LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER TWO

      “LET ME START AGAIN.”

      Idris’s growing impatience won out over the desire to return Robyn’s infectious smile. “I wasn’t under the impression we had started anything, much less the interview I was expecting to conduct.”

      He knew he was being contrary but this woman unnerved him. Her watchful tigress eyes flicked around the room on a fruitless quest to come up with reasons for his terse response. She wouldn’t find what she sought there. In the immaculate soft furnishings and discreet trappings of the überwealthy. The answer to his coldness stood guard at the surrounds of his heart. Unreachable.

      And she would have to do a bit more than smile and catch him off guard to be the one he chose to operate on his daughter.

      He was the wall people had to break through to get to Amira. He’d lost one love of his life to the medical “profession.” He’d be damned if he lost another.

      He shifted in his chair, well aware Robyn was already unwittingly chinking away at some of his usually impenetrable defenses. This woman—ray of light, more like—was a near antithesis to everything his life had been these last seven years. Where he was wary and overprotective, she was virtually bursting with life, enthusiasm and kindness.

      He didn’t think any of the other surgeons had so much as spoken to Kaisha other than to say “tea” or “coffee.” Perhaps a nod of dismissive thanks, but in his book, consideration was everything. Particularly in his role as leader of Da’har. Every decision he made about the small desert kingdom would, ultimately, affect each citizen. As such, he took no decision lightly, altered no laws of the land to benefit one group of people and not another. Life on this small planet was already unjust enough on its own. He’d learned that the hard way. And regrouped out of necessity.

      The last thing the people of Da’har needed was a leader drowning in grief at the loss of his wife. Seven years ago his newborn daughter had needed a father with purpose. Direction. So he’d shut the doors on the past and sharply fine-tuned himself to focus on Amira and the role she would one day take on as Sheikha of Da’har and all her people. People whose voices she now longed to hear.

      “Where are all the toys?” Robyn asked pointedly.

      “I’m sorry?” Idris swung his attention back toward her, not realizing his thoughts had wandered so far away.

      “Toys? You did bring your daughter with you, right? And she’s seven so...” He watched her brightly lit eyes scan the immaculate sitting room. “Where does she play?”

      “She’s at the zoo with Thana.”

      Kaisha’s eyes widened at his words. He knew as well as she, he would normally never tell a virtual stranger his daughter’s whereabouts. Or to call him Idris for that matter. He’d offered no such “common” courtesy to the surgeons he’d met before Robyn. Something about her elicited a sense of...comfort. Ease. She exuded warmth. Albeit, a higgledy-piggledy variety of warmth—but she seemed trustworthy, nonetheless. Which was interesting. Trust wasn’t something he extended to others when it came to his daughter.

      “And Thana is her...?” He bristled at Robyn’s open-ended question. He never had to face this sort of questioning in Da’har. Or, generally, anywhere else. His wife’s death during childbirth had been international news. Where their wedding had lit up television broadcasts, her funeral had darkened screens around the globe. It was near impossible to explain how leaden his feet had felt as he’d followed her casket, Amira’s tiny form tightly swaddled in his arms, the pair of them making their way toward the newly dug grave site. He swallowed the sour sensation that never failed to twist through his gut at the memory.

      “Her nanny.”

      Robyn winced. He could see she remembered now. The myriad expressions her face flashed through and finally landed on was something he recognized too well.

      The widowed Sheikh and his deaf daughter...all alone in their grief at the loss of the Sheikha.

      So.

      He quirked an appraising eyebrow.

      She had done her research, after all. Just wasn’t going to any pains to prove it.

      “Right!” Robyn pulled open the flap to her satchel and pulled out a thick sheaf of papers, which she knocked into an exacting rectangle on the glass coffee table. “I generally prefer to do this sort of initial ‘meet’ with the child. Amira,” she corrected. “While I am relatively certain the type of surgery and treatment I am proposing will suit her case, I also like to make sure it suits her.”

      “What do you mean?” None of the other surgeons seemed to care a jot about Amira’s thoughts on the matter. They just wanted to showboat their latest clinical trials...for a price, of course. A large one.

      “When someone who is profoundly deaf has hearing restored, it can be quite shocking. Not all deaf people, you may be surprised to learn, want to hear.”

      “That is not the case with Amira.”

      Robyn gave him a gentle but firm smile before continuing. “It would be preferable to hear that from Amira. Sometimes what a parent desires for their child is different from what the child themselves wants. Tell me, how does she communicate?”

      “She mostly reads lips, although—” he raised a hand as Robyn’s own lips parted to interject “—we have our own sign language of sorts. As I’m sure you are aware, there is not yet a regionally recognized sign language between the Arab nations as there is in America or here in the United Kingdom.”

      Robyn was nodding along, the tiniest flicker of “been there, done that” betraying the fact he wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t know already.

      “And is her lipreading in Arabic, French and English?”

      Hackles rising, Idris checked the volume of his response. “Da’har’s local dialect is what interests her most as the people of my kingdom are the ones she will one day be Sheikha to. Though she speaks a smattering of the others as we travel together regularly. Do bear in mind, Doctor, she is only seven.”

      “I have met some very savvy seven-year-olds in my day.” Her chin jutted forward decisively.

      Was she mocking him? Amira was the most precious thing in his life. He was hardly going to overwhelm his already serious little girl with an endless stream of tutors and languages when life was innately challenging for her.

      When his eyes met hers, he was heartened to see Robyn’s countenance matched her words. She seemed to have...respect...for her patients. He notched up a point for her. A small one. But a point, nonetheless.

      “Shame.” Robyn was shaking her head, fanning out some of the papers she’d brought. “It’s

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