Defiant in the Desert(87)

                ‘Yes. No. Oh, Izzy—I don’t know.’ He shook his head and gave a reluctant sigh, not wanting to analyse the powerful impulse which had brought him to her door today. Couldn’t she just enjoy the here and now and be satisfied with that? ‘Whatever it is, I’ve missed it.’

                ‘If it’s just sex you can get that from plenty of other women,’ she pointed out.

                ‘Then maybe it isn’t just sex,’ he said slowly. He lifted her chin with the tips of his fingers and she was caught in the brilliant ebony blaze of his eyes. ‘Maybe what I should have said is that I’ve missed you.’

                Isobel’s heart missed a beat, and all the wistful longings she had suppressed as a matter of survival now came bubbling to the surface. ‘You’ve said that before,’ she whispered. ‘When you’ve come back from a trip.’

                ‘Yes, I know. But it was different this time— knowing that you weren’t going to be here. Telling me that it was over made me realise that I could lose you—and I don’t want to.’

                Her heart crashed against her ribcage. ‘You don’t?’

                ‘No.’ He brushed his lips over hers. Back and forth and back and forth—until he could feel her shivering response. ‘What we have together is better than anything I’ve had with anyone else. I’m not promising you for ever, Izzy, because I don’t think I can do that. And I haven’t changed my mind about children. But if you think you can be content with what we’ve got.... Well, then, let’s go for it.’

                His words mocked her. Taunted her. They filled her with horror at what she must now do. Let’s go for it. That was the kind of thing a football coach said during the half-time pep talk—not a man who was telling you that you meant something really special to him. And Isobel realised what a mess she had made of everything. Despite her determination not to follow in her mother’s footsteps, she had ended up doing exactly that. She had hitched her star to a man who was unavailable. In Tariq’s case it wasn’t because he was married but because he was emotionally unavailable. And in a roundabout way he’d just told her that he always would be.

                I haven’t changed my mind about children.

                So now what did she do?

                Feeling sick with nerves, she sat up, her unruly curls falling over her shoulders and providing some welcome cover for her aching breasts.

                ‘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.