LITMIR.BIZ

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to go on leave when I went into labour.’

      ‘That would have been far too soon.’

      ‘She’s done so well, though,’ Gabi said. ‘Lucia amazed the doctor and nurses; she was early but so strong.’

      ‘The al-Lehans are.’ One day he would tell her about the strong lineage; one day he would share in tales of babies that should not have survived but had lived to rule.

      But not now.

      For Alim ached with sadness that a desert princess had been born but his country would never know her name.

      She did not exist as his daughter, except here in the desert.

      Gabi had left the bed and had gone to her case in the hallway and retrieved her tablet.

      There was something so splendid about her, Alim thought as she walked back to the bed. He knew Gabi was shy, yet here she was not and he loved how she slipped back to his side; he wrapped an arm around her as she opened up the latest image of Lucia—the one that her mother had sent her just as she had landed here in Zethlehan.

      There had never been any real doubt in his mind, Alim had known she was his, but he had never expected to feel so moved by a photo.

      Her eyes were almond shaped and she was a beautiful old soul, a true al-Lehan.

      ‘When was this taken?’ Alim asked.

      ‘My mother sent it to me yesterday. I got it when we landed.’

      ‘She is tiny,’ he said, unable to take his eyes from his daughter and loathing that he could only see her on a screen.

      ‘She’s the size of a newborn now,’ Gabi said. ‘She caught up quickly.’

      He scrolled through the images and Gabi explained each one. ‘That was the day I brought her home from the hospital,’ she said. ‘And that’s on the night she was born.’

      He had been on his way here.

      Alim looked at their fragile daughter and then at the mother who held her. Gabi had indeed lost weight; in the picture she looked drawn and pale, scared yet proud as she looked down at her very new daughter, and his heart twisted in fear and pain as he thought of how it could have gone.

      ‘You have done well,’ Alim said, and looked at Gabi.

      She had expected him to be accusatory, to be furious for all she had denied him, yet his voice was kind and his words told her he was proud of her for the care that their daughter had received.

      Yes, from the day she had met him he had enthralled her, for his responses were like no others; they threw her in new directions.

      And then he turned back to the tablet and the photos of his daughter. ‘That’s all there are...’ Gabi said.

      Except there was another image that held his attention now—the one of Gabi and him dancing in the deserted ballroom.

      She blushed. It felt as if he was looking through her diary and she hastily moved to play the image down.

      ‘The photographer had left a time-lapse camera set up, there was this at the end...’ She was a little embarrassed to have saved it, but how could she be when she now lay in his bed and from that night they had made a daughter?

      ‘I’ll send you the pictures of Lucia—’

      ‘Already done,’ Alim said, as he clicked on them.

      They lay there in the dark with the wind an orchestra that seemed to play only for them.

      ‘Will you bring her next time?’ Alim asked, and Gabi went still, for there would not be a next time.

      Nothing had changed for Gabi, except that he knew.

      ‘Has James ever been to Zethlehan?’ she asked, instead of answering.

      ‘No.’

      ‘In case it caused rumours to spread?’

      ‘There are always rumours and they are dealt with by the palace,’ Alim said. ‘No, James has never been here because Fleur always refused to come.’

      ‘She’s never been?’

      ‘No. Fleur said that she deserved better than a tent in the desert so my father saw that she and James had a home in London and an apartment in Rome.’

      ‘At the Grande Lucia?’

      ‘No. They have only started to dine there since I bought it.’ He gave her a smile. ‘It is there that James and Mona met—she was there for her grandparents’ wedding anniversary and Fleur and James were there with my father.’

      That’s right, she remembered Mona telling her that and it had seemed so inconsequential at the time.

      ‘I don’t want to be your lover, Alim.’

      ‘You would be better than a lover,’ Alim told her. ‘You would be my mistress.’

      He said it as if it were a reward.

      ‘I don’t want to be like Fleur,’ Gabi said. ‘I don’t want to bring her here and...’ Yet she fought with herself, for even as she said it, she lied.

      There was nothing she wanted more right now than for Lucia to lie between them.

      There was nothing that appealed more than the thought of visiting Alim, and their child growing up with the love of her father.

      ‘Would it be such a terrible life?’ he turned and asked her. ‘I would take care of you two so well.’

      She stared back at him.

      ‘You could come here often and still have your career.’

      ‘Career?’ She gave a short, incredulous laugh. ‘I seem to remember you offering me that once before; it didn’t last very long.’

      The hurt was still there—even recalling that moment took her straight back to the pain he had caused her. ‘Anyway, the Grande Lucia has been sold...’

      ‘The contracts are not signed yet.’

      And it didn’t appease her—because Bastiano was his friend, but that meant little to Alim, she was sure.

      He was ruthless and would get his own way.

      Well, not in this.

      ‘I don’t want to work for you,’ Gabi said, and her voice was certain. ‘I want my own career.’

      ‘And you could have it. I would see you often.’

      ‘Where?’

      ‘Mostly here,’ Alim said. ‘And once things were more settled for my country I could spend more time with you and Lucia in Rome...’

      ‘You mean once you are married and have an heir?’

      ‘Yes.’

      And even if it appalled her, it was the life he had been born to, Gabi knew.

      ‘You didn’t approve when it was your father,’ she pointed out.

      ‘I did not know then that they had made things work.’ And he told her a little about how he had found out his mother was happier than he had believed she was.

      ‘I think we could do it even better than them.’

      He made the unpalatable sweet, for now the winds buffeted the walls of the desert tent and she could almost imagine a little family here at times. But then her eyes closed on the madness that her mind proposed she consider; she saw the image of Fleur sitting taking refreshments alone; she thought of the other injured parties that an illicit love brought.

      ‘I wouldn’t do that to your wife,’ Gabi said. ‘And I shan’t do it to our child.’

      ‘You’d deny her a chance to be with her father?’

      ‘Never,’

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