Princess's Secret Baby(28)

                ‘You manage that by yourself,’ Leila responded. ‘I’m not leaving here.’

                ‘Leila, I’m not asking you to move into my home. I think this is an excellent idea. I’ll have a suite arranged for you and I’ll send a car to collect you at around lunchtime.’

                ‘I have plans for lunchtime.’

                God, she tested his patience to the limit. ‘Tonight then,’ James said, refusing to budge on this. ‘I’ll send my driver to collect you at eight.’

                ‘I’m not moving out.’

                ‘Will you at least agree to discuss it over dinner?’

                ‘I don’t want to have dinner with you. I don’t want anything to do with you, James.’

                ‘You should have thought about that three months ago,’ James responded. ‘Like it or not we have to communicate. I can call my lawyer and get discussions started or you can meet me tonight and we can try to work things out ourselves.’

                ‘I will only meet with you in the restaurant.’

                ‘Fine,’ James reluctantly conceded. ‘We’ll discuss our private business with half of the hotel watching on. Can you at least try and keep your shoes on this time?’

                He ended the call and looked out to Central Park. The view sometimes soothed him but it didn’t today.

                She’d leave, in his bones he was sure of it, and there was not a thing he could do once she was gone.

                He’d marry her, James decided, even if he’d run from the very idea all of his life.

                As if she’d agree though, James admitted to himself. He could barely get Leila to agree to dinner without threatening her with a lawyer.

                A sudden thought occurred and again he found himself on the phone to Manu, who was completely appalled at the idea he had just had and said that she would have no part in its execution.

                ‘You can’t force her to marry you, James, that’s not fair.’

                ‘She’s pregnant with my child and could leave the country at any moment,’ James clipped. ‘I don’t have time to be fair.’





                                      CHAPTER SIX

                LEILA LOVED MANHATTAN.

                If she wasn’t dreading meeting with James tonight, if she wasn’t estranged from her family, if her heart wasn’t lonely and heavy, then she would surely be singing as she dressed in the robe of gold she had arrived in before leaving the hotel to go to work.

                Yes, work.

                Leila had known she was in a holding pattern.

                She had known that sooner or later the credit cards would stop, and she had decided that she would not be asking Zayn for money.

                Yes, she was angry at him, yet she loved him.

                He had asked her to trust him; he had promised that she would understand why Sophie had outed her and James if he could just explain.

                She refused to let him.