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Totally distracted now, she picked up her glass of juice and took too big a gulp.
At least half choking to death brought her back to her senses. Marni finished coughing and, flushed with embarrassment, bent her head to tackle her meal.
Fortunately, Gaz seemed to sense her total disarray and took over the conversation, talking about the hospital, built within the last two years, and with the charge of looking after not only local children but those from nearby countries that did not have the facilities this hospital had.
‘We have a big oncology department, keeping children here during their treatment so they don’t have to travel to and fro. With those children, we try to make sure they have someone from their family travel with them—sometimes, it seems, the entire family.’
His rueful smile at this confession undid all the good concentrating on her food had done for Marni, mainly because it softened his face and somehow turned him from the sexiest man she’d ever laid eyes on to a real, caring human being.
All you’re wanting is an affair, not to fall in love, she reminded herself.
But at least hospital talk got them through the meal and when they’d finished, Marni sat back in her chair.
‘Thank you, that was utterly delicious. Wonderful. Perhaps I could pay the bill as thanks to you for introducing me to this place? Is that allowed in Ablezia?’
She offered what she knew must be a pathetic smile, but now they’d finished eating she had no idea how to get away—which she needed to do—or what was the polite thing to do next.
Say goodbye and leave?
Wait for him to see her back down to the ground floor?
And if he offered to walk her back to the quarters—through the gardens and lemon orchard, the scented air, the moonlight…
It was too soon even to think about what might happen and the man had already said he had no time.
‘You definitely will not pay when I invited you to dinner,’ Gaz was saying as she ran these increasingly panicked thoughts through her head. ‘It is taken care of but, come, you must see the desert from outside, where you can really appreciate its beauty.’
He rose and came to stand beside her, drawing out her chair, which meant his entire body was far too close to hers when she stood up.
Turning to face him, this time with thanks for the courtesy of the chair thing, brought her even closer—to lips that twitched just slightly with a smile, and eyes that not only reflected the smile but held a glint of laughter.
The wretch knows the effect he’s having on me, Marni realised, and found a little anger stirring in the mess of emotions flooding through her body.
Good!
Anger was good—not argumentative anger but something to hold onto. The man was a born flirt and though he obviously couldn’t help being the sexiest man alive, he didn’t need to use it to snare unwary females.
Wasn’t wanting to be snared one of the reasons she’d come here?
Marni ignored the query and allowed Gaz to lead her out of the restaurant and along another corridor that led to a balcony overlooking the desert—the magic sea of black and silver.
She sniffed the air, then breathed it in more deeply.
‘It’s strange,’ she said, turning to her companion, her reaction to him almost forgotten as she considered the puzzle the desert air presented. ‘I know the sea is just over there, but there’s no smell of salt in the air, no smell of the spices escaping from the restaurant or the lemon blossom that I know is out in the gardens down below us. No smell at all, really.’
He smiled again—a genuine smile this time, not a teasing one—but this one made Marni’s heart flutter.
‘The desert is a great cleanser. Over the centuries much blood has been spilled on the sands, and civilisations have risen and collapsed, their ruins buried by the sand. For people like me, with Bedouin blood, the desert is as necessary as water, for it is where we replenish our souls.’
He was serious, the words so graphically beautiful Marni could only shake her head.
And smile.
A small smile but a genuine one.
A smile that for some reason prompted him to inch a little closer and bend his head, dropping the lightest of kisses on her parted lips.
Had she started, so that he put his hands on her shoulders to steady her?
Marni had no idea, too lost in the feel of his lips on hers to think straight.
So when he started talking again, she missed the first bit, catching up as he said, ‘You are like a wraith from the stories of my childhood, a beautiful silver-haired, blueeyed, pale-limbed being sent to tempt men away from their duties.’
She was still catching up when he kissed her again.
Properly this time so she melted against him, parted her lips to his demanding tongue, and kissed him back, setting free all the frustration of the lust infection in that one kiss.
It burned through her body in such unfamiliar ways she knew she’d never been properly kissed before—or maybe had never responded properly—which might explain—
It sent heat spearing downwards, more heat shimmering along her nerves, tightening her stomach but melting her bones.
Her head spun and her senses came alive to the smoothness of his lips, the taste of spice on his tongue, the faint perfume that might be aftershave—even the texture of his shirt, a nubby cotton, pressed against the light cotton tunic top she wore, was sending flaring awareness through her nipples.
A kiss could do all this…
Gaz eased away, shaken that he’d been so lost to propriety as to be kissing this woman, even more shaken by the way she’d reacted to the kiss and the effect it had had on him. Heat, desire, a hardening, thickening, burning need….
For one crazy moment he considered taking things further, dallying with the nurse called Marni, seeing where it went.
Certainly beyond dallying, he knew that much.
Al’ana! Where is your brain? his head demanded. Yes, I thought so! it added as if he’d answered.
He looked at the flushed face in front of him, glimpsed the nipples peaked beneath the fine cotton tunic, the glow of desire in her eyes.
Yes, it would definitely have gone further than dalliance…
‘I had no right to do that. I have no time. None! No time at all!’ He spoke abruptly—too abruptly—the words harshly urgent because he was denying his desires and angry with himself for—
For kissing her?
No, he couldn’t regret that.
Angry at the impossible situation.
This time when he turned to lead her back inside, he didn’t touch her elbow and guide her steps but stayed resolutely apart from the seductive siren who’d appeared, not from the sky but in full theatre garb, then jumped like a kangaroo right inside his skin…
Obviously married, Marni told herself. Serves you right, kissing on what wasn’t even a first date.
But she was too shaken by the kiss to care what the sensible part of her brain was telling her. Too shaken to think, let alone speak.
Standing silently beside Gaz in the lift, the foot of space between them was more like a million miles.
Back in the foyer, he spoke to one of the young porters who seemed to abound in the place.
‘Aziz will see you back to the residence,’ Gaz told her, then he nodded once and was gone, seeming to disappear like the wraith he’d called her.
Aziz was beckoning her towards the door so she followed, deciding she must be right about his marital status if the man she’d kissed didn’t want to be seen walking her through the gardens.
So she was well rid of him.
Wasn’t she?
Of course she was!
The gardens were as beautiful as ever, the scent of lemon blossom heavy in the air, but the magic was dimmed by her memory of the kiss, and now that embarrassment over her reaction was creeping in, she was beginning to worry about the future.
She was a professional. Of course she could work in Theatre with Gaz without revealing how he affected her. Not that he didn’t know, given her response, but at least she didn’t have to be revealing just how hard and fast she’d fallen for the man.
Lust, her head reminded her, and sadly she agreed.
For all the good it was going to do her when he’d made it obvious he wasn’t available!
She sighed into the night air. It was all too complicated!
CHAPTER THREE
HIDING HER REACTIONS to Gaz in Theatre proved unnecessary, because although she worked for five straight days, he was never rostered on in the same theatre as her.
She didn’t kid herself that he’d had his schedule changed to avoid her, doubting she was important enough to cause such a change, and caution told her not to mention him to Jawa, not to ask where he was operating or seek answers to any personal questions about the man, in case she unwittingly revealed how she felt.
Besides, they just didn’t do personal conversations, these Ablezians.
But her reaction to Gaz had certainly put a damper on her virginity quest, other male colleagues seeming pale and uninteresting by comparison, although she did accept an invitation to the movies from a young doctor on Safi’s ward.
She’d even accepted a goodnight kiss but she had felt nothing, not a tingle, not a sign of a spark—and the poor man had known it and had avoided her ever since.
So she worked, visited Safi, and worked again until finally she had time off—three days.
Nelson had emailed to say Pop was talking to the surgeon but was still undecided about the operation, although now he could walk barely a hundred metres without tiring.
She had to forget about Gaz and find a way to see this prince! Once she’d kept her part of the bargain, Pop would have to have the operation. He wasn’t one to renege on a deal.
And at least sorting out how you’re going to approach him should get your mind off Gaz, she told herself.
And it did, the whole matter seeming impossible until she read in the English-language newspaper that the new prince had reintroduced his father’s custom of meeting with the people once a week. Each Thursday he held court in a courtyard—was that where courtyards got their name?—at the palace, hearing grievances or problems, any subject allowed to approach and speak to him privately for a few minutes.
Reading further, Marni discovered the custom had stopped while his uncle had been the ruler but had been reinstated some weeks previously and was a great success.
She wasn’t actually a subject, but that couldn’t be helped. If she tied a black headscarf tightly over her hair and borrowed an all-concealing black abaya from Jawa and kept her head down—maybe with part of the scarf tied across the lower part of her face—she could slip in with the locals, have a minute to introduce herself and show the photo, perhaps even have a laugh with the man who’d been kind to her as a child.
The planets must have been aligned in her favour—though they’d definitely been against her last week—for the next meeting was the following day.
She emailed Nelson to tell him she was keeping her part of the bargain and to warn Pop she expected him to keep his, then went to collect the clothing she’d need.
Which was all very well in theory!
In practice, once dressed and sitting in the back of a cab on her way to the palace, a building she’d glimpsed from afar in her explorations, she realised just how stupid this was, how ridiculous the whole thing—making a deal with Pop so he’d have a lifesaving operation—fronting up to the prince of a foreign land to show him a photo of himself as a child.
The enormity of it made her shake her head in disbelief.
Yet here she was!
Huge arched gates in a high, sand-coloured wall opened into a courtyard big enough to hold a thousand people. It was an oasis of green—she remembered Gaz telling her how important green was—with beds of flowering roses, tinkling fountains, fruit trees and date palms. The garden had been designed and planted to provide shade but also to form little spaces like outdoor rooms where one could sit and read, or think, or just do nothing.
In the centre, facing the immense, low-set building, was an open grassed area and here the supplicants were gathering, seating themselves cross-legged on the ground in neat rows. Thankfully, there were not as many as Marni had expected, although, contrarily, part of her had hoped there would be too many and she could put off her ridiculous venture for another day.
She seated herself beside the last man in the back row, pleased it was a man as she knew he wouldn’t attempt to make conversation with a woman he did not know.
An exchange of salaams was enough, Marni with her head bent, not wanting to reveal pale eyes surrounded by even paler skin.
Intent on remaining unseen, she barely heard the words from the wide veranda that ran along the front of the palace. Not that hearing them more clearly would have helped.
Really smart idea, this, she thought despairingly. Just pop along to a meet and greet without a word of the language to tell you when it’s your turn to front up to His Maj!
A long line was already forming and as it snaked towards the veranda the man beside her said something then stood and joined the line. Checking that it already held some women, Marni slid into place behind him, her heart beating such a crazy rhythm she was surprised she could stay upright.
The line inched forward until she could see, on a low couch on the veranda, a white-robed figure, bowing his head as a supplicant approached him, apparently listening to the request or complaint before assigning the person to one of the men who stood behind the couch.
Some people were led to the edge of the veranda and returned to the courtyard, while others were taken in through a door behind the couch, perhaps to sort out business matters or to leave more details. Whatever reason people had to be here, the line moved without a hitch, the meet and greet, as Marni thought of it, a smoothly organised process.
The man in front of her reached the steps, and although instinct told her to flee, the memory of the greyness in Pop’s face held her steadfast in the grassy courtyard.
He had to have the operation!
The man moved on and one of the flunkeys supporting the main act waved Marni forward. Following the actions of those she’d seen, she approached swiftly, knelt on the pillow set before the robed figure and bowed her head, then lifted it to look at the face she’d seen in the newspaper back home and on billboards around the city.
The face she’d seen in Theatre, only in his snowy headdress he looked so different…
‘But—you’re—you’re you,’ she managed to get out before words evaporated from her head.
Gaz was staring at her, as bemused as she was apparently, although once again she suspected there was a smile hovering somewhere in his eyes.
‘I am,’ he finally said. ‘Definitely me. How may I help you?’
The voice had its usual effect, and Marni dissolved completely into a morass of words and half-sentences that she knew were making no sense at all.
‘Stupid, I knew that—but Pop needs the op—and then the photo—photos really—you were in the paper—and the job there—here—and I know it’s silly but he really wanted—so I came—’
‘You came?’ Gaz repeated.
Marni took a deep breath, looked into the face of the man she lusted after and smiled at the absurdity of it all.
‘Actually,’ she said, almost totally together now, ‘I came to—well, to say hello and show you a photo. Apparently we were betrothed, you see, a long time ago, and I know it’s stupid but I promised Pop I’d try to meet you and—’
She was rattling on again so she stopped the babble and reached into the pocket of her borrowed abaya, but before she could pull out the photo the man she’d written off as a flunkey had grabbed her wrist in a grip of steel.
‘I think she wants to marry me, not shoot me,’ Gaz said, adding something in his own language so the man withdrew his hand and stepped away, leaving Marni burning with embarrassment.
Gaz took the photo, frowning at it, thinking back perhaps, looking from it to Marni, shaking his head, serious now, although a gleam of amusement shone deep in his eyes.
‘Oh, but this is wonderful!’ he finally declared, a delighted smile flashing across his face. ‘We cannot talk now, but you have no idea how fortuitous this is. Mazur will take you to a side room, get you tea or a cold drink. I will join you shortly.’
Marni was still trying to work out the wonderful and fortuitous bits when Gaz reached out to help her back to her feet, indicating she should follow the man who’d stepped forward on his other side.
Totally bewildered by the whole charade—Gaz was Prince Ghazi? How could that be?—she followed Mazur, stumbling slightly as she was about to enter the room and realising she hadn’t removed her sandals.
They entered a huge, open room, with high, arched doorways curtained in what looked like gold-coloured silk, the drapes pulled back and held with golden, heavily tasselled cords. The floor was of white marble, inlaid with coloured stones that made twining patterns of leaves and flowers, so brilliantly beautiful she had to pause to take them in.
Scattered here and there were immense carpets, woven in patterns of red, blue and green. Low settees were placed at intervals along the walls, cushions piled on them. Here and there, groups of people sat or stood, obviously waiting for further conversation with Gaz—Prince Ghazi!
‘This is the majlis, the public meeting room,’ Mazur explained. ‘but you will be more comfortable in a side room.’ He led her towards an arched opening to one side of the big area and into a smaller version of it—patterned marble floor, a bright rug and a pale yellow sofa with bright cushions scattered over it.
Mazur waited until she was seated on the softly sprung sofa before asking, ‘You would like tea perhaps? We have English tea or mint tea, cardamom, of course, and other flavours if you wish.’
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