His Irresistible Darling (23 page)

His father laughed bitterly. “Is
she
the reason you called off the engagement?” he accused pointing his index finger at her. “This girl,” he spat, and Pip winced inwardly as she shifted her body slightly behind Jumal’s. She just wished that he’d let her slink away to their room.

Pip could no longer see Jumal’s face but by the look on his father’s face, it wasn’t friendly. “Not that it is any of your business, but no,
Pippa
—” he emphasised her name “—is not the reason that I called the engagement off and I will not explain myself. Faridah was your choice, not mine, and I will not apologise.” His voice was perfectly controlled and even.

“Just as I thought,” his father said looking at his wife. “It’s a good job we came back to talk some sense into him.” Pip was offended on Jumal’s behalf as they spoke as if he wasn’t even in the room.

Jumal’s body tensed. “Well, you have wasted your time then,” Jumal informed them brusquely.

His father started pacing around the room. “You are going to throw away
everything
, all our plans for your future, for Dubain’s future—” he spun on his heels to face them and pointed at Pippa menacingly; the older man’s lips twisted “—for
her
. Just look at the state of her.” He shook his head. “Foolish,” she thought she head him add.

Pip rubbed her cheeks subconsciously but she knew the grease and dirt from the tyre would just smudge. She wanted to disappear and thankfully Jumal loosened his grip on her hand and nodded as she slipped from the room.

“Nice to meet you, Mr Aldabbagh. If you’ll excuse me, my mother always told me that if I didn’t have anything kind to say then I shouldn’t say anything at all,” she managed to state, before nodding more politely at his mother and making her escape to the smaller snug room as her eyes filled with hot tears.

***

Jumal was fighting for control. He flexed his fingers and took a couple of deep breaths. As ever, his father was pushing him, testing him, and he was almost at breaking point.

“Don’t push me on this, Father. You won’t like the decision I make,” Jumal threatened.

“You can’t be serious about her,” his father continued and Jumal was relieved that he had let Pippa leave the room.

“Let me make myself perfectly clear, Father,” he parried, harshly. “If I thought for
one minute
that Pippa would actually stay here, in Dubain with me, agree to marry me, she would be your daughter-in-law faster than you could blink and, with good blessing, the mother of my children,
your
grandchildren,” he said directly to his mother who was almost crying now and strangely hadn’t said a word yet. “I would be honoured if she’d agree to any of that, but she won’t,” he admitted quietly. “And anyway, I’m not enough for her—”

“Oh Jumal—” His mother turned and tried to interrupt, tears now falling freely down her cheeks, but she had a warm smile on her face. She reached for her clutch bag and dabbed at her tears with a handkerchief.

“Please, Mother, let me get this out,” he begged, placing a calming hand on her shoulder from the back of the sofa. “He needs to hear this,” he said, looking up at his father who was pacing again.

“You are in my home and as such I expect you to show Pippa respect—” he paused and held his arm out towards the door “—or you can leave. Your choice.”

There was a stand-off between them as his father stopped pacing and digested his ultimatum before reaching his decision.

He approached his wife and offered her his hand to help her stand and told her in Arabic that they were leaving. His mother closed her eyes briefly and thinned her lips. That told Jumal all he needed to know about his mother’s opinion.

She ignored her husband’s hand and stood gracefully on her own before collecting her clutch bag from the sofa and moving towards him. She hugged him tightly and kissed his cheek before whispering in his ear, “She’s lovely, son. And you’re wrong—” before pulling back slightly and adding “—I saw it in her eyes.”

Wrong about what?
he wanted to ask, but his father stormed dramatically from the room and his mother felt compelled to follow. “Goodbye, angel. Good luck,” his mother said, giving him a knowing smile and wink.

***

He found her curled up on the sofa in the snug. He closed the door to give them privacy from the resident staff.

“Hey, what’s the matter?”

She lifted her head. “
What’s the matter?
” she repeated, flabbergasted, her voice rising. “Really, Jumal. Are you
that
stupid that you can’t tell what’s the matter and why I’m upset?” she challenged.

He let out a sharp breath and held his left arm out at his side. “I have an idea but please won’t you spell it out for me if I’m so stupid!” he spat back at her defensively.

“I’m sick of being a dirty little secret and everyone thinking I’m some idiot kid,” she accused, sitting up.

She winced at Jumal’s curse as he dragged his hand over his head. “When have I
ever
treated you like that?” he demanded.

“Seriously?” She recoiled, her eyes wide as she shook her head. “You don’t want anyone at the office to know we’re seeing each other. You want them to just assume that I’m still living at your place to help you out and I’ve gone along with it. And just now, back there, you stood there and let your father treat me like something he stepped in on the way in from the stables. You just took it,” she mumbled, almost disbelievingly, her voice dropping low. “What else can I think but that you’re embarrassed by me?”

His emerald eyes narrowed darkly in annoyance. “Well what the hell am I supposed to say to anyone?” he shouted pointing at her. “According to you, we’re not in a bloody relationship and we’re just having
fun
!”

She jumped up from the sofa. “
Fun!? Fun?! 
” she spat. “We’ll I’m just having sooo much
fun
now, Jumal.” She threw her hands out wide before slamming her palms back against her thighs and turning to storm away from him. “Oh wait, my sides hurt so much from all the
fun
I’m having right now.” She bent to the sofa, picked up a cushion and hurled it at him. He ducked and it hit the wall behind him. She picked up another. “What about you, Jumal—” throwing another cushion “—you having
fun
yet?” she yelled, firing another soft missile at him as he dodged yet again.

“Wait, just wait,” he yelled back, holding his hand up defensively. “
I’m
not the one who—”

“Oh, oh,” she added, her voice reaching a crescendo as she interrupted him and pointed her finger at him. “And why the hell don’t you just tell your father how miserable you are. Be honest with him, with yourself, and for God’s sake stop treating me like a kid!” She was struggling to catch her breath and he’d never seen her so animated, except when they were intimate, but he flinched at her last accusations and hit back.

“Well stop acting like one, Pippa!” he fired back at her and immediately regretted it as she momentarily dropped her ammunition and her lips parted before she once again gathered her steel.

“Well…well maybe I act up just to get your bloody attention!”

What the hell?

“You already—” He forced his mouth shut as he dodged yet another cushion. Christ how many did he have in the room? He prayed she wasn’t about to move onto more breakable objects!

He wanted to grab hold of her and tell her that she’d had his complete attention for months, that she was all he’d ever thought about from the moment he opened his eyes each morning, that the whole Dubai deal could have gone under and he would still have been thinking about her—about her laugh, her energy, her bravery, the way she threw herself into everything and drew people towards her like they were caught in her gravitational pull, how she made him question
everything
about his own life.

Thankfully she finally ran out of cushions and stormed off to their bedroom, muttering eye-watering curses on her way, but her raging comments about his father lingered and festered in his mind. She was right; how could he complain to her about how his father had dictated his early years and was still intent on trying to do so, when he hadn’t told him straight to his face years ago that he was his own man and would no longer simply jump to his tune? His hasty engagement to Faridah was a perfect example. Yes, he knew of her family but all arrangements had been made in his absence whilst he’d been visiting Matt and inspecting his new foal. His father had been busy making advantageous family arrangements on his behalf and no sooner had he arrived back on Dubain than hey presto, he had a new fiancée. Intelligent and beautiful yes, but not his choice. His choice was thousands of miles away living her fun-filled life to the max. At the time, it had suited his own hastily made plans to put Pippa as far from his thoughts as possible, so he’d agreed to go along with the engagement. He’d naively thought that the perfect antidote to Pippa was engagement to Faridah.

When he hoped that she’d calmed down, and used up all that aggressive energy, which he’d actually found to be a turn-on, Jumal knocked at the bedroom door before popping his head tentatively around the partially opened door.

“Is it safe yet?” he checked, pushing the door open wide. “My ears are still bleeding from that expletive tirade, Miss Darling. Even
I
hadn’t heard of half those words.”

Pip brought her head up slowly from the pillows, sitting back on her elbows, but couldn’t stop her lips curving into a smile. Jumal was wearing a spare polo helmet and face guard and holding a pillow up in front of his chest as his shield while brandishing a wooden spoon.

He slowly walked over to her and sat down at her side. “My parents have left. Peace offering,” he said, placing a tube of Smarties in her hand and taking off the helmet.

She smiled and opened the tube, poured out a handful and popped them into her mouth. “What, you keeping these on your person at all times now just in case I go all nuts again?” she joked. “You know,” she muttered, munching away happily, “Someone should tell them just to make tubes of the orange ones. They’re the best by far,” she told him, placing her hands in her lap. “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you in front of your parents and I’m sorry about lecturing you about your dad. I’m in no position to lecture you. Can we just go home, Jumal?” she begged after a few moments.

Home. Oh yeah, that sounded like a great plan.

“There is nothing to apologise for, Pippa. We’ll go home first thing tomorrow,” he agreed, holding an open palm towards her. “And just to be absolutely clear, I’m not embarrassed to be with you, Pippa. I just assumed
you’d
want to keep what was going on with us under the radar. People knowing about us could put us both in a difficult position—professionally and with your family,” he explained.

She sighed heavily. “Okay,” she conceded, pouring a few Smarties into his hand. “Fancy an early night?” she suggested, wiggling her eyebrows as he tossed the sweets into his mouth.

He even loved sparring with her; it energised him. He smiled as he cast his mind back a few days to when they were both in the bathroom at his apartment using the double basins to brush their teeth before bed…complete domesticity and God bless the ever unreliable plumber who had failed to show up.

Jumal had mumbled around his toothbrush, “So are you planning on letting me have any room in bed tonight?”

“Huh?” was the unladylike response from Pippa.

“You sleep like a starfish.”

She’d spat out her final rinse just as he was hitting back the mouthwash.

“I what!?” she’d shrieked, offended. “Well…well, you snore!” she’d lied, making a snorting sound like a rutting pig.

Jumal had almost choked on the mouthwash before grabbing his hand towel and coughing, wincing at the pain from his ribs.

“At least I don’t talk in my sleep,” he’d teased back and grinned at her mortified face. “
Ooh oh Jumal, you’re so good. You’re so strong. I’ve never met anyone like you. You’re so much better than Jake
,” he’d mimicked, chuckling and ducking away at the same time from the hand towel she’d thrown at him.

She’d shouted, “Yeah well, you’re the one who follows me around the bed when we’re asleep like a bloody heat-seeking missile and then clings to me like a limpet—aagghhh, Jumal!” He’d turned and grabbed her around the waist with his good arm and surprised her. He was getting the strength back in his shoulder, and whilst he wouldn’t be lifting free weights for a while, he could easily lift her elfin frame up to the counter with one arm. Turned out to be the perfect way to make love to her without any stress on his battered and bruised body!

Funny, he thought, coming back to the present, he’d never argued with Faridah in the entirety of their engagement. Hell, she hadn’t even stayed over at his apartment. Had he ever asked? The simple truth was that he hadn’t cared enough to argue with her about anything. With Pippa, hell, he enjoyed arguing and teasing her about anything and everything and vice versa. It constantly amazed him that at thirty-four, he was still discovering new facets to his character, parts he actually liked, and he was under no illusion as to who was bringing them forth.

***

After another week of recuperation, Jumal returned to the office. He needed to return as he was becoming far too comfortable at home, having Pippa available any time he wanted.

For a former workaholic, he’d found it strangely easy to adapt to life at home. Cooking dinner for Pippa was turning into his new favourite pastime. Meanwhile, Pippa was thriving with the extra responsibility, undertaking work that even Greta, his long-serving former PA, would have struggled to perform without asking for his assistance.

The night before, they lay on the sofa after dinner.

“I envy you,” he confessed quietly.

“Hmm,” she murmured, dropping the book she was reading to her chest and pushing her glasses back up the bridge of her nose before raising a brow. “Well yes, that’s understandable but I promised to show you how to change a tyre before I leave,” she teased, but he only offered her a tight-lipped smile.

“I’m serious, Pippa. You’ve already made wise choices for your education. You’ve got so much to look forward to in your life. So many things you can do—options.” He murmured the last word wistfully.