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His brows drew together. ‘Do you think there’s any chance I’m not the dad?’

She blanched visibly. ‘God, no. I told you, I haven’t been with anyone other than you in…longer than I can remember.’ She laughed, but it was lacking humour. ‘There’s literally no one else it could be.’ A primal, ancient feeling of triumph soared through him. He hated that he felt possessive of Sarah, but the truth was, he did. Not that he’d admit as much to her. Hell, he could barely admit it to himself. But he didn’t like the thought of her going from his bed to someone else’s. Not after what they’d shared, how good it had been.

‘Then let’s not even go there.’

‘But—’

He tamped down on something in his gut, on the feeling that the world was shifting in a way he didn’t understand. ‘Look,’ he said placatingly. ‘How about this? We’ll ask Dr Huang if she can tell how advanced your pregnancy is. If she says ten weeks, then we’ll take it as iron-clad proof, right?’

Sarah bit into her lower lip, but to his relief, nodded slowly. ‘Okay, if you’re sure.’

‘Believe me, I’ve never been surer.’ A shudder ran through him as he contemplated the idea of the news leaking out, somehow, that he’d insisted on a paternity test. That his child might grow up and read the same sorts of things online that he’d had to endure.

As expected, when Dr Huang returned with a nurse to take blood samples, and Tate casually asked about the gestational age, she confirmed to within a three-day window the likely date of conception, leaving almost no room for doubt on that score. This baby was his, and to hell with anyone who suspected otherwise.

* * *

She stared at the picture the whole way to the car. She couldn’t take her eyes off it, even though it was just a tiny jellybean of a baby, at this stage. Barely a blob. But it was their blob, hers and his, and it didn’t matter that they had only had casual sex, and that their future was so uncertain; this baby would be loved beyond belief. He or she already was, at least by Sarah. And by Tate?

She glanced at him sidelong, from beneath her thick black lashes, studying the autocratic lines of his face as he read something on his phone. His jaw was clenched, as if he was in deep concentration. Which was just as well, because the last thing she wanted was to be caught staring.

Too late. He shifted quickly, turning his head to face hers, his eyes sweeping across her features in a way that made her feel vulnerable. She looked away again quickly.

‘My lawyers are organising the licence and pre-nup.’

Her heart leaped into her throat as the reality of this slammed into her. She knew he’d meant the proposal, that he saw marriage as the only viable option here, but Sarah couldn’t imagine it. Marrying a man she’d only just met seemed so far outside what she’d expected in life.

Then again, a baby had been, too. At least, a baby under these circumstances.

‘I never knew my dad,’ she murmured, surprised to hear the words fill the space of the car. ‘It was the one thing my mum never told me—who he was.’

She could feel Tate’s eyes resting heavily on her face, but, strangely, it didn’t make her uncomfortable. If anything, his attention formed a sort of thread between them that seemed to reassure her she was doing the right thing.

She fidgeted with her fingers in her lap. ‘But towards the end, she was on such strong meds to help with the pain, she was in and out of consciousness. And I—I asked her about him.’ Guilt made her cheeks flush with pink, and she looked at Tate quickly, to see if there was judgement in his expression. There wasn’t. Just a rich curiosity that had her heart pounding, twisting with something like recognition, acceptance. She looked away again, rejecting that—the last thing she wanted was to start seeing things that weren’t there. ‘I shouldn’t have done it. I should have respected the secret she wanted to keep, the fact she’d decided I was better off not knowing.’

‘You think she had a right to keep that information from you?’

Sarah blinked across at him, frowning. ‘She loved me very much.’

‘I have no doubt. But if you wanted to know, she should have told you.’

‘I—guess so,’ she said, after a beat, shaking her head. ‘I suppose it helped make my decision easier. When I learned I was pregnant, I couldn’t imagine not telling you.’

Tate frowned. ‘Are you saying your father never knew about you?’

‘No, no. I mean, more, that honesty is important. Everyone in a situation like ours should know the truth. The mother, father and child.’

His eyes glittered with the strength of his emotion. ‘On this, we are in complete agreement.’

Sarah sighed, pressing back into the car seat and staring straight ahead.

‘What did your mother say?’

Sarah’s smile was a ghoulish impression of the emotion, tinged with bitterness. ‘That he hadn’t wanted me. That she’d told him about me, and he’d been furious. That she’d sent photos of me, and he’d changed his number. That he’d done everything he could to ignore my existence.’ Sarah cleared her throat, hating that she could feel the sharp sting of tears behind her eyes.

‘I never wanted children.’ Tate’s voice was a deep rumble in the car, drawing her gaze sharply to his face. ‘Or a family. My own experience growing up was enough to make me know that I prefer to be by myself, in control of my own life. Responsible only for myself, and the stations we run. That’s what I thought my life would be.’

The thickness in her throat seemed to get worse.