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His eyes bored into her. ‘I’m assuming that marriage is what you want?’
Isobel’s eyes widened. Hadn’t he been listening to a word she’d been saying? ‘You must be mad,’ she whispered. ‘Completely certifiable if you think that I’d ever want to sign up for life with a man like you. A man so full of ego that he thinks a woman will get herself deliberately pregnant in order to trap him.’
‘You think it’s never been done before?’ he scorned.
‘Not by me,’ she defended fiercely, closing her eyes as a wave of terrible sadness washed over her. ‘Now, please go, Tariq. Get out of here before either of us says anything more we might regret.’
His impulse was to resist—for he was used to calling the shots. Until he realised that this wasn’t the first time Izzy had called the shots. It had been her, after all, who’d had the courage to end the relationship. And, yes, he had been arrogant enough to think that she might just be playing a very sophisticated game to bring him to heel.
But Izzy didn’t do game-playing, he realised. She hadn’t told him she thought she was pregnant because she’d feared his reaction—and hadn’t he just proved those fears a thousand times over? He looked at the haunted expression on her whitened face and suddenly felt a savage jerk of guilt.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said suddenly.
Her eyes swimming with unshed tears, she looked at him. ‘What? Sorry for the things you said? Or sorry that you ever got involved with me in the first place?’
He flinched as her accusations hit home. ‘Sit down, Izzy.’
She ignored the placatory note in his voice. He thought he could spew out all that stuff and that now she’d instantly become malleable? How dared he tell her to sit down in her own home? ‘I’ll sit down once you’ve gone.’
‘I’m not going anywhere until you do. Because there are things we need to discuss.’
She wanted to tell him that he had forfeited all rights to any discussion with his cruel comments. But she couldn’t bring herself to do that. Because Tariq was her baby’s father. And didn’t she know better than anyone how great and gaping the hole could be in a child’s life if it didn’t have one?
‘And w
e will,’ she said, sucking in another deep breath, her hand instinctively fluttering to her still-flat belly. ‘Just not now, when emotions are running so high.’
Tariq watched the unfamiliar maternal movement and something tugged at his heart. To his astonishment, he found that he wanted to ask her a million questions. He wanted to ask whether she’d eaten that day, whether she had been sleeping properly at night. He’d never asked for this baby, and he didn’t particularly want it, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t feel empathy for the woman who carried that baby, did it?
He looked at her with a detachment he’d never used before. She did look different, he decided. More delicate than usual, yes—but there was a kind of strength about her, too. It radiated off her like the sunlight which caught the pale fire of her hair.
He should have been gathering her in his arms now and congratulating her. Laying a proprietorial hand over her belly and looking with pride into her shining eyes. If he had been a normal man—like other men—then he would have been able to do all those things. But he knew that all he had was a piece of ice where his heart should be, and that was why they were just gazing at each other suspiciously across a small bedroom.
But this was no time for reflection. Whatever his own feelings, this had to be all about Izzy. He had to think practically. To help her in any way that he could.
‘You obviously won’t be coming back to work,’ he said.
Impatiently, she shook her head. ‘I hadn’t even thought about work.’
‘Well, you don’t have to. I want you to know that you don’t have to worry about anything. I’ll make sure you’re financially secure.’
Now she observed him with a kind of fury. What? Buy her off? Did he think that she’d be satisfied with that as compensation for the lack of the marriage she’d supposedly been angling for? She thought of her own mother—how she had always gone out to work and supported herself. And hadn’t Isobel been grateful for that role model? To see a woman survive and thrive and not be beaten down because her hopes of love had not materialised?
‘Actually, I’ve decided that I want to carry on working,’ she said. ‘And besides, what on earth would I do all day—sit around knitting bootees? Plenty of women work right up until the final weeks. I’ll...I’ll look for another job, obviously.’
But she was filled with dread at the thought of going from agency to agency and having to hide her pregnancy. Who would want to take on a woman in her condition and offer her any kind of security for the future?
‘You don’t need to look for another job,’ he said harshly. ‘You could come back to work for me in an instant. Or I could arrange to have you work for one of the partners, if you don’t think you could tolerate being in the same office as me.’
Isobel swallowed. She thought of starting work for someone new, with her pregnancy growing all the time. She wasn’t aware of how much other people at the Al Hakam corporation knew about their affair. After all, it wasn’t the most likely of partnerships, and Tariq hadn’t exactly been squiring her around town. Would people put two and two together and come up with the right answer? Would her position be compromised once any new boss knew who the father of her baby was?
She stared at him, wondering what kind of foolish instinct it was which made her realise that she actually wanted to work for him. For there was a certain kind of security in the familiar—especially when there was so much happening in her life. At least with Tariq she wouldn’t have to hide anything, or pretend. Tariq would protect her. Because, despite his angry words of earlier, she sensed that he would make sure that nothing and nobody ever harmed her, or her baby.
‘I think I could just about tolerate it,’ she said slowly.
She met his eyes, knowing that she needed to believe in the words she was about to speak—because otherwise there could be no way forward. She had thought that if she quietly loved him then he might learn how to love her back—even if it was only a little bit. She had thought that maybe she could change him. But she had been wrong. Because you couldn’t change somebody else—you could only change yourself. And Tariq didn’t want love—not in any form, it seemed. He didn’t want to receive it, and he didn’t want to give it either. Not to her—and not to their baby.
‘We must agree to give each other the personal space we need,’ she continued steadily. ‘The relationship is over, Tariq—we both know that. But there’s no reason why we can’t behave civilly towards each other.’
