‘Before you say any more, there’s something I have to tell you, Tariq.’ She sucked in a shuddering breath, more nervous than she’d ever been as he suddenly tensed. She met the narrowed question in his ebony eyes. ‘You see … I’m going to have a baby.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE silence in the room emphasised the sounds outside, which floated through the open window. The faint roar of traffic a long way below. The occasional toot of a car. A low plane flying overhead.
Isobel stared down at Tariq’s still figure, lying on the bed, and ironically she was reminded of the time when he’d lain in hospital. When he’d looked so lost and so vulnerable and her feelings for him had undergone a complete change.
But he wasn’t looking vulnerable now.
Far from it. She watched the expressions which shifted across his face like shadows. Shock morphing into disbelief and then quickly settling itself into a look which she’d been expecting all along.
Anger.
Still he did not move. Only his eyes did—hard and impenetrable as two pieces of polished jet as they fixed themselves on her. ‘Please tell me that this is some kind of sick joke, Izzy.’
Izzy trembled at all the negative implications behind his response. ‘It’s not a joke—why would I joke about something like that? I’m … I’m going to have a baby. Your baby.’
‘No!’ He moved then, fast as a panther, reaching down to grab his jeans before getting off the bed to roughly pull them on, knowing he couldn’t face having such a conversation with her when he was completely naked. Because what if his traitorous body began to harden with desire, even as an impotent kind of rage began to spiral up inside him as he realised the full extent of her betrayal?
He zipped up his jeans and tugged on his shirt. And only then did he advance towards her with such a look of dark fury contorting his features that Isobel shrank back against the pillows.
‘Tell me it isn’t true,’ he said, in a voice of pure venom.
‘I can’t. Because it is,’ she whispered.
Tariq stared at her. She had known that he never wanted to be a father. She’d known because he’d told her! He’d even told her just now. After they’d … they’d … ‘How the hell can you be pregnant when you’re on the pill?’
‘Because accidents sometimes happen—’
‘What? You accidentally forgot to take it, did you?’
‘No!’
‘How, then?’ he demanded hotly. ‘How, Izzy?’
Distractedly she held up her hands, as if she was surrendering. ‘I had a mild touch of food poisoning after I ate some fish! It must have been then.’
‘Must it?’
Abruptly he turned his back on her and
went over to stand beside the window, staring down at the busy London street. When he turned back his face was a mask. She had never seen him look quite like that before—all cold and empty—and suddenly Isobel realised that whatever feelings he might have had for her, they had just died.
‘Or was it “accidentally on purpose”?’ he said slowly. ‘When did it happen?’
‘It was …’ She swallowed. ‘It was around the time when I met Zahid and Francesca.’
‘You mean the King and Queen?’ he corrected imperiously, unknown emotions making him retreat behind protocol—despite his conflicting feelings towards it. He remembered the way she’d held Omar that night. The way she’d looked at him over the mop of ebony curls with that soppy soft look that women sometimes assumed whenever there was a baby around.
‘What? Did you look at Francesca?’ he questioned. ‘See another ordinary Englishwoman very much like yourself? Did you look around you and see all the wealth and status at her fingertips and think: I wouldn’t mind some of that for myself? After all, you also had a royal lover—just as Francesca had once done. The only difference is that she didn’t get herself pregnant in order to secure her future!’
If she hadn’t been naked she would have lunged at him. As it was, Isobel got off the bed and grabbed at her dress to hide her vulnerability—the outward kind, anyway. For her heart was vulnerable, too—and she felt as if he had crushed it in his fist.
‘I can’t b-believe you could think that!’ she stuttered as she started doing up the buttons, her shaking fingers making the task almost impossible.
‘I suppose I can’t really blame you,’ he mused, almost as if she hadn’t objected, a slow tide of rage still building inside him. ‘Most women seem hell-bent on marriage—and the more prestigious the marriage, the better. And you can’t do much better than a prince, can you?’
‘You must be joking,’ she hissed back. ‘You might be a prince, but you also happen to be an arrogant and overbearing piece of—’