she loved after telling him she was pregnant with his child had to rank pretty high on the list.
She was sure that Mignon would approve.
Good job I’m not afraid of the dark, she told herself stoutly, now she was alone and there was only a bit of insipid light from out in the otherwise empty dungeon hall.
Then she took herself off to the furthest corner of the cell, which was to say, she took three steps, turned her back to the stone wall, and slid down onto the floor.
She listened to his footsteps disappear down that long stone walkway that she’d charged down as if she’d known where she was going. And when the last sounds of him faded and she heard that old iron door slam shut, Hope let herself breathe.
It had only been the other day when she’d realized that one of the reasons her time here had been so blissful was because there had been no monthly interruptions of that moody gargoyle that overcame her for a handful of days at a time.
And once she started thinking about that, she’d known.
She’dknown, as if the knowing had always been there just beneath the surface, waiting for her to acknowledge it.
Hope had been lying in her alcove with one hand pressed to the belly that still felt like hers when Yara, her favorite of all her attendants, had appeared in the archway, looked directly at the place where her hand rested, and lifted dark eyes filled with speculative wonder to meet Hope’s own.
I d-don’t know, Hope had stammered. I only think maybe I might...
The girl had whirled around and disappeared, but had come back swiftly. Hope had been standing by then, filled with a strange energy and a kind of indecision, too.
I don’t want to tell him anything unless I know, she’d told the girl, maybe with too much of the things she felt in her voice, whatever those were.I assume you must have your ways here. Ancient ways. Tea leaves, or some sort of magic drink, or...?
The girl had held out a perfectly modern pregnancy test.Or...she’d agreed, with a smile.
They had known the truth within moments. It had been undeniable. Right there on the little stick.
You will tell our king tonight, the girl had said matter-of-factly, with more confident English than she’d exhibited all summer. Despite the lessons Hope had given all the women in the harem when they’d asked, then taught her a little of their language, too.
