His Irresistible Darling (27 page)

“I think you might be surprised,” Melina added.

But Pip very much doubted it.

***

“All packed?”

“Yep. If I’ve forgotten anything just bring it into the office,” she said, looking around the living room.

“So—” She let the word hand in the air.

“So—” he repeated, pocketing his hands in his jeans and rocking back on his heels.

For the first time in their brief relationship, there was an awkward pause.

“Oh gosh, I almost forgot to give you this.” She rushed to pick a small wrapped packet from her handbag and pushed it into his open hand. “Oh no, don’t open it yet. Wait till I’ve gone. It’s my offering to make sure you don’t turn into that ‘old fart’ you worry so much about,” she teased but with only a half-hearted smile. “Oh and remember, you have a lifetime offer for surfing lessons.”

He started down at his hand and swallowed deeply.

“Thank you, Pippa,” he said earnestly, hoping he conveyed his thanks for more than just the gift. She had given him so much, including a hope for his future—an alternative.

Her laugh brought his attention back to the loveliness of her face as she said, “Ha, I bet you never thought you’d be saying that to me last October.”

“It’s certainly never been dull has it, Miss Darling?” he joked half-heartedly. His smile failed to reach his eyes. “It’s been an adventure. Fun.”

He saw her face crumple for just a moment. Had he upset her with his words? He’d meant to tell her how much she’d changed his life. “Pippa, I know we said goodbye last night but—” He stepped forward, pulled her into his arms and hugged her body close. He inhaled the scent of her apple-fragranced hair and closed his eyes. Something in his chest, not too far from his heart, ached as it hit him like a blow from a heavyweight boxer that this would be the last time he’d be able to hold her like this. Every curve of her body was memorised to last him a lifetime. He wasn’t ready to let her go, he needed more time. “Stay.”

She tilted her head up and her eyes were wide.

“Stay with me tonight; just stay another night,” he all but begged.

The same hurt look he’d seen a moment earlier clouded her features for a second before she shook her head. “I can’t. I told you I need to go back to my apartment and pack and spend some time with Melina.” She dropped her head back down and he pulled her close again.

“Jumal—” She tried to pull away from him.

“Just wait,” he begged into the soft waves of her hair. He pulled her slight frame tighter into his body. His head whirled with conflicting thoughts: tell her how he felt or preserve his self-respect and heart?

He finally let some air in between their bodies and pulled back slightly, dropping a soft kiss to her partially opened lips. Where those tears in her eyes?

“Pippa—” He took a deep breath, not yet knowing what words were about to spill from his lips.
Stay with me; stay here with me for ever. Don’t go
. Her eyes widened and her pupils dilated. “I, er—” But she dropped her eyes to the floor and the sudden loss of eye contact interrupted his proposed admission, and what ended up coming from his lips was, “I’ll miss you.”

***

Pip was proud of the fact that she’d made it into her car before the hot tears spilled down to her cheeks and that she’d insisted on Jumal staying in the apartment, knowing what was about to come. She dropped her head against the steering wheel and sobbed. She was annoyed at him for letting her go. Fool. But she was just as annoyed at herself for letting him weave his way into her head and heart and for making her believe for just a moment when he’d crushed her to his chest that he wanted more than just the fling, that they had some permanence and he’d felt just a sliver of what she felt for him. Idiot.

All out of tissues, she resorted to sniffing and rubbing her eyes with the bottom of her T-shirt, ignoring the mascara stains.

***

Finally he saw her car drive away. He’d been about to go down to see if there was another problem with it before he saw the lights come on.

He shut the sliding balcony doors behind him and leant his body back against the cool glass. He closed his eyes and his senses were flooded by Pippa’s scent, which lingered in the living room. He finally opened his eyes and surveyed his apartment. It no longer felt like his home, if it ever had. It felt empty, lifeless, like it had before Pippa had flounced into his life. He dropped his head back against the door. Crap. He’d so nearly told her how he felt.
I love you, Pippa
, had been balanced tentatively on the tip of his tongue but he knew it wasn’t fair; he couldn’t just blurt it out as she was about to leave the country to return to her life in England.

She’d want and demand exhilaration, fun and spontaneity from a partner—not a fast-approaching middle age boring businessman. Christ, she’d have likely laughed at him or worse—pitied him before politely rejecting him. She didn’t need him. Other women had always needed something from him: his wealth, his body or, like Faridah, the social standing that came with his family name. Pippa—she needed nothing. She had her own money, her own self-confidence, and even if she did care about such things as family names and social standing, she had her own respected heritage back in England where suitors would no doubt come a calling as soon as she landed. His teeth ground together as his fists clenched but he quickly released his grip on her present.

He forced his eyes to open and pushed away from the door. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been standing there but it was now getting dark outside. He scanned the living room and lounge area. Silence was his only companion now. No music, no yodelling or whatever it was she sang along to. Everywhere reminded him of Pippa: playing snap on the floor in front of the fire because it was the only card game that she knew and he could play one handed, coming home and finding her balancing on her head in some weird yoga position and desperately trying not to pounce on her, her running through the apartment in her belly-dancing outfit yelling at him that she couldn’t find her car keys and that she was going to be late picking up Melina. He’d given her his car keys and eventually found hers in the fridge…

He wandered into the kitchen and absently ran one hand along the black marble counter tops, remembering that first intense, game-changing look that they’d shared all those weeks ago, her tendency to burn every meal she cooked, the takeaway menus she pinned with a camel magnet to the fridge for just such eventualities. He abandoned the kitchen for his office where she’d sat on his desk feeding him ice cream whilst he made business calls, then went into the bathroom where for the first time he’d seen her pale breasts bobbing around through the bubbles and the glass of wine next to them. He smiled and shook his head at that memory. Only Pippa.

He found himself at his bedroom door and took hold of the handle but just couldn’t face going through it. Not yet.

He was going to have to sell the place. Hell he might even give it away to a charity—too many memories. He dropped his head and remembered the small gift in his hand.

He returned to the kitchen and placed the gift on the counter whilst he grabbed a beer from the fridge. After popping the top in the bin and talking a long swig, he gingerly picked up the small gift and rolled it in his fingers. He couldn’t remember ever having received a gift from someone who wasn’t related to him.

He finally opened up the gift—and chuckled out loud, shaking his head. Only Pippa.

***

After nursing several beers Jumal decided it was time to face his demons and go to bed, but a knock at the door provided a much-welcomed distraction…
PIPPA?

As he threw the door open he tried to keep the look of disappointment from his face as his shoulders dropped. Malik.

He left the door wide open and stalked back to the living room, calling over his shoulder, “Beer or something stronger?”

He heard Malik close the door and join him. “Beer’s fine.”

“Here,” he said, handing his friend a bottle. “So what’s up?”

Malik choked on his first swig and coughed. “Sorry. ‘
What’s up
?’” he asked wide-eyed. “What happened to ‘What’s the matter?’ You trying to get hip or something?”

At his cool stare, Malik cleared his throat and wisely continued. “Melina called me and said that Pip’s back in her apartment. So—” He shrugged his shoulders. “I thought I’d see how you are. Her flight’s tomorrow evening, right?”

“Right,” Jumal replied gruffly, swigging on his own beer and sitting back in a lounge chair and planting his feet up on the low-rise table.

Jumal reached forward to check his mobile, along with the new ringtone—his father. No doubt ringing to make sure Pippa had left Dubain. He ignored it.

“What the hell is that?” Malik asked with a quizzical look towards the ringing mobile. “I never had you for a Miley Cyrus fan, Jumal. Bit of a depressing song, isn’t it?”

Jumal shook his head and shrugged. “Pippa. She liked to change the ringtones and I have no idea how to change them back,” he lied. Of course he knew how to change them—just didn’t want to.

“Well, at least you can get a new PA—one who can actually do the job without winding you up and pushing all your buttons,” Malik unhelpfully suggested, standing behind the sofa and leaning forward.

“Malik, I’m saying this because you’ve been my friend since we were five and you’re the brother I never had so I
really
don’t want to have to hit you. Don’t talk about Pippa like that. She saved us millions in that contract. Yes, the alternative counsel I instructed would likely have picked up on it but if she hadn’t reviewed that contract for me at the last minute I would have trusted Faridah and likely signed it. She saved this company.”

“Noted. But she was still just a kid, right? You can get someone with more experience—like Greta.”

“She might be young but she’s had more life experience than I
ever
had. She’s travelled, worked in homeless shelters in New York. She told me a couple of nights ago in some off-the-cuff remark that she’d parachuted from a plane for her brother’s charity. And don’t even get my started on her run-in with bloody knife-wielding guerrillas. She was the best PA I’ve ever had. I could leave her to talk to the foreign minister of Dubai or with a child in the Bedouin camp. And she’s braver than me. She stood up to my father and wouldn’t stand around to listen to him bad-mouth her. She left the room rather than cause a scene. A
kid
would have just screamed abuse right back at him and probably slapped him—” he looked up at his friend “—which he would have deserved.” He took a gulp from his beer.

“Yeah but she annoyed the hell out of you,” Malik continued, undeterred.

Jumal’s head shot up again. His friend was really starting to piss him off. “I loved it—loved her,” he spat back at his friend before realising what he’d confessed.

Malik grinned triumphantly at him before he cocked his head to one side. “About bloody time. So what are you going to do about it?”

Jumal took a deep breath. “I need to go and see my parents.”

Chapter Thirteen

Oh what hideous aptness, she thought, rolling her eyes at the random choice on her iPod playlist, before pressing the shuffle button. “Leaving on a Jet Plane”. Nope. Next. “Ever Fallen in Love with Someone?” Not on your life. Next. Fate was clearly a premenstrual bitch with a terrible sense of humour.

“Miss. Excuse me, miss.”

Pip dragged out her earphones and apologised to the young chap who was anxious to finish boarding her flight.

She took one last look around at the now empty gate. “Oh right, here you go,” she said, handing him the boarding card and showing him her passport as she took one last hopeless look over her shoulder. Nope. No Jumal running desperately down the corridor shouting her name, ala Ross and Rachel. She checked her phone. No desperate last-minute calls from him begging her to stay. No happy romcom ending like the one she’d watched all those weeks ago, lying on Jumal’s bed. She closed her eyes and told herself to keep it together as she accepted the small torn boarding card and picked up her carry-on bag.

Fate clearly hadn’t finished with her yet as she found herself sitting next to a honeymooning couple…but at least they spent most of the long flight wrapped around each other and ignoring her. Once in the air, she flipped through her iPod until she finally found something appropriate. It irritated her immensely that most of her music catalogue somehow now reminded her of Jumal or something that they’d done together. Eventually she landed on the Arctic Monkeys. Ah, men from Yorkshire… Perfect antidote to the exotic Jumal, she thought as she scrolled through the pictures on her in-flight-mode phone: random shots of Dubain scenery, she and Melina at her birthday party, the Bedouin camp, camels, she and Jake at the summit, a sleeping Shrek… Her fingers hovered over the buttons for a brief moment until she could no longer see the picture through the glare of her tear-filled eyes. She pressed “delete”.

***

Pip reached for the pack of tissues with one hand and grabbed a handful of Haribos with the other. Times were very desperate and she was peeved that she could no longer eat Smarties without collapsing into floods of tears at the memories they caused.
Bastard had a lot to answer for
.

She blew her nose and quickly cut off the thought that if Jumal could see her now he’d probably run away with horror… Nope. Not going down that rabbit hole again.

She wiped her eyes behind her glasses and heard a gentle knock on her door. She discarded the used tissues on the floor at her side to join the growing pile.

She sniffed before shouting, “Yep. Come in.”

Ana popped her head around the door before opening it widely. “Oh, honey,” she said, all motherly, before closing the door quickly behind her. “Don’t cry,” she beseeched, joining Pip on the bed and grabbing her hand.

“I’m not crying about
him,
well not right now. I’m watching a film,” she told her, nodding towards the wall-mounted television on the far wall. Ana followed her gaze.

“
Marley and Me
?” she asked stunned. “You better not let George see this. You know how sensitive he is. So,” Ana continued, flopping down on Pip’s bed. “Feel like hitting Leeds this weekend? We can celebrate your new job.” She smiled mischievously. “Plus, Alix is coming up and I need you to help me keep him under control. You know what he’s like when his fans recognise him. Plus, I can’t keep up with his dancing on my own. You have to share the load with me!” she begged, holding her hands together in prayer, beseeching.