The Sheik Who Loved Me(12)

Watson nudged him. “She wants you to come up with a name, Rashid.”

“What?” His eyes flashed to the doctor.

“Give her a name,” urged Watson. “She wants you to give the mermaid a name.”

Kamilah nodded, her liquid eyes intent.

David felt suddenly cornered. He scrambled through his brain, trying to find some moniker for the mysterious woman. He couldn’t.

Kamilah waited. Everyone waited.

Why was this suddenly his responsibility? He swallowed, cleared his throat. “Sahar,” he said finally.

Everyone in the room looked at him. “Sahar,” he said again, as if the repetition would somehow make it more real. Still the silence hung heavy and awkward. It was as if he now needed to explain his choice.

But he couldn’t do it. Wouldn’t. It was suddenly too personal, his choice too intimate. Because Sahar meant awakening. Dawn. A new beginning. And he’d chosen it because of what she’d brought to his daughter. This woman had made his precious little desert flower come alive again, long after she’d all but withered on the vine.

And she had hair like a Saharan sunrise.

The woman’s eyes studied him from across the room. Something strange and unreadable shifted in her features. “Thank you,” she said softly. “That’s a beautiful name.”

David shrugged. He felt awkward. This whole damn situation had knocked him off balance.

But he was rewarded with a brilliant smile from Kamilah as she nodded in happy agreement. David’s heart torqued in his chest at the rare sight of warmth and animation in his little girl’s face. He’d done something to make his baby happy. He’d taken another tiny step on the complex road he traveled with his daughter. And despite his portfolio of international achievements, nothing made him feel more proud, more worthy.

The woman, Sahar, turned to Kamilah. “Now, sweetheart, do you know where a mermaid could possibly find something to wear…and maybe a hairbrush?”

Kamilah hesitated. Then she spun on her heels and charged from the room, brushing David’s legs as she ran past him into the hallway.

It was in that very instant that David knew exactly where his daughter was going.

“No!” he yelled, spinning around. “Wait! Kamilah!”

Watson grabbed his arm, held him back. “Let her go, David. She needs to do this. She needs to move on. You both do.”

David clenched his jaw. His heart pounded in his chest. His hands felt clammy. He could feel the woman’s eyes appraising him. And he suddenly felt exposed. Humiliated by his own irrational outburst.

He jerked free of Watson’s hold, stormed from the room. Furious, he marched down the passage, his riding boots clacking loudly on the stone floors.

“Fayha’!” he barked. The sound of his voice bounced off the thick stone walls, resounded under the arches of his palace. “Fayha’! Where are you?”

His housekeeper came scuttling from the direction of the kitchen. “Sir?”

“Help Kamilah,” he ordered. “I’m going for a ride.”

“Where is she?”

“In—” he hesitated “—in the room. The room with her mother’s things.”

Fayha”s eyes widened.

“Just do it.” He swiveled on his heels and headed for the stables. But inside he knew. He should be the one helping Kamilah. He should be with her in that room, going through Aisha’s things. Working through the past, putting it away properly. But he couldn’t. He just couldn’t make himself go in there. He hadn’t so much as opened the door since he and Kamilah had returned to Shendi Palace. He’d had his staff move all of Aisha’s possessions in there after the funeral.

At the time, he hadn’t been able to throw or give anything away. He loved his wife too much for that. At the time, he’d felt that getting rid of her things would be like trying to excise her memory.

And now…well, now it was two years later. What good would it do either of them to dig into old memories now, to touch Aisha’s clothes, to feel the silk of them, to smell her lingering fragrance on them?

His eyes burned.

Holding on to memories was one thing. Physically digging up the past quite another. He’d said his goodbyes. He’d come to terms with the fact she was gone. He had no need to go digging into the past, and neither should his daughter. They had to look forward. Not back.

This was all Sahar’s fault.

David clenched his fists, gritted his jaw, strode angrily through the courtyard toward the stables. There was dust and sand everywhere, piled in miniature dunes and stuffed into every conceivable crevice. The whole bloody world had been turned on its head by the freak storm.