The Sheikh and the Surrogate Mum

The thought aggravated him. Most women he’d had aboard his plane had been only too keen to talk to him.

But, then, most women he’d had aboard his plane had been diversions—pleasant playmates—not work colleagues, and pregnant work colleagues at that.

And, come to think of it, the days of pleasant playmates were long gone, too.

Though surely the woman had some conversation.

‘The baby in the unit, Alexandra,’ he began, deciding he’d start one himself. ‘Was anything sorted out for her?’

As the delightful smile flashed across Liz Jones’s face he regretted his impulse, because having had it directed at him once, he immediately wanted to see her smile again, to keep her smiling.

‘Alexandra’s grandmother turned up. It was like a miracle. The woman was from Melbourne and her daughter had taken off around Australia, backpacking with a group of friends. Her mother, Rose her name is, suspected there was something wrong with her daughter, who’d been moody and unhappy even while she was planning her trip. It was only when Rose saw something on the television about Alexandra that she began to put the pieces of the puzzle together.’

Khalifa tried to picture the scenario. In his family, many of the women still lived together, three generations, sometime more, and other women in the family visited every day for breakfast or coffee. His grandmother would have picked up a pregnancy in an instant.

‘Was this daughter living with her mother?’ he asked, intrigued now. ‘Or seeing her regularly? Would the mother not have noticed her pregnancy?’

He won another smile, only a small one but still it felt like a victory.

‘Her daughter had always been big, and had put on more weight, but she hadn’t been obviously pregnant before she’d left on the trip. She’d kept in contact with her mother, so Rose knew she’d been with her friends in Brisbane at the time Alexandra was found, but left almost immediately afterwards. By the time Rose saw the appeal for information, the daughter was in Central Australia somewhere, and, from photos sent on the mobile phone, considerably thinner.’

‘And this Rose contacted you?’

‘She phoned the hospital while the programme was still running on her television. She’d tried to phone her daughter but couldn’t get through, but Rose turned out to be a determined woman and no grandchild of hers was going to be brought up in care. She offered to have a DNA test the next day and get the lab to send the results straight to the hospital, but even before she knew for certain, she was on a plane to Brisbane.’

‘And she is the grandmother?’

Was he really so interested in one tiny baby, Liz wondered, or was he talking to divert her as the plane was rising smoothly into the sky? She had no idea, but Rose and Alexandra’s story was a good one, so she continued to explain.

‘She not only is, but she’s a force to be reckoned with. She slashed her way through all the red tape, parried any objections and took her grandchild back to Melbourne yesterday. She says it’s up to her daughter to decide what they tell Alexandra—she’s keeping her name, too—but Rose is more than happy to bring the infant up as her own.’

‘So, a happy ending all round,’ Khalifa said with a broad smile, and Liz forgot about toes curling because this smile was enough to make her entire body spark and fizz in a most unseemly manner.

She’d heard about physical attraction but had obviously never experienced it, because this was something entirely new, and entirely ridiculous because she was going to be working with this man and couldn’t go around all sparky and fizzy every time he smiled.

Although perhaps he wouldn’t smile too often!

‘It was a happy ending,’ she said, ‘and a great relief as far as I am concerned as I’d have hated to go away leaving Alexandra in limbo.’ She hesitated, then the words she knew she shouldn’t say came out anyway. ‘It’s not a very comfortable place, limbo!’

She turned her attention back to the papers in on lap, although she knew their contents by heart. She hadn’t needed to check out neonatal units on the internet, as she’d always kept up with latest developments, but she didn’t want to get anything wrong or miss out on something that might work in Al Tinine.

Al Tinine … If Najme meant star, did Tinine also have a meaning? She pulled out the little table Saif had shown her and set down her file on the new unit, digging into her bag for the brochures on the country, certain there’d be an explanation somewhere.

She could ask.

But asking meant starting another conversation and having a conversation meant looking at him, and while she was looking at him he might smile and …

Klutz!

As far as she could remember, she’d never been a mental klutz, confining her clumsiness to the physical, but now her mind was running wild and bumping into things and losing the plot completely.

Could she put it down to a slight release from the grief and tension of the last few months?

She had no idea but hopefully it would sort itself out before too long and return to the focussed, professional brain she would need to do her job.

And to work out what was going to happen to the poor baby!

Surreptitiously, hiding her hand under the papers still resting on what was left of her lap, she gave it a pat, mentally reassuring it that things would sort themselves out, though what things, and quite how, she had no idea. Oliver was, after all, the father of the baby, and should he want it, and be fit enough to care for it, then all would be well, but there were too many uncertainties to even consider the poor thing’s future at the moment so, to distract herself from the depression she was teetering towards, she forgot about not talking to Khalifa.

‘The name, Tinine, does it, too, mean something?’

Of course he had to smile!

And now she was reasonably close to him, she could see a twinkle in the depths of his dark eyes.

A very beguiling twinkle.

Fizz, spark, spark, fizz—surely pregnant women shouldn’t feel this level of physical attraction!

‘You will have to wait and see,’ he replied, and the promise in his voice made her physical reactions worse—far worse—though all the man was discussing was the name of his country, not some riotous sexual encounter in the back cabin of the plane.

Was it a double bed?

Queen size?

King?

Her wayward mind was throwing up the questions and it took all her determination and discipline to pull it back into line.

Forget about the destination, concentrate on the unit. She pulled out the figures, playing with what she already knew. Najme had a population of approximately fifty thousand people and a high birth rate of twenty per thousand. Khalifa had already explained that about a third of the population were expats, doctors, teachers, scientists and labourers, all brought in from other places to help in the modernisation of the country.

Fiddling with the figures, knowing full well that they told her only three basic beds would be required, she began to wonder just why her new boss was planning a larger facility.

‘Are you expecting the population to grow fairly swiftly, or more people to move into the city? Or is there some other reason you want the larger unit?’

The question had come out before she realised Khalifa was speaking to Saif.

‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have interrupted. I was thinking out loud.’

No smile this time, which was just as well—and the little twinge of disappointment was stupidity.

‘I’m discussing our menu for the flight and you’re thinking work,’ Khalifa said, enough amusement in his voice to start the fizzing. ‘Do you never relax?’

‘It’s Tuesday, that’s a workday for me. And, yes, I can relax, but I did want to check over these figures again.’

He almost smiled.

‘The surrounding area supports probably as many people again, although the majority of them are living as they’ve always lived. Traditions dating back thousands of years are hard to change, and I am afraid if I rush things, we will lose too much.’