Prince of the Desert

‘You say this man claims that he too is the owner of the apartment?’ the young official questioned.

‘That’s what he said,’ Gwynneth confirmed unhappily.

‘We have no record as yet of anyone else lodging a claim against this apartment,’ he assured her.

‘So that means that I am in the clear to stay here, does it?’ Gwynneth pressed him.

‘Certainly,’ he agreed promptly. ‘We know that your apartment block is one of those involved in this unfortunate fraud, but as yet no one else has come forward to claim ownership of your particular apartment. However, as I explained to you, that does not mean another potential owner does not exist,’ he cautioned.

‘But until they actually present themselves to you and make a legal claim the apartment is notionally at least mine?’

‘You are certainly free to make use of it until such time as we have ascertained who in fact does own it,’ he corrected her gently.

Well, at least that meant that she didn’t have to give in to his bullying, Gwynneth reassured herself later, in an attempt to quell the anxiety that was causing her to feel so on edge.

He might believe he had the upper hand, with his threats to tell the police about her and have her deported, but he was the one who was going to look foolish when he was forced to accept the truth. And she was going to make sure that he did accept it, Gwynneth decided vigorously. No matter what it took. No way was any man going to be allowed to make the kind of assumptions about her he had made, without her defending herself from them.

It felt bittersweet now to look back on her waking moments this morning and her dread that he might have realised how new she was to everything they had shared, and that from that he might have thought that he was something—someone—special. Ridiculously, she had even begun her defence against that. How naïve she had been, believing that all she had to protect herself from was a choice between two fears: one, that she had inherited her father’s sexuality, the other that somehow or other in touching her flesh he had also touched her heart. She had thought then in her naïveté that nothing could be worse than being forced to defend herself with one of these two choices. But now she knew better.