‘My God,’ she breathed. ‘You are completely and utterly ruthless! I see exactly what you’re doing. You’re trying to get me to admit that I won’t be able to cope with this baby, aren’t you?’
‘And isn’t that the truth?’ he challenged, his vow to tread carefully forgotten in his determination to get his own way. ‘Have you actually stopped to think about it, about what it might mean to you?’
‘Are you crazy? I’ve thought of nothing else for weeks!’
‘But you’re planning to carry on working?’
‘Of course I am!’ Did he have no idea how real people lived their lives? She supposed he didn’t. ‘It’s how I earn my living, Hassan. We weren’t all born in palaces and given trust funds while we lay around like pampered princes!’
He gave a short laugh. Oh, the famous myth that all princes were pampered simply because they were princes. If he told her what the reality was, she would never believe it. Instead he leaned forward to emphasise his point, slamming his forefinger into the palm of his hand. ‘And while you’re “working,” Ella, while you’re dealing with all the mindless Z-list celebrities and their attendant problems, what will you be doing with our baby? Farming it out to some underqualified child-minder who has no vested interest in its future?’
Heart racing, Ella stared at him. ‘That’s such an ignorant comment, it doesn’t even deserve the dignity of a reply.’
‘You think so? Well, how about coming up with an answer to this one? How about when the baby is ill. Who’s going to cover for you then? Or are you planning to bring a carrycot into that cramped excuse for a room which you call an office?’
His words were crowding into her mind like a flock of dark birds flapping their demented wings and Ella shook her head as she tried to shake them off. ‘I’m not the first woman in the history of the world to contemplate bringing up a child on my own! These are things which can all be worked out.’
‘How?’ he shot back.
The question caught her off-guard because in truth she hadn’t sat down to work out the day-to-day practicalities. ‘Okay, so what’s the alternative?’ she questioned hotly. ‘Are you saying you want to take the child off to your desert palace and bring it up as a baby sheikh or whatever it is they call the girl version?’
‘It’s a sheika, and yes, I can bring up a baby,’ he said. ‘The way my father brought me up. A child doesn’t need a mother in order to survive.’
Ella heard the strange bitterness which had distorted his words and suddenly she realised just where this was leading. She could read the ruthless intent which had darkened his face just as easily as if he’d said the words out loud.
He would take her baby away without a qualm. Take it away to live in some remote desert kingdom and she would never see it again.
Her stomach lurched and pinpricks of sweat broke out on her forehead. ‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ she croaked.
HASSAN had dealt with sickness before. He’d seen men spill their guts up after battle and afterwards lie grey-faced and sweating. But he’d never witnessed it in a beautiful young woman in her prime and he thought how tiny and frail she suddenly looked. Overwhelmed with remorse at the harshness of his words, he carried her to the tiny bathroom and then held back her hair from her face as she retched. Eventually, she stopped and slumped against his chest, exhausted, her eyes closed.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said eventually.
Stricken with remorse, he shook his head. ‘It is not you who should be sorry, it is me,’ he grated. ‘I am responsible for your sickness. I should not have said those things to you.’
At this, her eyelashes fluttered open to reveal ice-blue eyes which were slightly bloodshot, and to his astonishment, a faint smile was lifting the corners of her lips.
‘Your words were rather wounding,’ she conceded. ‘But not quite powerful enough to induce nausea, Hassan. That’s something which happens to lots of pregnant women, no matter what their circumstances.’
‘You have been sick before this?’ he demanded.
Ella swallowed, feeling much too weak to be able to maintain a stoic attitude. ‘Most days.’
‘Most days? But this is not good! This is why you are looking so thin and so pale.’
‘The doctor says the baby will be fine.’
There was a pause. ‘You have seen a doctor?’
Ella knew that she ought to move. That it was bizarre, ridiculous and inappropriate to be lying slumped against the man who had said such cruel things to her. But the stupid thing was that she didn’t want to go anywhere. He felt warm and he felt strong. Most important of all, he felt safe. ‘Seeing a doctor is what normally happens when a woman gets pregnant, Hassan.’
‘And who is this doctor?’
‘He’s my GP from the local health centre and he’s very good.’
Hassan tensed, his apprehension eclipsing the sudden realisation that her back was pressing against his groin.
‘A local GP cannot be charged with caring for the progeny of the sheikh,’ he said, and then saw her eyelids flutter to a close again. ‘But this is not the time to talk about it. For now, you need to rest.’
Her protest died on her lips as once again he picked her up and carried her through to her bedroom, though she couldn’t miss his faint double take when he saw a series of charcoal drawings she’d done of Izzy lining the walls. They were entitled ‘Izzy Dressing’ and they showed her sister pulling on various items of clothing. They were less shocking than most things you’d see in a municipal art gallery, but that didn’t stop Hassan’s mouth from flattening critically.
He put her down on the bed, banking the pillows up behind her, his black eyes raking over her.
‘What can I do for you?’ he demanded. ‘What can I get you to make you feel better?’
Stupidly, she felt like asking him to hold her again. To cradle her in his arms where, for just a brief while, she had felt safe and cosseted. And how pathetic was that? She struggled to sit up. ‘I don’t want anything.’
‘Sure?’
The unexpected softness in his voice made her hesitate, especially as her throat felt scorched and dry from all that vomiting. ‘There’s some flat cola in the fridge.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Flat cola?’
‘It helps the sickness.’
‘Right.’ Grimly, he made his way to her refrigerator, an ancient-looking beast of a thing which contained a lump of cheese, some wilting salad and a bottle of cola, minus the top. His expression was no less thunderous when he took the unappetising brown liquid back to her, and held the glass up to her lips while she sipped from it.
It was an unexpectedly considerate gesture, powerfully intimate, and Ella felt some of her strength returning. ‘You make a good nurse,’ she joked.
‘And you make an appalling patient,’ he retorted. ‘If you think that you can sustain yourself and a growing baby on that pitiful excuse for food in your kitchen.’
‘I don’t have a lot of time to go shopping,’ she defended, and then realised that she had walked into a trap of her own making. ‘But all that will change, of course.’
‘How?’ he demanded. ‘Where’s the magic wand you’re going to wave? Who’s going