She shook her head. She must be dreaming. That or she’d woken up on some bizarre television game show. Any minute now and they’d be cutting to a commercial break for disposable nappies or dishwashing liquid. ‘I told you, I’m not interested.’
‘Name it!’
She sucked in air. She didn’t want to do this. She didn’t want to spend a moment longer in this man’s company than she had to. The night she’d spent with him was too fresh, too raw in her mind, the passions he’d unleashed in her still making her senses hum at his proximity as if his mere presence was enough to switch them on—but then she thought about the amount her cousin had stolen from her and the money she had assured Sally she would find...
He wouldn’t say yes, she told herself, there was no way he’d say yes, but if he really wanted a figure—if he really wanted to know how much it would take for her to agree to this crazy plan... ‘All right, you asked—two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That’s my price.’
And his eyes might have damned her to hell and back, but he smiled—he actually smiled—and her stomach dropped to the floor like a brick even before he said his next word.
‘Done.’ He turned and yelled for Kareem. ‘Prepare for the ceremony.’
Tora was reeling. ‘But—’
‘But nothing,’ he said, smiling like the cat that had the cream. ‘You named your price. I agreed. The deal is done.’
Kareem married them, neatly fitting the ceremony in between Tora feeding Atiyah her bottle and changing the infant’s nappy, the bride’s gown nothing more than black trousers and a fawn-coloured shirt with smudges of baby milk on the shoulder.
It wasn’t a ceremony as such. There was nothing more to it than for the two of them to stand before Kareem in his white robes and with her hand on Rashid’s, and for Kareem to utter a few words, before Rashid dropped his hand, jettisoning hers in the process, and saying, ‘Right, that’s that out of the way. Let’s get this adoption signed off, shall we?’
Out of the way? thought Tora, feeling stunned as she returned to her seat and changed Atiyah. So that was it, then. No You may kiss the bride. No congratulations or champagne or even a pretence of celebration. She was married to Rashid, according to Qajarese law, and it felt—hollow.
Marriage wasn’t supposed to feel hollow, she was sure. She’d always imagined getting married would be one of the happiest days of her life, with her father to walk her down the aisle and her mother proudly and no doubt tearfully looking on. Sure, that was before the glider accident that had killed them, but even now she would have liked to think of them somewhere up there looking down on her approvingly on her big day...
She gulped down on that bubble of disappointment before it could become something more.
This was hardly her big day though.
This was a means to an end for her, exactly as it was to him, the opportunity for her to obtain the funds she’d promised Sally, a formality in order for him to adopt Atiyah. After all, it wasn’t as if she wanted to be married to Rashid, even if he made her feel like no more than an adjunct to the process, like a box that had been ticked or a task on a to-do list that had been crossed off.
He’d dropped her hand as if he couldn’t bear to touch her. My God, what a difference, when last night he hadn’t been able to stop touching her.
Then again, what had she expected? Last night might as well have been a lifetime ago. Rashid had been a different man—attentive, creative and infinitely attuned to her pleasure—and she’d been someone she didn’t even recognise. Impulsive, reckless and brazen in bed. She’d behaved like a wanton.
She dragged in a breath, trying to find calm in a world that was teetering off balance. She’d shocked herself last night at just how shameless she’d been, as if the frustrations of Matt’s betrayal and the despair of letting Sally and Steve down had spilled over on an effervescent tidal wave of passion that had washed away her moral values. Last night there’d been no off switch, no holding back. Talk about out of character for a girl who normally wouldn’t kiss a guy until at least the second date.
Memories of that night should have been her secret thrill, something to smile privately about and wonder at her bravado and total abandonment. Not something to be constantly reminded of every minute of the day by being confronted with the star performer of her night of the pleasures of the flesh. The last thing she’d wanted was to learn that the man at the centre of her night of nights was Flight Nanny’s and her very next client.
No, she wouldn’t want her parents around to witness this. One day she’d marry for real. One day she’d find a man she loved and who loved her more than anything, and they’d be married under a brilliant blue sky and her parents could look down upon her and smile.
One day.
She slipped Atiyah’s legs back into her sleep suit and did up the snaps. Think of the money, she told herself. Think of Sally and Steve and the quarter of a million dollars, merely for marrying Rashid for however long it took. Even if nothing else, now she’d have the money to complete this deal, without having to beg from the banks. Now there’d be nothing stopping Sally and Steve heading for Germany and the radical new treatment that might save him. Just as soon as she managed to give Rashid the bank account details for the transfer of the promised funds.
No wonder she felt a little hollowness in her gut.
The pilot came back then, smiling as he advised them personally they would be beginning their descent soon, and to assure them all would be well.
All would be well? She held Atiyah in her arms and softly sang her a favourite nursery rhyme, wanting to cuddle the baby for as long as she could before she’d have to be strapped into her capsule on the seat for landing.
After a night with Rashid and a mad on-paper marriage, she wasn’t sure things would ever be well again.
It was done.
Kareem had completed the paperwork on both the marriage and then the adoption in short order.
His faux wife was installed and Atiyah was adopted and for now he could take a deep breath. That was one crisis averted.
His friends would laugh. Rashid married, just as they had warned him. Well, he would let them laugh. It wasn’t as though it was a real marriage. It wasn’t as though he was in love as Bahir and Kadar had attested to be, and it wasn’t that he had to marry and impregnate a wife before he could be crowned Emir, as Zoltan had been required to do by the ancient texts of Al-Jirad when he had married the Princess Aisha.
He grunted. Though if that had been a requirement, he’d already well and truly ticked that box. Memories of last night’s passion rolled through him like replays of a movie, except this was a movie in which he’d had a starring role. He’d only needed to touch her hand to be reminded of the satin smoothness of her skin, and to remember the sleek feminine beauty of the curve of her hip, the dip to the gentle round of her belly and all the places above and below that his fingers, and then his lips, had traversed.
He hadn’t held her hand a second longer than he’d needed to, and yet the mere touch of her had fired his memories and kindled a need that burned like coals inside him.
There was too much going on in his life without complicating it with a woman that had blown his world apart.
He looked over his shoulder, through the gap in the seats, and saw her holding the child as if she were her own, the baby all dark-eyed innocence staring up at her as she spoke words he could not make out. What was with that? Atiyah was nothing to do with her.
So why did she seem to care so much?
Atiyah was supposed to be his sister, after all, even if the sister he’d never asked for or wanted.
And the wrongness of it all got to him and something inside him snapped.
He got out of his seat, determined to tell her so, but as he drew closer he realised she wasn’t talking to the child, she was singing to it, some kind of lullaby, and she was looking down at the baby so intently, she didn’t hear his approach.
He didn’t interrupt at first—for a moment he couldn’t because he was rooted to the spot—because for some reason he recognised the music. The notes were buried, but they were there and they were true, and each note she sang was like a shovel in his gut, exposing more.
‘What are you singing?’ he growled, when he could wait no longer, because he had to know.
Her singing stopped, and she looked up, suspicious, her eyes wide at finding him so close. ‘Just a lullaby. I think it’s Persian. Why?’ she said, and suspicion turned to concern as she scanned his features. ‘Is something wrong?’
He didn’t know. All he knew was that there was something churning in his gut that brought him out in a cold sweat and made his skin crawl. How would he know the tune to a lullaby he was sure he’d never heard before?
But the way she was looking at him, as if he were mad, or worse... He looked for something that he could talk about to cover his confusion. His eyes fell on the infant. ‘How is she?’ he forced out, his mind clamouring to remember why he was here. ‘I thought babies were supposed to scream through flights.’
Her doubting eyes told him she knew he hadn’t come back to discuss the flying habits of babies. ‘She’s a good baby. Have you changed your mind? Would you like to hold her a while?’