he said slowly.
‘Yes.’
‘Who else have you told?’
She hesitated. ‘Only my brother, Ben.’
‘He is discreet?’
She heard the doubt in his voice and bristled. ‘Actually, there’s nobody as discreet as Ben, though you probably find that difficult to believe as he happens to be a dreaded Jackson.’
‘Actually, I happen to know that in the business world your brother has a formidable reputation,’ conceded Hassan drily. ‘But this is something very different.’
The nod to Ben’s undoubted talent should have pleased her but Ella was too concerned with the implication behind Hassan’s question to do anything but stare at him in growing horror. ‘Why are you so concerned who knows about this? You think … you think …’ She sucked in a deep and unsteady breath and expelled it again on a horrified shudder. ‘Listen to me, Hassan Al Abbas. I am having this baby, no matter what. And nothing you can ever say will change my mind.’
The fierce look on her face was unmistakable and for a moment he admired her passion and integrity before indignation reared its head and his face darkened. ‘You think that I am suggesting—’
‘Don’t even say it!’ she warned.
Hassan gave an impatient wave of his hand. ‘I am not used to being interrupted.’
‘Well, I’m not used to having insults hurled at me. So if you can manage to keep a civil tongue in your head, I promise I won’t interrupt you and then we should be fine, shouldn’t we?’
His eyes narrowed as he remembered her determination to remove him from her office so that she could continue working and suddenly a solution came to him. Suddenly, he realised exactly how he should handle this. ‘We need to decide what we’re going to do,’ he said.
The use of the word we made Ella faintly uneasy. ‘I told you, the decision has already been made. I’m having the baby, and I’m perfectly prepared to bring her or him up on my own.’
‘But you can’t make decisions like that because it isn’t just your baby,’ he said softly. ‘This child has royal blood in its veins. Do you have any idea what that means, Ella?’
‘How can I? The world of sheikhdom is a mystery to me. Actually, come to think of it, so are you.’
‘Oh, I don’t think so.’ His voice dipped as he ran his eyes over her body. ‘I think there are plenty of things about me which are no mystery whatsoever.’
The sensual allusion was obvious and, she suspected, intentional. To Ella’s fury, she felt her face grow hot, despite all her best intentions. She’d vowed not to react to him in any way other than a strictly business-like one, and now here she was, colouring up like a naive schoolgirl. ‘I don’t want to talk about that.’
A mixture of emotions he didn’t even want to acknowledge made him want to hurt her. To make her pay for having trapped him, because wasn’t that easier than admitting that he had walked right into it? ‘What, the sex you couldn’t get enough of?’
‘But it was the same for you!’ she flashed back. ‘Wasn’t it?’
He met the challenge in her eyes and had to fight down an urgent desire to kiss her. He had been wondering just what it was about her which had made him lose his head—and his body—so completely. Her own amazing body coupled with his own frustration had been obvious contenders, but he realised that her fearlessness was a turn-on too. He’d seen it in the way she’d turned on him in the darkened corridor of the palace at Santina and faced him down. And she was demonstrating it now—her clear blue eyes wide and unafraid, despite the enormity of her situation. ‘Yes,’ he admitted harshly. ‘It was the same for me.’
His words ignited memories she was trying her best to forget. The feeling of being in his arms. The crush of his mouth on hers and the instant flaring of her body in response. Ella tried to ignore the sudden yearning to have him make love to her all over again. Concentrate on what is real, she thought as she forced herself to confront her greatest fear and most foolish hope. ‘Are you saying you want a hands-on role as father?’
For a moment, Hassan didn’t answer. ‘I’m saying that’s a possibility. But I think it’s important that we discuss your needs first.’
Ella blinked in surprise. Was that genuine concern she heard in his voice? ‘My needs?’ she echoed.
‘Well, you have your own business, don’t you? I don’t know very much about party-planning, but I imagine it must require a lot of hard work and dedication, especially as you’re the boss.’
Cautiously, Ella nodded. ‘Yes, it does.’
‘And some pretty unsociable hours?’
‘That’s one of the drawbacks,’ she agreed, softening in spite of herself, because she would never have believed that he could be quite so understanding.
‘And a baby might get in the way of that?’
‘Well, ye—’ The words died on her lips as she looked into his face and saw that it wasn’t concern but calculation she saw in his black eyes. And suddenly, she realised just where this was leading. Suddenly, she realised what a sucker she was for just a few kind words. Was that what her mother had done, over and over again? Fallen under the spell of a man who had treated her like dirt just because he’d uttered a few sweet nothings along the way? The shock of realising that she had very nearly done the same thing made the blood drain from her face.
‘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?’