There's A Fine Line Between Coincidence & Fate ✓

Chapter 32

"Ya amar? Is it true?" Ardeth asks me, standing before me, his hands coming to rest on my still flat abdomen.

I nod. "I suspected as much while we were traveling here. But my suspicions were confirmed when I hadn't bled at all." I smile at him as his face lights up.

"A baby is a wonderful treasure. Make sure you are worthy of it." My mother says, coming and placing a kiss on my cheek. James looked on proud and my father's face was unreadable.

"Papa?" I ask him nervously.

"You will be an amazing mother little one." He says, finally a smile gracing his features. It seemed to take years off his age, making him appear as young as he had insisted, he was prior to my leaving for Egypt.

"Congratulations little monster. I'm sure you'll do a fine job in raising the next generation of serious warriors." James joked as we both turned to Ardeth, who hadn't stopped smiling since I blurted my news.

"Thanks James." I say with a fond smile and a roll of my eyes.

"Let's get you to bed. You've been on your feet for entirely too long today." Ardeth says and then Mama points him in the direction of the stairs. I lead him to the room that my mother made up for us. It was my childhood room and one that I would've been sharing with Rose had I still been living at home. As it was, Rose was sharing with Susan, and it took all my strength not to profusely apologize to my youngest sibling for the hell she was enduring.

We settle in for bed and as if on its own accord, Ardeth's hand comes up, rubbing circles over my stomach that was still flat. "It's too soon for you to feel movement." I inform him.

"Margaret, you have my child growing inside you. I think you'll find that my hand will be seldom elsewhere for the next 9 months."

I scoff. "I would think that that would make it rather difficult to see to your other duties, Chieftain." I joke.

"My duty, first and foremost, is to you. You and our unborn child." He says, his deep brown eyes boring into my very soul.

"You have a very unfair advantage of making me blush like a schoolgirl still."

"You should really see about getting that under control." He chuckles.

"But then what else would you find endearing about me?"

"I'm sure I could find something." We fall into silence, but I could tell from the way he kept looking at me from the corner of his eye that there was something more he wished to discuss.

"Are you going to tell me what's causing you concern, or shall I start guessing?" I tease.

"You and your sister... Were you always like this?"

"At each other's throats? Pretty much from the time we were teenagers. Rose has a nasty habit of wanting things that aren't hers. When we were little, it was our toys. Then, as we got older, she was unsatisfied with the secondhand dresses, and Mama and Papa gave into her, even though there were times that we really couldn't afford it. She's constantly turned up her nose at me, ridiculed me for seeking higher education, for placing a priority over getting married and having babies. And when I left for Egypt, I thought the distance would do us some good. But then I come home with a man that should have been way out of my league and I'm married to him and therefore he's completely unattainable to her and she doesn't know what to do so she falls back on childish ways, picking at my insecurities until I'm nothing more than an emotional mess. But what she doesn't know is that the years apart have made me stronger, surer of myself and in place of her meek, doormat of a sister, is a fierce Medjai queen, and she doesn't know how to push my buttons anymore."

"I know I shouldn't say this as we're in your family's home, but I thought I couldn't love the woman you became in the desert any more than I already did, but seeing how you are here, the same fierce woman I fell in love with in the sewers of Cairo, I'd be lying if I said that I didn't love you more now than I did then."

"You and your words. How you didn't find a wife before me, I'll never know." I laugh.

"Maybe fate was making me wait for you."

"Or it was just a weird coincidence."

"Habib Albi, haven't you learned by now that there's a fine line between coincidence and fate?"