The Sheikh's Undoing

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 u

p, 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 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 selfsame 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?