Daughter of Hassan & Heart of the Desert(53)

‘My headache is gone,’ Sophia said when Georgie woke her gently. Despite Georgie’s protests, she insisted on paying and also purchased some melissa oil, and she gave the most enormous tip. ‘You have a gift.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Could I book again?’

‘Of course.’ Georgie opened up her calendar on screen, and went to type in details from the form Sophia had filled in.

‘Mrs?’ Georgie checked. ‘Or Ms? You didn’t put your title.’

‘There wasn’t a box for “Queen”.’ Sophia said, and Georgie felt her heart still, felt as if she had been lied to. ‘Put Ms. That is what I go by here—it is far easier than trying to explain.’

‘You weren’t here for a massage?’

‘No,’ Sophia admitted, ‘but I will be back again—if you will have me. I really have had the most terrible headache. I never thought a massage could clear it but I was wrong.’ She gave Georgie a tired smile. ‘I worry about my son.’

‘Have you spoken to him?’

‘I have. He is here in London.’ Georgie’s heart leapt but only for a moment because now it was confirmed he was here, it hurt that he hadn’t made any attempt to call. ‘And you are every bit as beautiful as he describes, every bit as warm and as loving.’

‘He’s spoken about me?’

‘Ibrahim is not one for confiding but, yes, finally he admitted what was on his mind. He misses you.’

‘He hasn’t called.’

‘He worries about you,’ Sophia said. ‘Worries at the cruel press you will receive in Zaraq and what it will do to you.’ She gave Georgie a smile. ‘He saw what it did to me. I left, and for two years the press went wild about me. My husband forgave my indiscretion, the people of Zaraq did not. But I do not need their forgiveness. I have a wonderful life here, and my husband comes often.’

‘But you miss it?’

Sophia gave a nonchalant shrug, ‘Sometimes—but I am happy here, where I can be myself. I have told Ibrahim the same.’ Sophia denied the pain in her soul and looked Georgie in the eye as she did so. Not for a second did she feel guilty for lying. All she saw was the chance to keep her son.

To avoid losing the last of her family to the desert.

For years she had pleaded with Ibrahim not to return and for many of those she had never thought he would. Yet since the wedding there had been a restlessness to him that at first she had tried to ignore, but seeing him from afar lead a county in crisis, hearing him talk about building a future for the people of Zaraq, she had been sure she had lost him—that again the desert had won.

Then he had told her about Georgie, about a woman who could never live there, a woman that he loved, and finally Sophia saw a way into the future, with a family to grow old with, with grandchildren who weren’t strangers and Christmas and birthdays not taken alone.

‘You can have both worlds,’ she had told him. ‘Don’t turn your back on love. You will find a way, Ibrahim. Together you can work it out.’

And she told Georgie the same thing.

‘He told me you were fragile, and of all you have been through.’ And that confused Georgie, because she thought Ibrahim saw her differently. ‘But you are not ill now. I can see for myself that you are strong. If the papers in Zaraq speak badly of you, you will not crumple. Anyway, as I pointed out to my son, you will be here. He can protect you, defend you… He should not let your past affect your future.’

‘I don’t think we’ve got a future.’

‘I wouldn’t be so sure.’ Sophia smiled. ‘I know how you feel, Georgie. I understand your fears, and if you need someone to talk to, if you want to talk to someone who can relate, you have my details.’





CHAPTER SIXTEEN




IT DID not abate.

There was a constant call and he tried to ignore it.

There was blackness in his heart and restlessness in his soul.

His tie choked every morning.

The city streets were crowded, the rain was filthy, but home could be here.

He had listened to his brothers, to the king, but he did not agree with them. He had listened to his mother too as she urged him not to close that door to his heart.

That he did have choices.

And he would exercise them, Ibrahim had finally decided. Home would be here and he could still help the people of Zaraq.

He climbed the stairs to Georgie’s small office in long, deliberate strides, his mind made up and nothing could change it.

‘I’ve got a client due any moment…’ She recognised his footsteps on the stairs and did not look up because she didn’t want to look at him—didn’t want to see his face, didn’t want another image added to what she must somehow one day erase.

‘I am your appointment. I had my PA make it in her name.’ The details did not matter. ‘I need to see you…’

‘It’s better if we don’t.’

‘Better for who?’ Ibrahim demanded. ‘Do you feel better, not seeing me?’ He saw her pale face, worried about her slender figure. ‘We need to talk.’

‘I’m not ready to talk.’ She wasn’t. The sight of him, the scent of him, to have him in her space, was overwhelming. She wanted to touch him, to fall in his arms, but she was scared to have to lose him all over again.

‘Then don’t talk, just listen.’ He swallowed. ‘I would be proud to have you as my wife.’

‘But?’ Georgie questioned.

‘There is no but.’

She was quite sure there was and she didn’t want to hear it, was scared to look at him and ask the question that she knew she must. So she forced her eyes upwards, saw the pain in his eyes and knew how badly she’d been missed. She made herself ask the question.

‘What about my work?’ She danced around the issue and yet subtly she broached it—so subtly, even Ibrahim did not realise it.

‘I’m not asking you to give anything up.’

‘You love that land, Ibrahim. You want to be there, I can see it, I can feel it, I know it…’

‘No.’

‘Yes.’

And it was true.

A curse that attached to him, that lived within him, but he could have both, of that he was sure.

‘We will live here. I can return for work, to see my family, but our home will be here.’

And she wanted to say yes, she wanted so much to say yes, to fall into his arms, to accept his offer, to be his wife. Every beat of her heart propelled her to say yes, to give in to the throb of her body, but she was less impulsive now than she had once been, stronger now, and would first take care of herself.

‘And I will return with you?’

He hesitated a moment before he shook his head. ‘When the news comes out about your past, there will be outrage—but you will be here, I will protect you from that.’

‘I don’t need your protection,’ Georgie said. ‘Because it’s not going to happen.’

‘I’m offering you—’

‘Half a princess, that’s what you’re offering me,’ Georgie sneered, surprising herself at the bitterness in her own voice, but it was there, right there beneath the surface, black and angry, just like the truth beneath his shiny offer. ‘Well, I’m worth more than that.’

‘I will give you everything you need here.’

‘But you cannot take me to your home. I cannot live there like my sister…’

‘So you want a palace?’ He too was bitter. ‘You want all the finery?’

‘Yes,’ Georgie said. ‘If I marry you, I want all of it.’

‘You’re not who I thought I knew,’ Ibrahim said, but she was ready for him.

‘I’m better than her,’ Georgie said. ‘And every day I get better. You know I’d have taken it a few months ago, hell, I’d have taken it last week. I’d have taken any crumb you offered just to be with you, but not now…’

‘Hardly crumbs.’ He was offering her everything he possibly could and then some—half his life spent in a plane just to be with her at night.

‘I don’t just want birthdays and Christmas and a husband at weekends. I don’t want access arrangements with a family that hates me. I won’t be an army wife to a country that won’t even acknowledge me.’ And she met his eyes with another demand. ‘And don’t ever describe me as fragile again.’

‘I never have.’

But she didn’t believe him.

‘You don’t have to protect me, or hide me from my past. I’m glad for every last mistake I’ve ever made because six months ago, six days ago, had you come and offered me this, I’d have taken it.

‘I would have been your bride without question but not any more.

‘I want you in my bed each night.

‘I want the palace and the desert and sometimes I want to come back home to London,’ she told him, each sentence delivered more strongly than the last.

‘I want it all and I deserve it, and if you can’t give it to me, if you can’t share all of you, then I won’t take the half that you’re offering. I’m better off single, better off being able to go freely to Zaraq and see my sister and niece, better off being my own person than an exiled wife.’

‘You’re saying no?’