CHAPTER TWELVE

      SO THIS was how it was going to be. Everything had changed, yet nothing had changed, and Ella felt as if she was living in a strange kind of limbo. She moved around the beautiful palace feeling like a gatecrasher who the benign host had allowed to remain at the party.

      The stupid thing was that, at first, Hassan’s emotional outpouring had given her hope. She’d thought that once he’d given himself time to reflect on her words that he might come around to her way of thinking. To realise that change was possible. That anything was possible if you wanted it enough.

      And maybe the simple truth of it was that he just didn’t want it. Maybe the thought of allowing himself to feel stuff secretly repulsed him. That his childhood experiences had scarred him too deeply for him ever to contemplate living his life in a different way.

      Because he behaved as if nothing had happened. As if he hadn’t torn open the blackness which seemed to envelop his heart and allowed her to glimpse the bitter pain which lay beneath.

      Once again, the barriers came crashing down, only this time it was worse than before. Because now she had something with which to compare it. She’d felt a snatch of real closeness when he’d opened up to her about his past. When she’d felt as though they’d discovered a new honesty … and when she’d realised how easy it would be to love this proud and tortured man.

      But that was all now a distant memory; the hot passion which had flared between them now mocked her, because Hassan had told her that sex was no longer on the agenda.

      Her hands had trembled when he’d dropped that particular bombshell. ‘You’re saying that you no longer find me attractive?’

      He had shaken his head, still not quite believing that he had opened up to her. Still dazed by the powerful and very basic sex which had followed, which had left him feeling … what? As if she’d laid him bare on every level. As if she could see right into his soul. ‘I’m saying that your pregnancy is getting too advanced,’ he responded. ‘And I don’t think sex is a good idea.’

      Ella had turned away to hide her distress. And so the pleasure she’d found in his arms became nothing but a taunting series of memories. The nights were nothing but long, lonely hours to be endured. Her enormous bed allowed them both to lie there without touching, and the longer this went on, the more impossible it became to return to what they’d had before.

      Ella would hold her breath as she felt the mattress dip beneath Hassan’s weight, and perhaps if she hadn’t been so pregnant, she might have attempted some form of seduction. As it was, even sitting up was a big, lumbering effort. She didn’t even want to think of how clumsy it would look if she tried to launch herself at him. Anyway, such plans were pretty pointless since Hassan would fall asleep almost as soon as his head touched the pillow, while she was left staring at the moon shadows flickering over the ceiling.

      One morning she awoke to find him leaning over her, his dark face creased with concern, and for one crazy moment, she thought he was going to kiss her. Her lips parted as eagerly as a young chick on the nest, but his face became shuttered as he drew back from her.

      ‘You look exhausted,’ he observed quietly. ‘Can’t you sleep?’

      ‘No.’ She waited for him to ask him why and wondered if she dared tell him the reason. Because I miss you. I miss you touching me. Kissing me. Making love to me. Because I’m scared of the future … and I’m only just beginning to realise the heartache which lies ahead if we’re living these separate lives. But she wasn’t going to beg. Or whine. She hadn’t quite sunk to that. She kept her voice light. ‘Nobody ever died from lack of sleep.’

      ‘No, but it isn’t fair to you or the baby to see you looking so exhausted,’ he said harshly. ‘I will move back into my own rooms and sleep there from now on.’

      Her eyes beseeched him to reconsider even if her pride stopped her from asking him outright, but he was true to his word. It didn’t take long for one of his valets to move his few possessions out of her suite, and after that night, Ella slept alone.

      As the days passed, so her loneliness increased. With her sickness firmly in the past and without the diversion of long and erotic nights with Hassan, Ella’s life in the palace seemed empty and pointless. Only continuing with her husband’s portrait, into which she poured all her thwarted passion and despair, helped fill the long, waiting days.

      But that was her only distraction. The constant heat and lack of seasonal change were having a disorientating effect on her. She felt like someone who had awoken from a long sleep and found themselves in an unknown place. The flowers in the garden looked fake; the sky seemed too blue to be real. The beautiful, gilded palace began to feel like a glittering cage.

      Hard to believe that it was early December and, back home, everyone would be gearing up to Christmas. She thought about the glittering lights which twinkled along Regent Street and the supermarkets which would be stuffed to the gills with chocolate. She thought about those tacky paper chains her father used to insist on, because no matter what his faults were, he absolutely loved Christmas and had passed on that love to his children.

      And crazily, she began to miss her family. All her family. Her mother might be a walkover where her father was concerned, but she had always been there when you needed her. The email correspondence they’d been sharing suddenly seemed woefully inadequate, especially the last one which had expressed a wistful desire to ‘see my little girl looking pregnant.’

      She even missed her sisters. She hadn’t had a chance to talk to Allegra about her engagement. And while Izzy might be erratic at times, she was filled with an energy and enthusiasm which Ella missed.

      Now that all the Jacksons knew she was pregnant, would there really be any shame in admitting defeat and going home and accepting help from her family instead of from Hassan? Because his help came with a price tag which was beginning to seem way too high. She didn’t have to be some sort of passive wimp who just took whatever type of behaviour the sheikh doled out to her.

      Her troubled thoughts wouldn’t leave her and eventually it dawned on her that she wanted to go home. And that she would have to tell Hassan. She would emphasise that her trip out here hadn’t been wasted because at least it had enabled them to get to know each other and to establish a degree of civility. And she wouldn’t be unreasonable over access either. In fact, she would make sure that he had as much of it as he liked. Because she would never allow a man who had been neglected by his mother to be kept at a distance by his son or daughter.

      Once she had psyched herself up enough, she sat down to breakfast, her manner curiously calm as she took her place opposite her husband.

      She went through the ritual of drizzling honey onto her bowl of yoghurt. She could sense him watching her, so suddenly she put her spoon down and looked up to meet the dark fire of his eyes.

      ‘You’re still not sleeping?’ he questioned before she could say a word. ‘Even though you now have the bed to yourself?’

      ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s getting