“Oh God, not again.” I ran to the toilet and emptied the contents of my stomach.

After the heaving stopped, I rested my body against the surround of the bathtub. I closed my eyes and waited for the next wave of nausea.

This sucked. There was no doubt, I was pregnant.

I hadn’t thought anything of it when I missed a period last month since my monthly cycle had been irregular since I was a teen, making it so I could miss a month here and there without worry.

It wasn’t until this past week when the constant fatigue and nausea became too much to ignore that I grew suspicious. And then this morning, the vomiting started.

Wasn’t a woman supposed to get at least a few hours of respite between bouts of throwing up?

I covered my stomach. “Sorry, kid. I’m happy you’re coming, but could you let up for a few minutes?”

My stomach turned again.

“Well, I guess that’s my answer. Is this payback for taking you on my mission with me?”

God, I couldn’t believe I’d gone to Pakistan pregnant. I could have lost my baby if anything had gone wrong.

“I will never put your life at risk again. Though you did choose a very inconvenient time to make an appearance.”

I had to have ovulated during one of the first few times Ashur and I’d had sex. I literally was the bride who got pregnant on her honeymoon.

So, all the fucking Ashur and I had done over the last few weeks was for nothing. He’d kept to his word. We lived separate lives during the day and only met in the bedroom for the sole purpose of producing a child.

I wouldn’t lie to myself and say I hadn’t enjoyed the sex. Ashur made sure I achieved my orgasm, but it felt so cold. I’d rather have just gone to bed than feel so lonely afterward. We’d become the political couple that made appearances and posed for pictures but barely spent any time together. Gone were the heated discussions and the playful banter. Gone were the hot looks and constant touching.

“I promise, little one. No matter what happens between your daddy and me, you’ll never know a day without love. I suck at the wife-and-first-lady thing, but I will rock the mother thing.”

The churning in my belly finally stopped, and I pushed up onto my feet. Immediately, nausea returned and I grabbed the toilet seat, letting what little was left in my stomach empty.

“I hate you, Jacinta,” I muttered to myself and then said to my belly, “Your Samina Foi too. I hope your cousins make her gray early.”

“Why are you cursing my sister?”

I froze. Ashur had to have heard what I said.

I looked at him. He stared at me with worry and a bit of amusement.

“Go away, Ashur. I don’t need you to laugh at my misery.” I rested my head on my forearm, praying the nausea would stop.

“Let me help you.”

“I think you’ve done enough. Your super sperm did the job. You won’t have to fuck me every night anymore for an heir.”

“Do you really think that’s the only reason I want you? For God’s sake. I’ve known you were pregnant for over two weeks.”

How the fuck could he have known when I only suspected this past week?

“I can see the question so let me answer. I figured it out when your breasts began to swell and you kept sneaking away for power naps.”

“So, my need for sleep gave it away?”

“You are one of those high-energy, sleep-when-I’m-dead women. So, combined with the slight changes in your body, I knew it was either you were coming down with something or as you said, my super sperm did the job.”

“Could have given me a clue,” I muttered under my breath.

“And just so we’re clear, the reason I come to our bed every night is that losing myself in you is the only thing that keeps me going these days.”

“Whatever. Go away. Let me vomit in peace.” I slid further onto the floor and rested my head on the cool tile.

Was this some sick joke by God? Samina and Jacinta hadn’t had a day of sickness and here I was, barely a month and a half in and ready to throw in the towel on this pregnancy shit. Maybe I could revise the contract and change it to one child, then I wouldn’t have to do this again.

“You hard-headed, stubborn woman. Is it so difficult to depend on me?” Ashur scooped me off the floor, opened the door to the shower, stepped in, and sat me on a long bench in one corner.

“What are you doing?” I batted away Ashur’s hands as he tried to pull my dress over my head. “Stop. I don’t want a shower.”

“You smell like puke.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but shut it when I got a whiff of myself.

“Fine, but let me brush my teeth first.” I stood and was immediately pushed back down.

“You sit and I’ll bring it to you.”

Ashur turned on the spray to heat the water before leaving me on the bench to retrieve my toothbrush and toothpaste.

When he returned he was naked and partially aroused.

“Sorry. I can’t help it. My cock is always halfway hard whenever you’re around.”

Without responding, I took the offered brush and scrubbed the pasty vomit aftertaste from my mouth. When I finished, I set the brush on the bench beside me. Steam billowed around us and I leaned my head back against the cool tiled wall, enjoying the sensation of cool and hot.

“Come on, love. Let’s get you cleaned up.” Ashur gently helped me up. “Let me take care of you and then tuck you into bed.”

I sighed and relented.

He washed me from head to toe and then back up again. By the time he was done, the nausea was gone and completely replaced by arousal. Ashur hadn’t done anything to purposefully stimulate me, but my body wanted him.

“Ready to come out.” His voice was rough and his breath was a bit shallow.

His cock stood straight up, ready for me and making my mouth water.

“Ashu. I…”

“What do you want, Tara?”

“You.”

“This isn’t why I brought you in here.”

I reached for him, wrapping my fingers around his thick, hard, velvety length, and pumped my fist up and down.

“I know. I want you, Ashu. I want the need, the passion, not what we’ve had for the past three weeks. I want it to be more than fucking.”

He walked me back, pressing me against the shower wall and trapping the hand enfolded around his cock between us.

“Are you sure? We’d be going outside the rules of the contract.”

“I don’t care about that right now. I need you inside me.” I tried to rise onto tiptoes in hopes of guiding his cock inside my swollen, aching pussy, but our height difference made it impossible.

He grabbed my thighs and parted them before pressing his cock against my soaked slit.

“This is about us, Tara.” His cock pushed in. “Not the contract.” He went in a little farther. “Not our child that’s inside you. Not the past or the future. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I gasped. “About us right now.”

He seated himself to the hilt.

“Being inside you is like heaven.” He pulled out and thrust back in. “Don’t ever think I want you for anything other than you.”

I clenched at his shoulders as my pussy walls contracted around his length.

“Okay.” I met each thrust with the rotation of my hips. “Faster, please, I’m almost there.”

“Hold on, love. I’ll give you what you want.”

He adjusted our bodies so he could sit on the bench and positioned my knees so I could ride him. He met each of my movements with the upward motion of his own. It was hard and fast and loud. The sound of our wet bodies pounding against each other echoed off the tile and added to the frantic nature of our need.

He held my gaze as the first of my spasms started and then I flew apart in his arms. The clenching of my swollen pussy muscles pushed Ashur over into his own orgasm and he came deep inside my core.

My phone beeped twenty minutes after Ashur and I crawled into bed. His hand rested against my abdomen, and his breath was slow and steady against my neck.

Another alert sounded, followed by three more

I slowly worked my way out of his arms and reached over to grab my cell. It was a series of messages from Tyler.

Meet me in your office. We’re about to hit a shit storm.

This is an emergency.

Dammit, Tara. Wake the fuck up.

I will come up there to get you.

My stomach dropped, this time not from nausea but a fear that everything was about to come crashing down.

Sliding off the bed, I grabbed my robe, slipping it on and tying it tight around my waist. I exited our room as quietly as possible, so as not to disturb Ashur.

As I made my way to my office, the dread I felt began to weigh on my shoulders. The true test for Ashur was about to come.

I entered my office to find Ameera sitting on a chair in the corner and Tyler pacing.

Ameera immediately jumped up and ran to me, engulfing me in her arms.

“Oh God, Ame. I missed you so much.”

Tears streamed down both our faces as we held each other, talking at the same time and probably making sense to no one but the other.

When we finally pulled apart, I studied her beautiful face. She looked almost completely healed with only a few lingering cuts and bruises left, and she’d gained a few pounds. She still had a few more to go before she returned to her curvy bombshell figure but this was a positive sign. Her hair was now a stylish pixie bob, a vast improvement from the almost buzz cut her captors has given her.

“The new look suits you.”

“You know how I like to keep things high fashion.” She touched the tips of her golden blond hair.

“Now that the reunion is complete, you need to take a look at these. Hamir’s sons sent these to the State Department.” Tyler handed me his phone.

I scanned through a bunch of images showing someone who looked like me meeting with known terrorists around the world.

“These are doctored. The first time I left the country in two years was only three months ago and these are dated before that.”

“The last few aren’t.”

I scrolled to the last pictures, and my heart sank. Ameera and I held guns and Tarik lay on the ground dead. The barrel of my weapon was aimed at Hamir. The look on my face was complete fury. There was no way anyone could say these pictures were tampered with. The unique design of the diamonds in my wedding band gleamed from the sunlight.

God, how could I be so stupid as to forget Hamir loved to record himself driving that damn Hummer. The cameras on the vehicle were the only way they could have gotten the pictures.

There had to be some means of corrupting the original feed.

I pulled out my own cell and began texting the North American tech unit for Solon. After relaying the instructions, I looked up at Tyler. “Tech is going to scrub any data sources associated with Hamir. We have a lock on his servers and satellites.”

“It isn’t as simple as a few calls to the right people, T,” Ameera said and then ran frustrated fingers through her short hair. “This went out to all news media outlets. The Ustafs want revenge and the best way to do it is to ruin your reputation, and in turn, Ashur’s.”

I closed my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose. “They’re going to paint me as a traitor who negotiates with terrorists.”

No one was going to believe the majority of the pictures were fakes. I’d be tried in front of the court of public opinion before an investigation was even launched.

Oh God, Ashur. No one would believe he’d had no knowledge of it.

I should never have agreed to marry him. I knew I was a liability to him, and now it had come true.

“I need to make a few calls to Geneva. They’ll have a plan already in the works.” I moved over to my desk, settling my hand over my stomach to will away the wave of nausea starting to creep up again. As soon as it calmed, I looked between Tyler and Ameera. “The two of you need to completely distance yourself from me and, if at all possible, from each other.”

“Pretending Ameera and I don’t have a connection, won’t be a problem. She’s made it very clear that I am her past, not her future.” He gave Ame an angry glare and then turned his attention to me. “You, on the other hand, will be impossible. I work for your husband and I am a longtime friend.”

“You work for me too. I will not have you tied up in this. That is a direct order.”

“Does that mean you aren’t stepping down?”

“My job as the director of Solon is the least of my concerns at the moment.”

“Only the director outranks me, so unless you’re Command, I will ignore any directive coming from you.”

“I second what he says.” Ameera came to lean over my desk. “If you weren’t my ride or die, would you have come to save me? Don’t even for a second think I’ll let you take the fall for something that’s my fault. I will go before the media and claim it was me before I let anything happen to you.”

“Dammit. I’m trying to save your careers.” I smacked my hand on my desk as tears burned the backs of my eyes. “Because of me, Ashur may be impeached. I won’t have your futures on my conscience too.”

“If it gives you peace of mind, I will happily step down from my role as a UN ambassador in a heartbeat,” Ameera said. “I was planning to transition out of my role there anyway.”

“Don’t you dare do that. I would never ask you to give up the job you love.” I glowered at Ameera, who responded with her own glare.

“And for the record, counselor, that man you refuse to admit you love will survive anything thrown at him. Why do you think his opponents call him an asshole? He doesn’t give a shit what anyone says. Plus, he’s a fucking tech billionaire.”

“He’s not an asshole.” I dropped my head to the desk. I was the asshole for thinking I could keep who I was from Ashur.

Maybe if I’d told him, this whole mess wouldn’t have happened.

“For the love of God, Tara. In all the shit I said, the asshole part is all you got?”

“She heard you. She’s just ignoring you.” Tyler came around the desk and crouched in front of me. “T-Rex, time’s up. You need to tell Ashur before someone wakes him and gives him the news.”

“Someone did wake him,” Ashur said from the doorway of my office.

He held up a phone to display the picture of me holding the gun. Anger, hurt, and betrayal radiated from him.

“When the two of you are finished reporting to your director, I’d like a word with my wife.”

I waited ten minutes before searching out Ashur. He needed to calm down and I had to call the board. As I expected, a plan was in the works and would be implemented within the next twenty-four hours.

Being that it was only two o’clock in the morning, the news reports on the incident would be limited. But in a few hours, it would be a different story.

I opened the door to the family room adjacent to the master suite to find Ashur sipping scotch from a tumbler and sitting in a chair positioned at the corner of the room.

“Ashur.”

“So, you’re a Solon agent.” The anger in Ashur’s gaze gave me the urge to step back.

“For the time being I am,” I said, taking a seat across from him.

A tick pulsed on the side of his face. “Then perhaps you should tell me when you plan to stop. ’Cause I’ll be damned if I let my pregnant wife traipse around the world pointing guns at dictators.”

“I didn’t know I was pregnant. I would never have gone if I had known. I would never put our baby at risk.”

“You should never have gone in the first place,” he bellowed and then stood, moving to the window. “Now answer the question. When do you plan to stop?”

“I technically retired the day I returned from Pakistan.”

“The way Tyler spoke, you’re still his boss.” He clenched his jaw when he said Tyler’s name.

The fallout with Tyler was something I couldn’t muster the energy to worry about at the moment. All I knew was Tyler’s days as Secretary of State were probably numbered.

“So, which is it? Are you retired or active?”

“I guess active until the mess with the photos blows over.” I grimaced inside. “If it blows over.”

“When did they recruit you? The only way you go up the ranks of any military-based organization is if you worked your way up.”

“It was the summer before I started law school at Stanford.”

“So, was it Xander who recruited you?”

“Are you kidding me? Xander isn’t part of Solon. He’s…”

“MI6,” Ashur finished. “And before you ask, he’s part of a private operation I requested to help me locate a missing American ambassador to the United Nations who was kidnapped four months ago in Geneva.”

“You knew what happened to Ame.”

“Of course, I knew. Ameera Kamini is your best friend. She’s been by your side from the moment we were engaged. I knew something had happened to her when she never took her flight back to New York.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because I didn’t want to scare you. I wanted to protect you. I’d hoped she’d be home before our wedding. Later I figured out you knew she was missing when you kept making excuses for her whereabouts. I suspected that you were working with one of your underground contacts to get her back.”

“You were the third buyer.”

He stayed quiet for a moment and then ran a hand down his face before he spoke. “People think I only see things in black and white. I knew what Ameera meant to you. I hoped if I could get Ameera back for you, then you’d see how much you meant to me. That you could trust me with your heart and secrets. Not just your body.”

“Ash.” I sighed and let the guilt and sadness of his words wash over me.

“Now I know it was a bullshit hope. You were never going to confide anything in me. Hell, you lived a double life.” He released a resigned breath. “The irony of this whole debacle was that we were going to use money from the same account to bid on Ameera.”

“Ashur, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s too late. What’s the point in fighting for something that never was there in the first place?”

My lips trembled. “I want this to be real.”

“What we have isn’t real. It never was. It’s better to stick to the contract. Give me my two children and I’ll never bother you again.”