Daughter of Hassan & Heart of the Desert(50)

Georgie watched as Hassan paled.

‘So what is it to be?’ Ibrahim pushed. ‘Because if I’m not needed I’m heading for the casino.’ And he would, Georgie knew. He’d head too to another woman, any woman. He was angry and she had provoked it.

‘You have my full support,’ Hassan said. ‘And I thank you for stepping in. I am going to visit my wife and son.’

He nodded goodnight to Georgie and a now sleeping Azizah and finally they were alone.

‘That was low,’ Georgie said.

‘That was common sense.’ Ibrahim snapped. ‘I don’t care how safe it is, how effective the immunisation is, if it were my newborn…’ And he looked at where Georgie sat holding a baby, and he was black with anger, because that morning he had almost envisaged it, not a wife and a baby but a future with someone who was not a stranger to his heart. The role of prince and a return to the desert had seemed manageable with her by his side. ‘I have to work.’ He turned to go, but she called him.

‘Can we please talk, Ibrahim?

‘I don’t wish to talk to you.’

‘Please.’ Georgie said. ‘It was something that happened a long time ago, something—’

‘That cannot be undone,’ Ibrahim interrupted.

‘When did you become so perfect?’ Georgie asked. ‘I don’t get why everything has to change.’

‘Because it has.’

‘It was a few weeks,’ Georgie said. ‘I was nineteen. It was hell at home and I’d lost my job when I got sick again…’ She tumbled out words when he didn’t respond immediately, argued her case while she still had a chance. ‘I thought he was nice.’

‘So you married him because he was nice.’

‘There are worse reasons. He was older, he seemed safe, but I see now that he was a drunk like my father. I see now I just ran straight to the same thing.’

‘You think that makes it better. That you tossed everything away for some middle-aged drunk.’

‘It was ages ago,’ Georgie said. ‘I know it’s frowned on here but in London—’

‘I am a royal prince!’ Ibrahim struggled to keep his voice down, for the sake of the baby.

‘Not when you’re there.’ And she watched lines mar his forehead, his hand going up to his face in a gesture of frustration. He was saving her from herself and that she didn’t understand. He thought of his mother, sitting by the phone, waiting. Of a life married to a man who could not always be there, who had children scattered by both geography and allegiance, and he must not, Ibrahim told himself, do that to Georgie. So instead he did as his brother had suggested, said words that would leave her in no doubt.

‘I’m a royal prince,’ Ibrahim said again. ‘Which means…’ He swallowed before continuing, but she didn’t see it, just heard his low, even voice as he very clearly stated his case. ‘I don’t have to deal in damaged goods.’ If she hadn’t been holding Azizah Georgie would have stood and slapped him, but instead her eyes left his face and she sat holding the baby for comfort, holding her sweet, warm body as she chilled inside. ‘The bride that will be chosen for me will know what is expected. A bride fit for my side is not found outside nightclubs with a smorgasbord of contraception and her divorce papers in her bedside drawer. If you want me to look you up in London, if you’re bored one night—’

‘Never!’

‘Then…’ Ibrahim shrugged ‘…we’re done.’

‘You’re a bastard.’

‘When I choose to be.’ Ibrahim shrugged again. He heard her shocked silence and little Azizah start to whimper.

‘Would you do as you suggested earlier and disappear with the baby?’ Ibrahim said. ‘I’ve got a country to run.’





CHAPTER THIRTEEN




IT DID not abate.

Not for a single minute.

There were demands and there were questions and he dealt with each and every one.

He flew deep into the desert and witnessed the suffering, then returned to have his competence questioned by a hungry press.

He did not care about tourism was his surly response at the conference.

And anyway, he questioned the questioners, did the tourists want to visit an empty desert—a ghost town of what once was?

He silenced his critics with his performance, yet for Ibrahim there was no respite, for each night he slept alone.

He went for the phone on several occasions, but it wasn’t just sex he wanted. For the first time it was someone else’s opinion he craved.

One other person’s opinion.

‘I tell him he does well.’ Home from the hospital before her baby, Jamal sat at breakfast and spoke in broken English to Georgie, when Ibrahim made a surprise appearance one morning. She spoke for a little while longer to Ibrahim then turned and smiled at Georgie. ‘Soon Felicity back.’

‘How soon?’ Georgie asked, her eyes jerking to Ibrahim, because she wanted to leave so badly, because even if she hardly saw him, just the occasional passing on the stairs, where the greeting was polite and cool had been hard enough. Now that he was sitting at the table, it was almost more than she could bear.

‘Karim called and said the situation is much improved—he wants her to come home, though he will stay out there.’

‘And the airports?’ Georgie asked.

‘I’m meeting with the doctors today. They are proposing that all visitors be vaccinated…but…’ He paused, waited for her to fill in, to offer her thoughts, but Georgie didn’t. ‘Once the new guidelines are in place, there seems no reason not to reopen them.’

‘How soon?’ Georgie asked, because she did not want a debate, just answers.

‘Perhaps as early as tomorrow.’ Ibrahim selected a fruit from the platter, then changed his mind and Georgie looked down and saw the pomegranate. She could have picked it up herself, could have taunted him a little, but she was too bruised and raw to play games: she just wanted to go home.

‘You stay till I bring the baby home,’ Jamal said—the future king would not be named for some time yet. ‘It will be a good day.’

Georgie gave a noncommittal smile and when the maid came to tell Hassan and Jamal that the car was ready to take them to the hospital, Georgie stood to leave too, but Ibrahim halted her.

‘Will you stay when Felicity gets here?’

‘Why?’

‘As Jamal said, the baby will be home soon and with the illness receding, there will be much celebration.’

‘I don’t really feel like celebrating.’

‘You could have time with your sister.’

‘Not this visit.’ Georgie gave a shrug and went to leave.

‘Georgie.’

‘What?’

‘Maybe we should talk…’

‘About what?’

He didn’t know, but he was aching for her.

‘Maybe tonight, when the palace is quiet, you could come—’

‘As I said,’ Georgie hissed, ‘never.’ And she went to walk out but he called her back and she was more angry than she had ever been in her life, because he thought he could summon her, that sex might soothe the heartache; angry too, that she was considering it.

‘Georgie, you do not walk out—’

‘Am I supposed to curtsey?’ she hurled back at him.

‘You do not leave till you’re excused.’

‘Oh, I’ve already been excused,’ Georgie responded. ‘When you called me damaged goods, Ibrahim, you excused me for life.’

‘Like it or not, we are here together.’ He just wanted to talk, but she was too angry to see that.

‘Not for much longer,’ Georgie snarled. ‘Felicity’s back tomorrow.’

‘We still don’t know about the airports.’

‘I’ll swim home if I have to.’ Georgie said, and she meant it, absolutely she meant it. At the very least she would check into a hotel.

She spent the day packing, in-between looking after Azizah. She did everything she could to keep him from her mind, but as night crept in, she gave in a little and fed her craving—watched the news reports, flicking channels, because sometimes there were subtitles, and even if she didn’t understand completely, there was no denying that the young prince had stepped in and brought calm. His deep voice soothed the troubled nation. Difficult decisions, it seemed, were effortlessly made, but they had taken their toll.

She could see that.

Did everyone notice the clench of his jaw as he listened to questions, or the tiny fan of new lines around those dark Zaraq eyes? Did they see that those magnificent cheekbones had become more accentuated in these past days, or the taut lines of his shoulders?

Or did only love make those details visible?

And she changed channel and changed it again, but it made no difference, because even if she closed her eyes, his face was still there and, yes, very unfortunately for Georgie, she loved him.

‘Oh!’ She jumped as he walked into the lounge. It was close to ten but still early for Ibrahim to be back and she had wrongly assumed the interview she was watching was live. ‘I thought you were…’ She gestured to the television. ‘I’ll say goodnight.’

‘You don’t have to hide in your room.’

She felt safer there, but didn’t say that. She simply didn’t answer, just walked past the sofa, but he caught her wrist.