He blinked and reached out a hand to touch Atiyah’s curls.
She watched his hand, saw the moment man connected with sleeping child, saw wonder on his face in the low lamp light, and felt a rush of joy. Baby steps, she thought, it would take one baby step at a time. But in time, she knew, he would learn to love Atiyah as he should.
She kissed the baby on the head and tucked her back into her cradle. ‘Come,’ she said to Rashid, and led him back to bed.
‘It’s strange,’ he said, thinking in the dark, amazed at her wisdom. ‘I feel like I know you, and yet I know nothing about you.’
She shrugged in his arms. ‘There’s not a lot to tell. I grew up in Sydney and became a child-care worker. And then, like I told you before, when my friend Sally and her husband opened the business, I joined Flight Nanny. End of story really.’
‘What about family? Pets? Favourite colour?’
‘Orange,’ she said, with a smile. ‘No pets. I’m away from home too much.’
‘How did your parents die?’
‘It was a glider crash, three years ago now. Dad was piloting when they collided with another glider and lost a wing. They were too close to the ground to have time to parachute out.’
He pulled her close, pressed his lips to her forehead. ‘It must have been hard to lose them both together.’
‘Yeah, and there are days when it’s still hard. But overall, it gets easier with time. I was lucky enough to have them both until I was in my twenties. And I know it sounds a cliché, but it makes me feel better knowing they died doing something they both loved. Dad used to say you can never be freer than in the sky. I like to think of them soaring somewhere in the sky together.’
He squeezed her shoulders. ‘Did you have any other family to help you, then?’
‘I have a sprinkling of cousins but they’re mostly all interstate so I hardly ever see them. Oh, except for one who lives in Sydney. But we’re—well, we’re not close.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Matt let me down badly over something.’ Absently she ran her fingers through the coarse hair of his chest. ‘I’m finished with him now. Sally’s more family than any of them, really.’
‘I’d be lost without my brothers, too. But then, they’re not real brothers. Maybe that’s what makes them special to us.’
‘Maybe.’ She squirmed and rolled over, as if the topic made her too uncomfortable. ‘You know, can we talk about something else?’
‘I’ve got a better idea,’ he said, liking the way her bottom wiggled so provocatively against him and feeling his body react accordingly. ‘Maybe we should do something else.’
‘Oh,’ she said, when she caught on. ‘I like the way you think.’
‘And I like the way you do this...’ He pulled her astride him and handed her a condom, liking, too, the way her eyes widened appreciatively as she realised how aroused he already was and took him in hand. He cupped one breast and ran a palm up her thigh while her fingers worked their magic on him as slowly she rolled the condom down his hard length. She gasped when his thumb grazed her inner lips.
‘Oh, my,’ she said, her job complete, but not her enjoyment as his fingers explored her slick folds. ‘You do make it hard for a girl to concentrate on a task.’
‘Maybe,’ he said as he lifted her hips over him and positioned himself at her core, ‘this might make it easier?’
And he pulled her all the long way down on him until he was seated deep inside her and she was stretched up like a cat, her back arched, all curves and sleekness above him such that he could not resist running his hand up over her smooth, firm flesh.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said on a sigh as her muscles let him go enough to lift herself from him until she was at his very tip, ‘I think I can concentrate on this,’ before she lost herself as she plunged down on him again.
‘Stay here in Qajaran,’ he said in between breaths as he brushed her hair from her face as they lay side by side waiting for their heart rates to return to normal. ‘There is no need to go home yet.’
‘Atiyah is settling,’ she said, relishing the tickle of his fingers on her skin. ‘She is becoming more used to Yousra and her new surroundings. Find her another carer and you will not need me soon.’
‘I’m not asking you to stay for Atiyah’s sake,’ he said. ‘I’m asking you for mine.’
And like one of the bursts of fireworks she’d witnessed against tonight’s sky, hope bloomed bright and beautiful in her chest.
Could it mean that he was feeling something for her, as she felt for him? Was it possible that this crazy marriage could turn out to have a fairy-tale ending after all?
‘I have my work...’ she said, because a crazy idea still had to be met with a rational mind and she would be leaving Sally in the lurch at the worst possible time.
‘I wouldn’t expect you to drop everything and walk away empty-handed.’
‘It’s not about money.’
‘No, but money can make problems easier to sort out,’ he said, and she thought about the money that had got Sally and Steve to treatment in Germany.
‘I guess that’s true.’
‘We’ll work something out,’ he said, kissing her brow.
‘I haven’t said I’ll stay yet.’
‘You haven’t said you won’t.’
Rashid left Tora in his bed with a smile on his face. It was perfect. She was perfect. When he’d agreed to come to Qajaran, doubt had been foremost in his mind. Need he do this, could he do this? And he’d decided to stay, and a lot of it was all down to Tora being here, right beside him all the way. When he’d been consumed by doubt, she’d been the one who’d convinced him he could be the leader Qajaran needed.
And the thought that she was leaving filled him with dread. He didn’t want her gone. He wanted her to stay. More than that, when it all came down to it, he needed her to stay.
It was a strange feeling, this need. He’d never needed anyone in his life before, and if there was one thing his father’s sudden and short-lived blip back into his life had reinforced in him, it was that he didn’t need anyone else. That he was right to rely on his own devices and his desert brothers.
He knew for a fact his desert brothers would never betray him.
He’d never needed anybody else.
Until Tora.
His heart beat a little faster in his chest as he remembered how she’d looked when he’d left her. Sleep and sex tousled, her hair in wild disarray, and with a smile just for him, a smile that lit up his world.
He smiled to himself, even as he headed to work. Like the day of the ceremony, today had been declared a public holiday for everyone. Everyone, that was, who didn’t happen to be the Emir or his Grand Vizier who both had work to do. He would make time later to see off Bahir and Kadar and their wives and children, who were heading off to Istanbul together. Zoltan would join him for some final talks this afternoon, before he and Aisha and the twins returned to Al-Jirad.
His thoughts returned to Tora and how he might get her to stay. The people would be happy, they clearly loved her as their sheikha, and so would his desert brothers and their wives. But he would be happier than all of them, because he wanted and needed her right there by his side.
His footsteps faltered on the marble tiles as a thunderbolt jagged through him.
Was this what his brothers always talked about, when they had found a woman to share their lives with? Was this what love felt like? Was Tora the one?
He shook his head, simultaneously baffled and in awe.
He’d never looked for love. He’d never expected to find it.
Still in a state of wonderment, he entered his office and found the unfaltering Kareem already there waiting for him.
‘So, Kareem,’ he said, feeling more light-hearted than he had in a long time, ‘what do we have on the menu today?’
Kareem didn’t seem to share his good mood. Instead he looked more troubled than Rashid had ever seen him, and older than his years, and for a moment Rashid wondered if the endurance test of the coronation had worn him out. ‘Sire,’ he said at length, ‘I have news which may concern you.’
Rashid doubted it. Right now it would take a volcano to suddenly appear in the desert to concern him, and then only after it erupted. ‘What is it?’
‘A message was sent through the palace server. I did not wish to bring it to your attention yesterday. It’s from Sheikha Victoria to her cousin, a man called Matthew Burgess.’
Rashid remembered her talking about her cousins and how she didn’t have anything to do with one in particular—he was sure that one was called Matthew.
‘That doesn’t sound right. Was it definitely her cousin?’
Kareem looked tense. ‘A search proved it to be true.’
He told himself that it could still be innocent, that she might just have been informing him where to contact her, although why would Kareem consider that noteworthy?
‘And do I really need to read a private email from Tora to her cousin?’
‘I think perhaps you should.’
And a chill descended his spine as he took the letter from his vizier’s hands.
Dear Matt
Don’t think twice about the quarter of a million—it’s a drop in the ocean to me right now. I’m just sorry you’re having a tough time of it.