One Desert Night (13 page)

'I have to go out, I'm afraid,' he said. 'My secretary Masoud has taken a sudden turn for the worse. Please try and enjoy your food without me, and I will see you both later.' Turning to Jamal, he laid his hand on the other man's shoulder. 'I am charging you to look after my sister and my guest,' he said clearly.

As he swept towards the door, his handsome profile grimly resolute, Gina shot up from her seat and rushed round the table towards him. 'Zahir!' She stopped him in his tracks, and for a jittery moment wondered at her own audacity.

'What's wrong?' he asked, not without a hint of impatience.

'Let me go with you.'

'That is out of the question.'

'Please... I've heard in your voice how highly you regard Masoud, and I thought—I thought I might be able to be of some help.'

'Help? How? A medical doctor is what I need right now—not an expert in antiquities!'

Ignoring his barbed retort, Gina pressed on. 'I don't like the thought of you keeping a lonely vigil. At least if I was there you'd have someone to share your thoughts and concerns with. Please, won't you change your mind and let me go with you?'

'No. I want you to stay here with Farida. Like I said before, I will see you both later.' And with that he swept through the double doors and was gone.

It had been a long night
—a night during which his loyal secretary and friend Masoud had literally been fighting for his life.

The medical staff at the small exclusive hospital that Zahir had had him flown to by helicopter had worked like Trojans to keep him alive. Earlier that day another virus had taken hold of him, leaving him dangerously ill, but in the early hours of the morning the senior doctor in charge had at last given him the all-clear, and informed Zahir that the man was over the worst. Only the days to come would tell whether he had enough strength left in his compromised immune system to pull through completely.

Grey-faced and anxious, Zahir returned to the palace. In his room he collapsed on the bed, and stared up at the gently whirring blades of the ceiling fan. Like his friend Amir, Masoud had been to school with him. He, too, was like a brother. To see his gaunt face and black eyes staring blankly up at him from a hospital bed, his body wired up to countless tubes and drips, had left him in a state of mounting fear and despair.
Was he to lose yet another person he cared about?

He had no doubt he was being tested by Allah—although it felt more as if he was being mocked. Just when he'd decided to give love a chance, he had again been shown how precarious his future with Gina might be if he should lose her. He was strong, but not
that
strong. If she should die young—either by some dreadful accident or through an illness of some kind—he honestly didn't think he could bear it. With his heart and mind in turmoil, Zahir shut his eyes and prayed harder than he had ever prayed before...

It seemed as though Zahir had retreated from her in every possible way. Gina had got over the abrupt way he'd told her that he needed a medical doctor, not an antiquities expert, telling herself it was because he'd been so distressed on hearing the news about Masoud. He had been so curt—and it had wounded her when he'd so brutally dismissed her offer of help.

More troubling behaviour was to come.

The morning after he'd rushed to Masoud, Gina saw him on the way to his rooms. His handsome, unlined face was haggard.

'Zahir.' She hurried after him. It appeared that he was reluctant to stop even for a moment to talk to her.

'What is it?' he asked wearily, rubbing his hand across his eyes.

Her heart knocked hard against her ribs. 'How is Masoud?'

'Right now it is touch and go, so I am told. To speak the truth, I don't really want to discuss it. All I will say is that the next few days are critical. If you need anything, talk to Farida or Jamal, will you?'

'I don't want to annoy you, Zahir, but perhaps the next time you go to the hospital I
could
go with you? I know I can't make your friend better, but I could be a support and someone to turn to for you, instead of you sitting there alone worrying about him.'

'To be frank, your presence would be an unnecessary distraction rather than a support. Right now I need to focus on what has to be done for my friend—not be fussed over by a woman like some needy child!'

Biting back a hurt retort, Gina felt her face burn at having her offer of help again so bluntly refused. 'Well...' She twisted her hands in front of her and shrugged. 'If you change your mind at any time I just want you to know that I'll be here for you...that's all.'

'Hmm...' His distant gaze withdrew from her even before he turned and continued down the corridor.

Frozen into a statue, Gina stood staring after him.

Every time Zahir came into contact with her after that morning he deliberately kept their exchanges to the minimum, then made himself absent as soon as possible. After the high hopes of his homecoming dinner, it was a painful knock-back.

He was travelling back and forth to the hospital to visit Masoud on a regular basis. One day the news was good, the next not so good. Frequently his expression bordered on the haunted.

Gina had tried to reach him with words, with warmth, with an understanding look, but his self-protective shutters had definitely slammed down as hard as a heavy portcullis, and nothing seemed to make an impact. She had no choice but to bide her time. Even now, when he seemed so distant and the possibility of them being together seemed ever more remote and impossible, she vowed she would not give up on her love from him.

Masoud becoming ill had shaken him to his core—she knew that. She also knew that he feared losing his friend as he had lost his parents and then his brother-in-law. He feared the pain that it would bring. Farida's plea that he should not spend his life dreading the loss of those he loved had apparently been forgotten.

'Do not despair,' the other woman had consoled her. 'Masoud's health will return, and so will Zahir's belief in love.'

Not allowing herself too much time in which to speculate on what would happen if Masoud
didn't
recover, Gina kept her gloomy thoughts at bay by working on the inventory. But underlying everything she did was her hope and prayer that Zahir would come back to himself and
her
soon.

Five nights after Zahir had left his homecoming dinner to rush off to his friend's bedside, they learned that Masoud was emerging from the nightmare of his illness with flying colours. The medical staff had removed the drips, and he had even had his first taste of solid food for days. Zahir was in much higher spirits, even seeking Gina out in one of the galleries where she was working to speak with her.

'I am off to the hospital again. I feel like I'm taking up residence there, if you want to know the truth.'

His smile still looked tired, Gina thought as she studied him, but the haunted expression was thankfully gone. She was very moved that he would be so dedicated to the care of a friend that he would put him before everything else...even duty...yet inside she was wrestling with the agonising idea that he didn't want to be with her at all. That she was, as he had said, just an
unnecessary
distraction.

'When I return later tonight I want to see you,' he declared. 'I want to tell you things—' He broke off to arch a rueful eyebrow. 'I have not been the best host or the kindest and most understanding friend to you in the past few days, Gina... But I promise I will make it up to you.'

'You don't owe me anything, Zahir—honestly. I'm just very glad that your friend is getting better and that consequently you won't be so worried.'

'Yet still I feel I have neglected you.'

'I assure you, you have not. Like you. I'm not "some needy child" who needs constant attention or fussing over. At the end of the day I merely came here to do a job. When that job is ended I'll go back home again, and you won't have to give me another thought.' Her throat swelled and tightened as she finished speaking, and hot despairing tears weren't far away.

'You think I would never give you another thought if you should return home?' The tanned brow furrowed in not just concern, but confusion and annoyance, too. 'Have I been so remiss in my care of you that you would leave and dismiss me as if my feelings were of no account whatsoever?' he demanded.

'Forget what I said, Zahir.' Having great difficulty in containing her spiralling emotions, Gina forced a smile to her lips. 'You need to focus on your friend, and I understand that—I really do. When you return I'll still be here, working on the inventory. I promise.'

Not looking entirely convinced, nonetheless Zahir briefly gathered her hand in his, then raised it to his lips to deliver a tender kiss across the fine skin of her knuckles. His eyes watched her carefully as he did so, almost as if he expected her to bolt like a rabbit. 'I pray that will be so,
rohi.
' His rich voice was husky and warm with feeling. 'When I return I will come straight away to see you no matter what the time is.'

Almost faint with the mixture of relief and hope that had swirled through her at his words, after he had gone Gina took some time out from doing the inventory with Farida. She simply went to her rooms to try and calm the nervous excitement that had suddenly turned her brain to mush and her limbs to sponge...

'You are still up? I was hoping you would be.'

Farida had gone to bed quite a while ago, he'd learned, and at last...
at last
Zahir had an opportunity to have Gina to himself.
If
she was still awake, that was. He'd knocked on her door, half expecting her to be fast asleep in bed. It was, after all, past midnight. But she'd answered his knock almost immediately, her shy glance lit up by an equally unsure smile.

'I waited for you. You said you wanted to tell me things.'

'I did, didn't I?'

'How was Masoud today?' she asked, her expression concerned but wary.

Breathing out a long sigh, Zahir nodded his head. 'He has made a miraculous recovery, and is looking even better than before. Two or three days in hospital to recuperate and he will be home again. Take a walk with me, will you?'

'A walk where?'

'Not very far.'

They moved slowly down the lamp-lit corridor and both fell silent. Dressed in a soft white tunic and skirt, her bright hair arranged behind her head with a pretty floral clasp, the woman at Zahir's side made his heart soar just looking at her. But it had taken a ruler wiser than he—a ruler who
did
listen to his heart—to make him finally acknowledge the depth and breadth of his feelings. Masoud's illness had set his hopes back for a while, Zahir silently admitted, but only because he'd feared his friend might not survive. Now he realised that even if he had
not
life would go on,
Zahir
would go on, and his great hope now was that he would do so with Gina by his side.

'I want to show you something.'

He caught her by the hand, then pushed open a door to the side of him. The small salon was barely furnished, but that was for a good reason. Inside there was a single glowing lamp, and on the wall a stunning landscape of the desert. The painting had been one of his mother's own works. She'd loved to paint, and her favourite subject had been the diversity and beauty of this incredible land they lived in. Beneath the picture was a beechwood cabinet with a clear glass top, so that whatever was laid inside there could be viewed to its best advantage. It was the reason there was so little else in the room—so nothing could detract from its incredible beauty and presence.

Placing his hand gently at the small of her back, Zahir urged Gina towards it. 'You have been so patient,
rohi,
and this is your reward. You are looking upon the Heart of Courage.'

The jewel seemed especially lovely tonight, as it lay on its bed of black velvet, he mused. With a buttery-yellow gold chain, the stunning pendant was made up of a circle of rubies and sapphires—and at its centre, dazzling the eye, was the
Almas
...a pure diamond whose colour was the flawless hue of a midnight desert sky shaped into a breathtaking heart. It radiated not just beauty, but magic, too.

It had been a long time since Zahir had even glanced at it, let alone studied it. But with its imagined connotations of visiting tragedy on his family he hardly needed to ask himself why. Hearing about the discovery of his great-great-grandmother's journal, and learning that the previous love-matches of his family had—as far as they were aware—been happy and successful, he now felt reassured to follow his heart.

Yet even if the history had not been good, Zahir knew it wouldn't have affected his decision
... His arrogance had indeed diminished his wisdom when he'd sought to circumvent his destiny, but after his visit to Kajistan a few days ago, and hearing the wise thoughts of the Emir, he knew he would never be so foolish again as to think he even had a say in the matter.

'Oh, Zahir...' Turning towards him, Gina knew her lovely blue eyes glistened with tears. 'To be standing here, gazing at such an incredible sight...I feel utterly awed and privileged. Jake would have been beside himself to see the jewel as I am seeing it now.'

The sickening flash of jealousy that slashed through Zahir's insides was like having his legs kicked away from under him. 'Then how unfortunate that he so rashly decided to cut short his stay and go home,' he murmured, unable to keep the sarcasm from his voice.

'Yes...it was.' Her expression confused, Gina dipped her head.

'Are you sad that he left?'

Her head whipped up again. 'No! Why do you say that?'

'Because for you to mention that insignificant man at such an important time as this displeases me greatly, and it also has me thinking that perhaps you care for him more than you have admitted.'

'That's absolutely not true. He's a colleague—that's all. A colleague who worked as hard on researching the jewel as I did, and longed to view it for himself.'

'Then he should have stayed longer, instead of running away and insulting me by believing his very life was jeopardised by staying at the palace!'

His temper spilling over, Zahir stalked away from the cabinet to move across to the door. He could rationalise his emotionally charged response by telling himself he was still a little overwrought at all the events that had recently unfolded, but this was patently
not
the way he'd imagined the scene when he finally showed Gina the jewel and told her how he felt. A turbulent mix of anger as well as despair twisted his gut, and his mind took him down an even darker road.

'If it is not Jake you honour with your interest, what about the other men you must have met since we parted that night three years ago?'

'What other men?' The blue eyes widened indignantly, like dazzling twin lakes. 'I never had an intimate relationship with any other man except
you,
Zahir—not in three years. I already told you that.'

'Even so...my fear is that you are merely
saying
that so as not to disappoint me.'

'I wouldn't lie to you. I want you to know that after we were together that night even the mere thought of being with another man that way was repugnant to me.'

Zahir sucked in a steadying breath. To learn that Gina had been intimate with him and
only
him rocketed his previously sinking spirits to the moon and back. He ventured a smile. 'Can't you tell how jealous I have been at the idea you had slept with other men after surrendering your virginity to me? If I've handled it badly and offended you, I sincerely apologise.'