Defiant in the Desert (26 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

‘T
HE
PRESS
HAVE
been on the phone again, Tariq.’

Tariq looked up to see Izzy hovering in the doorway of his office, lit from behind like a Botticelli painting, with her hair falling down over her shoulders like liquid honey. Although she was wearing a loose summer dress and still very slim, at four months pregnant there was no disguising the curving softness of her belly. A whisper ran over his skin. For weeks now he had been watching her. Trying to imagine what his child must be like as it grew inside her.

And now he knew.

Aware of the sudden lump which had risen in his throat, he swallowed and raised his brows at her questioningly. ‘What did they want?’

Isobel stared at the brilliant gleam of the Sheikh’s black eyes, and the faint stubble on his chin which made him look like a modern-day pirate. Had she been out of her mind yesterday when she’d told him that he could accompany her to the doctor if he wanted to see her latest scan? What crazy hormonal blip had prompted
that?
She’d been expecting a curt thanks, followed by a terse refusal, but to her surprise he had leapt at the opportunity, his face wreathed in what had looked like a delighted smile. A most un-Tariq kind of smile. And then he’d acted the part of the caring father as if he actually
meant
it—clucking round her as if he’d spent a lifetime looking after pregnant women.

In fact, when he’d been helping her into the limousine—something which she’d told him was entirely unnecessary—his hand had brushed over hers, and the feeling which had passed between them had been electric. It was the first time that they had touched since their uneasy truce—and hadn’t it started her senses screaming, taunting her with what she was missing? Their eyes had met in a clashing gaze of suppressed desire and she had felt an overwhelming need to be in his arms again. A need she had quickly quashed by climbing into the limousine and sitting as far away from him as possible.

She sighed with impatience at her inability to remain immune to him, then turned her mind back to his question about the press. ‘They were asking why the Sheikh of Khayarzah was seen accompanying his assistant to an obstetrician’s for her scan yesterday.’

‘They saw us?’

‘Apparently.’ Her eyes were full of appeal. ‘Tariq, I should have realised this might happen.’

Maybe she should have done. But to his surprise he was glad she hadn’t. Because mightn’t that have stopped her from giving him the chance to see the baby he had never wanted? He still didn’t know why she had done that—and he had never expected to feel this overwhelming sense of gratitude. Perhaps he should have realised himself that someone might notice them, but the truth was he wouldn’t have cared even if he’d known that a million journalists were lurking around.

He hadn’t cared about anything except what he was to discover in that darkened room in Harley Street, watching while a doctor had moved a sensory pad over the jelly-covered swell of her abdomen.

Suddenly he’d seen an incomprehensible image spring to life on the screen. To Tariq, it had looked like a high-definition snowstorm—until he had seen a rapid and rhythmical beat and realised that he was looking at a beating heart. And that was when everything had changed. When he’d stopped thinking of Izzy’s pregnancy as something theoretical and seen reality there, right before his eyes.

His heart had lurched as he’d stared at the form of his son—or daughter—and the doctor had said something on the lines of the two of them being a ‘happy couple’. And that had been when Izzy’s voice had rung out loud and clear.

‘But we’re not,’ she had said firmly, turning to look at Tariq, her tawny eyes glittering with hurt and challenge. ‘The Sheikh and I are not together, Doctor.’

Tariq had flinched beneath that condemnatory blaze—but could he blame her? Didn’t he deserve comments and looks like that after his outrageous reaction when she’d told him about the baby? Even though he had been doing his damnedest to make it up to her ever since. Short of peeling grapes and bringing them into her office each morning, he was unsure of what else he could do to make it better. And he still wasn’t sure if his conciliatory attitude was having any effect on her, because she had been exhibiting a stubbornness he hadn’t known she possessed.

Proudly, she had refused all his offers of lifts home or time off. Had turned up her pretty little nose at his studiedly casual enquiry that she might want to join him for dinner some time. And told him that, no, she had no desire to go shopping for a cot. Or to have her groceries delivered from a chi-chi London store. Pregnant women were not invalids, she’d told him crisply—and she would manage the way she had always managed. So he had been forced to bite back his frustration as she had stubbornly shopped for food each lunchtime, bringing back bulging bags which she had lain on the floor of her office. Though he had put his foot down about her carrying them home and told her in no uncertain terms that his limousine would drop the bags off at her apartment.

Now, as she walked into his office and shut the door behind her, he realised that the Botticelli resemblance had been illusory—because beneath her pale and Titian beauty she looked tired.

‘We’re going to have to decide what to say when the question of paternity comes up,’ she told him, wondering why it had never occurred to her that people would want to know who the father of her baby was. ‘Because it will. I mean, people here have been dropping hints about it for ages, and that journalist was on the verge of asking me outright about it today—I could tell he was.’

His voice was gentle. ‘What do you want to do, Izzy?’

She gave a short laugh. ‘I don’t think what I
want
is the kind of question you should be asking, Tariq.’

What she wanted was the impossible—to be carrying the child of someone who loved her instead of resenting her for having fallen pregnant. Someone who would hold her in the small hours of the morning when the world seemed a very big and frightening place. But those kinds of thoughts were dangerous. Even shameful. Because wasn’t the truth that she still wanted Tariq to be that man—even though it was never going to happen?

To Isobel’s terror, she’d discovered that you didn’t just fall out of love with a man because he’d spoken to you harshly or judged you in the worst possible way.

‘I don’t know what I want,’ she said quietly.

He stared at her, and a flare of determination coursed through him. He was aware that he could no longer sit on the sidelines and watch, like some kind of dazed ghost. Up until now he had allowed Izzy to dictate the terms of how they dealt with this because he had been racked with guilt about his own conduct. He had given her the personal space she had demanded, telling himself that it was in her best interests for him to do so. He had scrabbled deep inside himself and discovered unknown pockets of patience and fortitude. He had acted in a way which a few short months ago would have seemed unimaginable.

But it was still not enough. Not nearly enough.
Close examination of her bleached face made him realise that he now had to step up to the mark and start taking control. That to some extent Izzy was weak and helpless in this situation—even though she had shown such shining courage so far.

He stood up, walked over to her, and took hold of her elbow. ‘Come and sit down,’ he said, guiding her firmly towards the sofa. ‘Please.’

Her lips trembled and so did her body, responding instantly to his touch, and silently she raged against her traitorous hormones. But it was a sign of her weariness that she let him guide her over to the sofa.

Heavily, she slumped down and looked up at him. ‘Well?’

He sat down beside her, seeing the momentary suspicion which clouded her eyes as, casting around in his mind, he struggled to find the right words to say. Clumsy sentences hovered at the edges of his lips until he realised that nobody really gave a damn about the words—only about the sentiment behind them. ‘I want to tell you how sorry I am, Izzy. Truly sorry.’

She shook her head. ‘You’ve said sorry before,’ she said, blinking back the stupid tears which were springing to her eyes and which seemed never far away these days.

‘That was back then—when neither of us was thinking straight. When the air was full of confusion and hurt. But it’s important to me that you understand that I mean it. That in the cold light of day I wish I could take back those words I should never have said. And that I wish I could make it up to you in some way.’

She stared at him, thinking how strange it was to hear him sounding so genuinely contrite. Because Tariq didn’t
do
apology. In his arrogance he thought he was always right. But he didn’t look arrogant now, she realised, and something in that discovery made her want to meet him halfway.

‘We both said things we shouldn’t have said,’ she conceded. ‘Things we can’t unsay which are probably best forgotten. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you about the baby sooner.’

‘I don’t care about that. Your reasons for that are perfectly understandable.’ There was a pause. The heavy lids of his eyes almost concealed their hectic ebony glitter. ‘There’s only one thing I really care about, Izzy—and that’s whether you can ever find it in your heart to forgive me?’

She bit her lip as hurt pride fought with an instinctive desire to make amends. Because wasn’t this something she was going to have to teach her baby—that forgiveness should always follow repentance? And there was absolutely no doubt from the stricken expression on Tariq’s face that his remorse was genuine.

‘Yes, Tariq,’ she said softly. ‘I can forgive you.’

He stared at her, but her generous clemency only heightened his sense of disquiet. It made him realise then that if they wanted some kind of future together he had to go one step further.

But it wasn’t easy—because everything in him rebelled against further disclosure. Wasn’t it his ability to close off the painful experiences in his life which made him so single-minded? Wasn’t it his reluctance to actually
feel
things which had protected him from the knocks and isolation of his childhood? Success had come easily to Tariq because he hadn’t allowed himself to be influenced by emotion. To him, emotion was something that you blocked out. Because how else could he have survived if he had not done that?

Yet if he failed to find the courage to confront all the darkness he’d locked away so long ago then wouldn’t he be left with this terrible lack of resolution? As if he could never really get close to Izzy again? As if he was seeing her through a thick wall of glass? And what was the point of trying to protect himself from emotional pain if he was going to experience it anyway?

‘There are some things you need to know about me,’ he said. ‘Things which may explain the monster I have been.’

‘You’re no
monster,
’ she breathed instantly. ‘My baby’s not having a monster for a father!’

‘There are things you need to know,’ he repeated, even though his lips curved in a brief smile at her passionate defence. ‘Things about me and my life that I need to explain—to try to make you understand.’

He frowned. He struggled to put his feelings into words—because in a way wasn’t he trying to make
himself
understand his own past?

‘I’ve never had a problem with the way I live,’ he said. ‘My work life was a triumph and my personal life was...manageable. I was happy enough with the affairs I had. I liked women and they liked me. But as soon as they started getting close—well, I wanted out. Always.’

Isobel nodded. Hadn’t she witnessed it enough times before experiencing it for herself? ‘And why do you think that was?’ she questioned quietly.

‘Because I had no idea how to relate to people. I had no idea how to do real relationships,’ he answered simply. ‘My mother was so ill after my birth that I was kept away from her. My father was run off his feet with the ongoing wars with Sharifah—so my relationship with him was pretty non-existent, too. And the nurses and nannies who were employed to look after me would never dare to show
love
towards a royal child, for that would be considered presumptuous. Children only know their own experience—but even if at times I felt lost or lonely I did not ever show it. In that strongly driven and very masculine environment it was always frowned on to show any weakness or vulnerability.’

Vulnerability. The word stuck to her like a piece of dry grass. It took her back to when she’d seen him lying injured on the hospital bed—for hadn’t it been that self-same vulnerability which had made her feelings towards him change and her heart start to melt? Hadn’t it been in that moment when she’d started to fall in love with Tariq? When he’d shown a side of himself which he’d always kept hidden before?

‘Go on,’ she said softly.

‘You know that they sent me away to school in England at seven? In a way, my life was just as isolated as it had been in the palace. For a while I was the only foreign pupil—and I was the only royal one. And of course I was bullied.’

‘You? Bullied? Oh, come on, Tariq! As if anyone would dare try.’

He gave a wry smile. ‘There are more ways to hurt someone than with your fists. I was certainly excluded on a social level—never invited to the homes of my classmates. My saving grace was that I made every sports team going and I had first pick of all the girls.’ He shrugged as he realised that was about the time when he had begun to use the veneer of arrogance to protect him. ‘Though of course that only increased the feelings of resentment against me.’

‘I can imagine.’ She sighed as she looked at him, longing to take him in her arms but too scared to dare try. Still afraid that nothing had really changed and that he would hurt her again as he had hurt her before. And besides, if he really meant it then didn’t he have to come to
her?

He saw the fear and the pain which clouded her face, and it mirrored the aching deep inside him. A terrible sense of frustration washed over him as he looked into her tawny eyes.

‘Oh, Izzy—can’t you see that I’m a novice at all this stuff? That for the first time in my life I don’t know what to do or what to say? I’ve never dared love anyone before, because I didn’t want to. And then when I did—I didn’t know how to.’