‘I’m so sorry,’ she said to Yousra, scooping the child into her arms. ‘I shouldn’t have left her.’ After all the turmoil she’d already suffered, all the losses, Atiyah had grown used to having Tora around, only for Tora to disappear for hours, and her heart was breaking for the little girl. She should never have agreed to go with Rashid.
And she knew she couldn’t afford to think that way. Knew that it was wrong. She couldn’t afford to become a fixture in this child’s life, and yet already it was happening. She should have returned home as she’d been supposed to. She should have handed Atiyah over and walked away. And she would have, if Rashid hadn’t come up with this whole crazy marriage deal.
And now the longer she stayed, the harder it would become because the more attached to her Atiyah would become, and one day soon she’d be leaving for good and Atiyah would be hurt all over again.
She swayed as she pressed her lips to Atiyah’s soft curls and felt tears sting her own eyes as Atiyah’s tears threatened to rip out her heart. Staying longer was such a double-edged sword. It gave Atiyah security for a little while. But it gave Tora more time to fall in love with a precious dark-eyed child.
She’d never felt this way about one of her charges before. She’d never come so close to feeling what a mother must feel—protective and defensive and determined that she should have only the best of everything, including love. But then, she’d never had such a tiny baby to look after.
If only Rashid had been more accepting of his sister in the start. If only she hadn’t felt as if she had to compensate, to give Atiyah the love she should have got from him.
Damn.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
NIGHT FELL FAST, the way it seemed to do here, the daylight hurrying away to make way for the night. Atiyah settled the same way, her bellowing cries becoming snuffles and then sniffs and before long sleep had overtaken her. Tora knew she had to wean herself off Atiyah and take a back-seat role in looking after her, but still she sent Yousra to visit her family and have a night off after her trying day. She’d talk to Rashid tomorrow about getting an extra carer then. He was busy with his friend tonight and, besides, for now she was happy to sit back and relax with the meal they’d had sent up to her and check her emails.
She smiled when she found one from Sally with the subject line I love you!
After she’d read the message, she was sniffing and there were tears in her eyes for the second time tonight. Steve was doing all the right things according to his test results and he was ready to be transferred to Germany. Sally had been able to tell the doctors to get the ball rolling.
They wouldn’t waste any time now. If all went well and Steve could hang in there, Sally wrote, he’d be on his way within the next day or so towards the treatment that could save his life. And there were no promises, she said, being brave, but it was the only chance he had and they were staying positive and whatever happened, she owed Tora a debt she could never repay.
Happy news, Tora thought, blinking away the tears. The very best kind of news. And she was glad of Rashid’s deal now, for all the grief it had caused her, and for all the grief it would inevitably cause her when she had to return home.
It would be worth it if the treatment worked.
It would all be worth it.
‘So what’s she like, this half-sister of yours?’ Zoltan asked, plucking grapes from a bunch on a platter. They were seated on low sofas in one of the palace reception rooms that had doors that opened onto the gardens so that the scent of frangipani wafted in.
‘I don’t really know,’ Rashid said. ‘She’s a baby.’ But then he thought about Tora leading him to Atiyah’s cradle to look down upon the sleeping infant and felt a pang of pride. ‘She’s a cute little thing, though.’
‘Huh,’ said Zoltan. ‘That’s all you can say? Spoken like a man who hasn’t had children yet. Just wait until you have your own. You won’t be so vague about the details then. You’ll be hanging out for that first smile and that first tooth.’
Rashid snorted. ‘Dream on,’ he said, because even if he was warming to the child, he wasn’t about to go all gooey over her any time soon. Not like Tora at least, who had been so excited about Atiyah smiling.
‘That’s where you’re wrong, brother,’ Zoltan said, waving a grape between his thumb and forefinger for emphasis, ‘An Emir needs an heir. So you don’t want to wait too long—you’re not getting any younger.’ He popped the grape between his teeth and crunched down.
Rashid shook his head. Just because he’d had some kind of epiphany out at the oasis today, didn’t mean he was looking to ensure there were an heir and a spare any time soon. ‘Give me a break, Zoltan. One thing at a time.’
‘Not a chance. Now you’ll have to find yourself a wife. Last desert brother standing, but not for long. You don’t have a choice any more. Your footloose and fancy-free playboy days are toast.’
It was all Rashid could do to stop from blurting the news that in actual fact he was married, just to shut his friend up. Because that would be a mistake and there would be no shutting Zoltan up once he learned that particular snippet of information. What was more, he’d be off and running, firing off messages to Bahir and Kadar before they got here, get their wives all excited in the process, and Rashid would never hear the end of it.
No, he had serious stuff to get done before he let that particular cat out of the bag. He didn’t want them to know about Tora just yet. He didn’t want them making a bigger deal out of it than it was. Let them find out in their own good time—but by then he’d be halfway to sending her home.
Although why that left him suddenly cold, he wasn’t entirely sure.
‘You make marriage sound such fun,’ he said, suddenly grumpy, and not just because he knew for a fact that it wasn’t fun and that in his case it was nothing more than the means to an end. ‘Anyway,’ he said, needing to change the subject, ‘I didn’t ask you here to talk about my love life. Let’s get to work.’
Rashid stood on his terrace, his hands spread wide apart on the balustrade, looking up at the inky sky. Below in the gardens the fountains played and the birds settled in for the night, the world at peace.
While inside him his emotions clashed and raged in a war that had forgotten what peace was. It didn’t seem to matter the decision he’d made today, or maybe his emotions clashed because of it.
Duty.
Self-doubt.
Fear.
Duty.
It always came back to duty.
His heart thumped like a drum, a tattoo cursing the ever-present, inescapable duty. His stomach squeezed tight and he inhaled the dark night air in response to the bite of pain. It didn’t matter what he’d decided out in the desert today, his first session with Zoltan had given him no comfort. There was so much to do. So much he needed to learn. So many doubts about what was possible to best help this country and its people...
Fear.
He wasn’t used to feeling fear.
He had never failed at anything he had put his hand to, but then he had made choices that reflected his desires and wants. He’d decided his path. He’d worked hard and acted on hunches and educated guesses and he’d been successful by taking calculated risks and when those hunches had paid off. But it had always been his choice to do those things and follow that path.
Never before had he been sucked into a bottomless pit from which there was no escaping and where there was no choice.
Duty.
Self-doubt.
Fear.
Together they tangled and churned until his gut felt battered and heaving and one thing emerged victorious from the mayhem, as if that one thing had been lying in wait, ready to step into the void.
Need.
Powerful and insistent, it rose up like a mushroom cloud that reached out to fill every part of him. He turned and looked along the terrace, towards her suite, to where the glow from her lamps spilled into puddles.
Tora.
Talking to her today had been the one thing that had let him make sense of the tangled thoughts in his mind when nothing else had. She had listened and understood. She had shown him the simple fun of paddling.
And he had repaid her by leaving her cold.
And without being aware that he’d made a decision, his feet started walking.
Towards the light.
Towards Tora.
She should be sleeping. She kept telling herself to put the book down, but she was reading a book about Qajaran, about its treasures and its colourful history and the wars and crusades that had touched its shores and crossed its desert borders, and she was fascinated. And being right here, in the Old Palace that had seen so much of what she was reading, brought it all to life.
Just one more chapter, she promised herself as she glanced at the clock and turned the page anyway.
She jumped at the soft rap on the glass, her heart giving a crazy leap in her chest so that she almost didn’t hear when the tap came again. She slid from the bed, her feet cool on the marble tiles, and pulled on a robe, because, whoever it was, she wasn’t going to be caught on the terrace in just her nightgown again.
‘Tora,’ she heard, and she didn’t know whether to be worried or relieved when she recognised Rashid’s voice. ‘Are you awake?’
The door to the terrace was open to let in the breeze, but she stayed her side of the filmy curtain, just inside the room, an invisible barrier between them. ‘What do you want?’