His Irresistible Darling - Sarah Randall Page 0,48

rub them on her dress. “Right. Good. Thanks.”

There was a moment’s silence before there was a knock on the door. They both turned their heads at the interruption.

It was the bloody kid again. The kid lingered like a bad smell. “Oh. Hello. Er, can I come in?”

“No. Emshi,” Jumal practically growled at the intruder.

“Yes, of course,” Pippa said at the same time. She threw him a curt look and stood up to greet the bastard, kissed him on the bloody cheek and hugged him.

“I’m glad to see you’re okay, Mr Aldabbagh,” the twerp prattled. “That was a bad fall.”

Jumal rudely ignored him, preferring to concentrate on and dissect Pippa’s reaction to him.

“I, er, brought you your bag, Pippa,” he said, proudly holding it out to her like a prize.

Jumal watched her smile warmly at the kid. She never smiled at him like that. He sulked as he tried to sit up in bed, hating to appear even slightly weak with the kid in the room. He quickly wished he hadn’t bothered and yelped again at the pain. On the positive side, Pippa quickly rushed back to his bedside, helping him to get comfortable. Huh, he thought. Interesting.

“Thanks, Jake. That’s really kind of you,” she acknowledged whilst rubbing Jumal’s forearm gently. He wondered if she even knew she was doing it. The kid had spotted it though. His keen eyes had zeroed in on the touch.

“O-okay,” he stammered before apparently recovering his nerve. “Oh yeah, by the way, I forgot to give you these earlier,” he said, reaching into his inside jacket pocket and pulling out an envelope.

Oh, the guy knew exactly what he was doing. Pippa moved her hand from Jumal to reach up and take hold of the envelope and pulled out what looked like photographs. Jumal winced again as he tried to see what she was looking at so intently. The kid caught his wince though.

“Oh wow, Jake, these are amazing,” she declared, flicking through the series of pictures before proudly holding them up for Jumal to see. “Look at that sunset, Jumal. It’s from the top of Mount Gaiza; isn’t it just spectacular? We got another hiker to take a photo of us. We could see all the way across to Dubai. Couldn’t we, Jake?”

“Yeah, it was worth all the aching muscles. Right, Pip?”

“Oh absolutely,” she agreed, still flicking through the photos and showing Jumal, who was still digesting the fact that Pippa and this kid had spent time together. She’d been alone with someone who might well have drugged her.

“Wait,” he interrupted her viewing. “I thought you hated enclosed spaces. Did you take the cable car with him?” Jumal gritted his teeth, waiting for her reply and ignoring the fact that he was jealous that Pippa had trusted the jerk enough to get in a bloody cable car with him. Talk about weird priorities.

“No,” Jake replied for her. “We drove up to the lower viewing platform and then hiked the rest of the way to the top. Took us about three hours or so. Right, Pip?”

Pippa was still distracted by the photos. “Hmm-hmm. Thanks for bringing them,” she said, before re-pocketing the pictures and holding out the envelope to him.

“Oh no, it’s okay. Those are your copies. I have my own.”

Jumal clenched his good hand.

“Well I just wanted to make sure you were all right,” Jake said, slowly backing out of the room. “I told Melina I’d bring your bag as she was finishing up with the guests. She asked me to tell you that she’d be along as soon as she can to give you a lift home.” He clapped his hands together once before pointing his hand over his shoulder to the door. “So, er, I’ll be off then.”

Yeah, bugger off to New York, Jumal thought.

“Thanks again, Jake,” Pippa said.

He shifted around on his feet. “No worries. So maybe we could get together again before I leave for the States? I really would like to go on that trip to Dubai we spoke about,” he suggested too keenly for Jumal.

What bloody trip to Dubai was he talking about now?

“Oh,” Pippa paused and looked down at Jumal. He managed to stop the victory smile that had started to form on his lips. “Yeah sure, that would be great,” she replied.

What the hell? No way. Evidently, an intervention was necessary and he coughed intentionally, readily accepting the resulting pain. Pippa looked down at him with concern. At this moment, Jumal wasn’t against using whatever underhand tactics