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.
CHAPTER EIGHT
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 to help you, Ella?’
‘My family.’ But even to her own ears, the words sounded unconvincing. She knew that Ben would help her in a moment and yet she baulked at the thought of running to him, terrified of disappointing her beloved big brother and becoming a burden to him. Besides, Ben lived on an island which was miles away.
And what of her business—how was she going to cope with the day-to-day running of it? Her celebrity clients expected a super-willowy boss, with smiling lips covered in her trademark scarlet gloss. Not some tired and lumbering pregnant woman who wasn’t even with the father of her baby, a pregnant woman who was finding it increasingly difficult to stay upright without wanting to fall asleep. Or be sick.
‘No, most definitely not your family. I am not having this baby influenced by the Jackson family,’ said Hassan unequivocably.
Her hackles began to rise. ‘You can’t stop me.’
No, he couldn’t, and he recognised that to try to push her would only make her stubbornly stand her ground. Far better, surely, to appeal to the innate sense of greed which lay at the heart of every woman? Greed which he had seen in many forms ever since his powerful body had reached adulthood and the vast resources of his inheritance had become available to him. He put the half-empty glass of cola on the bedside table and leaned forward by a fraction, seeing her ice-blue eyes widen automatically.
‘But what if I were to wave the magic wand instead?’ he questioned slowly.
‘By making yourself disappear from my life? Now that really would be a wish come true!’
How indomitable she was, he thought. And what remarkable spirit she would pass on to their child! Unexpectedly, he smiled. ‘By listening to reason.’
‘Are you trying to tell me that you’re a reasonable man?’
‘I can be.’ He paused. ‘What if I arranged for someone to stand in for you at work while you’re pregnant? Someone who would ably assist the woman who was staring at me so intently when I came to see you today.’
‘Daisy,’ she said automatically. ‘And I can’t afford to just hire someone in.’
‘Maybe not, but I can. And not just anyone. The very best in the business—someone of your choosing, of course—can be yours for the taking.’
She stared at him, her heart beginning to race, unable to deny that she was tempted by his offer. How easy it was for him, she thought. He could just chuck money at a problem and the problem would go away. What must it be like, to be that powerful? ‘And what’s the catch?’
‘The catch is that you let me look after you.’
‘I know I just said you’d make a good nurse, but I wasn’t being serious.’