Sheikh, Children's Doctor...Husband

He cut her off with a wave of his hand, an abrupt movement that seemed to ward her off, although she was back on the settee now, embarrassed—no, utterly humiliated—by having to discuss money with a stranger.

‘Money!’ he snapped. ‘Of course there’ll be money. Do not worry, Dr Conroy, you will be well paid!’

He stalked away, his white robe swirling around him, and what felt like disgust trailing in his wake.

Not that Alex could blame him—she was pretty disgusted herself, but what else could she have done?

Anger pushed Azzam away from the woman. No, not anger so much as an irritated discomfort. At himself for not realising she wasn’t being paid? No, the sensation seemed to have been triggered by the fact that she’d been so obviously uncomfortable at having to discuss it.

By the fact he’d made her uncomfortable?

Of course she should be paid, he’d arrange it immediately. Yet as her words replayed in his head he heard the strain behind them, particularly when she’d said ‘obligation’. Now more questions arose. If the money for this obligation was paid automatically from her bank account, what good would cash be to her here?

He wheeled round, returning to find she’d walked into the garden and was moving from one rose bush to the next, smelling the blooms. The rose she held to her face now was crimson, and it brushed a little colour into her cheeks. For a moment he weakened—his irritation slipping slightly—because there was something special about the sight of that slim, jeans-clad woman standing among the roses.

‘You might give your serving woman your bank details. If, as you say, payments are taken regularly from your account, it is best I transfer the money direct into it rather than give you cash.’

‘If, as I say?’ she retorted, stepping away from the crimson rose and facing him, anger firing the silvery eyes. ‘Do you think I’d lie to you? Or are you just trying to humiliate me further? Do you think that asking a stranger for wages wasn’t humiliating enough for me? Do you think I wouldn’t care for Samarah out of fondness and compassion if I didn’t have financial obligations? Believe me, if I’d had an alternative, I’d have taken it.’

She stormed away, her body rigid with the force of her anger as she slapped her feet against the paving stones.

There’d been a ring of truth in her words, and the anger seemed genuine, and for a moment he regretted upsetting her. But Bahir’s death had brought back too many reminders of Clarice’s arrival in their midst, and suspicion was a bitter seed that flourished in pain and grief.

She shouldn’t have asked, Alex told herself as, on shaking legs, she escaped the man.

She should have told him she had to leave immediately!

But how could she leave the gentle Samarah when she was grieving and ill? How could she, Alex, just walk away from a woman she’d come to admire and respect?

She’d had to ask, she reminded herself, so she may as well stop getting her knickers in a twist over it. So what if the man thought she was a mercenary female?

She kicked off her shoes with such force one of them flew across the paving, disturbing the neat rows of sandals already there. Muttering to herself, she squatted down to restore them all to order and it was there Samarah found her.

‘You will eat with us this evening?’ she asked in her quiet, barely accented English. ‘I am afraid we have neglected you shamefully, but I was tired from the flight and slept until late in the day. In our country we pride ourselves on our hospitality. It comes from the time of our nomad ancestors, when to turn someone away from a camp in the desert might be to send them to their death.’

‘I would be honoured to eat with you,’ Alex told her, standing up and studying Samarah’s face, then watching her chest to check it was moving without strain. ‘You are feeling all right?’

Samarah inclined her head then gave it a little shake.

‘Hardly all right when my first-born is dead, but it is not the asthma that affects me. Only grief.’

She reached out and took Alex’s hands.

‘That you will understand for I read grief in your face as well. It is not so long since you lost someone?’

Alex turned away so she wouldn’t reveal the tears that filled her eyes. It was tiredness that had weakened her so much that a few kind words from Samarah should make her want to cry. Weakness was a luxury she couldn’t afford—like the pride that was still eating into her bones over her request for wages.

Samarah took her hand and led her into the building.

‘I know I gave you little time to pack, but you will find clothes in the dressing room next to your bedroom and toiletries in the bathroom. We will eat in an hour. Hafa will show you the way.’

Alex thanked Samarah and followed Hafa, who had appeared silently in front of them, back to the splendid bedroom.

Clothes in the dressing room?

Alex looked down at her serviceable jeans and checked shirt, then caught up with her guide.

‘Samarah mentioned clothes,’ she said to Hafa. ‘Are my clothes not suitable here?’

Hafa smiled at her.

‘Because you are a foreigner no shame attaches to you, but I think Samarah has chosen clothes especially for you—a gift because she likes you—and she would be pleased to see you wear these things.’

‘Very diplomatically put,’ Alex responded, smiling at the woman, worry over her request to the ‘new highness’ pushed aside by the kindness of the women she was meeting.

Not to mention the thought of a shower and getting into clean clothes. Packing in a hurry, she’d grabbed her passport, a small travel pack, underwear and two clean shirts, thinking her jeans would do until she returned home. At the time, all she’d intended doing was accompanying Samarah home, but the older woman’s asthma attack on the flight had frightened both of them, and Alex had realised she couldn’t leave.

So she’d have to send her bank details to the prince, though her stomach twisted at the thought, and she felt ill remembering the contempt she’d seen in his eyes.

The same contempt she’d seen in David’s eyes when she’d told him about Rob’s debt and offered him back her engagement ring, certain in her heart he wouldn’t take it—certain of a love he’d probably, in retrospect, never felt for her.

His acceptance of it had cut her deeply—the one man she’d been relying on for support backing away from her so quickly she’d felt tainted, unclean in some way.

But David was in the past and she had more than enough problems in the present to occupy her mind.

Inside her room, fearing she’d lose the courage to do it if she hesitated, she dug a notebook out of her handbag and scribbled down the information the prince would need to transfer the money. At the bottom she added, ‘Thank you for doing this. I am sorry I had to ask.’

‘This note needs to go to the prince,’ she told Hafa, who took it and walked, soft-footed, out of the room, the roiling in Alex’s stomach growing worse by the moment.

Forget it. Have a shower.

The thought brought a glimmer of a smile to her face and she pushed away all her doubts and worries. If the bedroom was like something out of the Arabian Nights then the bathroom was like something from images of the future. All stainless steel and glass and gleaming white marble, toiletries of every kind stacked on the glass shelving and a shower that sprayed water all over her body, massaging it with an intensity that had been delicious after the long flight.

She stripped off, undid her plait and brushed it out, deciding to try some of the array of shampoos that lined the shelves and wash her hair. The shampoo she chose had a perfume she didn’t recognise, yet as she dried her hair she realised she’d smelt the same scent here and there around the palace, as if the carpets or tapestries were permeated with it.

She sniffed the air, liking it and trying to capture what it was that attracted her.

‘It’s frankincense,’ Hafa told her when Alex asked about the scent. Frankincense—one of the gifts carried by the wise men! Again the unreality of the situation hit her—this was truly a strange and fascinating place.

By this time she was showered and dressed, in long dark blue trousers and a matching tunic top—the least noticeable set of clothing she’d found among an array of glittering clothes in the dressing room—and Hafa had returned to take her to dinner.

‘I’ve heard of it, of course, but I don’t think I’ve ever smelt it,’ Alex said, and Hafa smiled.

‘It is special to us,’ she replied, but didn’t explain any more than that, simply leading Alex out of the suite of rooms and along new corridors.

What seemed like a hundred women were gathered in a huge room, most of them seated on carpets on the floor, a great swathe of material spread across the floor in front of them, the material loaded with silver and brass platters piled high with fruit and nuts.

Hafa led Alex to where Samarah sat at what would be the head if there were a table. Samarah waved her to sit down beside her, greeting Alex with a light touch of her hands, clasping both of Alex’s hands together.