Maggie Cox – The Sheikh Who Married Her: One Desert Night / Strangers in the Desert / Desert Doctor, Secret Sheikh (страница 4)

‘Yes, you are.’ Shrugging his shoulders, Jeremy laid down the yellowed document and tried for a smile. ‘How’s the job going at the auction house?’

‘It’s really testing my mettle, if I’m honest. I mean, just when you think you’ve got a handle on something you discover there’s so much more to learn.’

‘You sound as if you’re learning some valuable wisdom along the way as well.’

‘I hope so. No matter how many diplomas I’ve succeeded in getting, I still feel very much a junior in this trade, Dad.’

‘I understand, dear. But don’t be in such a hurry to get somewhere. This “trade,” as you call it, is a lifetime’s passion for most who enter into it, and you never stop learning and discovering things you didn’t know before. You’re still so young. How old? Remind me?’

‘Twenty-nine.’

‘Good God!’

His exclamation made Gina giggle. ‘How old did you think I was?’ she playfully challenged him. At least he wasn’t looking so down and distracted now, she noticed.

The greying eyebrows made a concertina motion. ‘In my mind I always remember you at round about five years old … reaching a sticky exploring little hand towards the papers on my desk. Even then you had an interest in history, Gee-Gee.’

Dumbfounded, Gina stared hard, ‘Gee-Gee?’

‘It was my pet name for you. Don’t you remember? Your mother thought it highly amusing that a distinguished professor of antiquities and ancient history should have the imagination to come up with something like that.’

‘Here.’ There was a lump in her throat the size of an egg as she handed him the letters she’d found on the mat.

‘What’s this?’

‘Your post … looks like it’s been accumulating for days. Why didn’t Mrs Babbage bring it in for you?’

‘What?’ The pale blue gaze was distracted again. ‘Mrs Babbage resigned last week, I’m afraid. Her husband had to go into hospital for a major operation and she wanted to be able to visit him as often as she could. Under the circumstances, she couldn’t keep her job here. Anyway, I shall need to interview for a new housekeeper.’

Reaching out her hand, Gina laid it briefly on his shoulder. She was shocked to feel how little flesh covered it beneath his shirt. ‘That’s the third housekeeper you’ve lost in a year,’ she commented worriedly.

‘I know. Must be my sparkling personality or something’

Ignoring the droll reply, Gina gazed at him, seriously concerned. ‘What have you been living on for a week? Not much, by the looks of it. Why didn’t you tell me about this when I rang you, Dad?’

For a moment the expression on her father’s long thin face reminded her of a small boy who had been reprimanded by a teacher and told to stand at the back of the class. The lump inside her throat seemed to swell.

‘Didn’t want to worry you, dear … You’re not responsible, you see. It’s my own stupid fault that I never took the time to learn how to cope with the domestics … Head always in some book or other, you see. Since your mother went I don’t seem to have the heart for much else. People thought I was a cold fish when I didn’t cry at her funeral. But I cried inside, Gina …’ His voice broke, and moisture glazed the pale, serious eyes, ‘I cried inside …’

She hardly knew what to say—how to respond. It was as though a stranger sat in front of her—not the remote, self-contained, preoccupied man who was her father. The man she would have been hard put to it to say had any feelings at all.

Patting his bony shoulder again, she gave it what she hoped was a reassuring squeeze. ‘Why don’t I make us both a nice cup of tea? We’ll have it in the living room, then I’ll nip out to the supermarket to get you some supplies for the fridge.’

‘Are you in a hurry tonight, Gina?’ The moisture beneath the pale eyes had been dashed away, and now his eyes glimmered with warmth … affection, even.

‘No, I’m not in a hurry. Why?’

‘Would you—I mean could you stay for a while? We could—we could talk. You could tell me a bit more about your work at the auction house.’

Was this some kind of breakthrough in their difficult and sometimes distant relationship? Why now, when it had been three years since she had lost her mother? Had it taken him that long to realise that he’d really loved Charlotte? That he loved his daughter?

Gina didn’t know right then whether she felt hopeful or angry. Shrugging off her raincoat, she folded it over her arm, then crossed to the still open study door. ‘I don’t have to rush off. I’ll go and put the kettle on. Why don’t you go into the living room and make up the fire? The house is chilly.’

In the kitchen, staring at the peeling paintwork and the cupboards that she guessed were as bare as Mother Hubbard’s, Gina filled the kettle at the sink and plugged it in. Before she realised it, her eyes were awash with tears. To find her father dejected, sad and reminiscing about her as a child was disturbing enough, but earlier on today her senses had received another jolt.

She’d been asked to work with a team of researchers on the provenance and history of a valuable jewel from Kabuyadir. Just the name of the place had the power to arouse the most potent of memories, and make her ache for a man whose skin was imbued with the scent of the desert, whose eyes burned with a passion that had consumed her from the very first glance—a man Gina had reluctantly had to say a premature goodbye to that magical, unforgettable night three years ago, because she’d been returning to the UK to see her mother in hospital.

When Charlotte Collins had passed unexpectedly away shortly afterwards, it had knocked Gina for six. It had also heightened her overwhelming sense of responsibility towards her father. So much so that when Zahir had rung her for the second time from Kabuyadir, in the days following the funeral, she had determinedly decided to put their night of wonderful passion and kismet behind her to focus instead on an academic career. Her father had told her that her mother would have wanted to see her make a resounding success of it.

With tears burning her eyes, and a lump in her throat the size of Gibraltar, Gina had declined Zahir’s heartfelt pleas to return to Kabuyadir soon and told him she was sorry—what had happened had been wonderful, but the idea that they could be together wasn’t remotely realistic. Now that she was back in the UK it was her career that had to be her focus, not some love affair she’d be completely foolish to trust in.

Even as she’d been speaking she’d felt as if a stranger had taken over her body and mind … a despondent stranger who certainly didn’t believe in love at first sight or happy-ever-after. When more time had passed, she’d continued quietly, he would see it that way, too, she was certain.

Zahir’s parting words had broken her heart. ‘How could you do this to me, Gina … to us?’

CHAPTER TWO

WALKING into the serene courtyard garden, where the air was heavily hypnotic with the perfume of drowsily alluring blossoms, Zahir saw his sister sitting on the long wooden bench beside the pretty ornamental pond. Her sad gaze was as far away as ever, in a land he couldn’t reach.

Beneath his black jalabiya, Zahir’s taut abdominal muscles clenched uneasily. They had always been close, but since Farida had lost her husband Azhar six months ago she had become withdrawn and uncommunicative, and all the joy had vanished from her almond-shaped dark eyes. Would he ever see it again? He hated to think he might not. There wasn’t anything he owned that he wouldn’t give to see her happy once more. With their parents gone all they had now was each other …

‘Farida?’

Her glance barely acknowledged him before returning to its dreamlike examination of the pond.

‘I am going into the city today on business, and I thought you might like to go with me? We could stay overnight at the apartment and have dinner at your favourite restaurant. What do you think?’

‘I would rather stay here, if you don’t mind, Zahir. I don’t feel like facing the city crowds today—even if it is only from behind the tinted windows of your car.’

Zahir’s responding sigh was heavy. Since he had lost his father and inherited rulership of Kabuyadir he was looked to—and indeed expected—to dispense wisdom, guidance and help to the people of his kingdom. But apparently not to his own sister. As far as that aspect of his rank and power was concerned he was all but useless.

‘What will you do with yourself here all day on your own?’ He tried hard, but couldn’t quite keep the frustration out of his voice.

She shook her head and would not look at him. ‘I will do what I usually do. I will sit here and remember how happy I was with Azhar, and know that I will never be happy again.’

‘You should have had your marriage arranged, as is the custom!’ Zahir flashed irritably, pacing the stone flags surrounding the pond. ‘Then it would not have been such a blow to you when you lost your husband. This—this marrying for love was a mistake. Has our tragic history not taught you that?’

Now Farida did look up at him. ‘How can you say such a terrible thing, Zahir? Our parents did not have an arranged marriage, and they knew the kind of joy and happiness that made them the envy of everyone. Have you forgotten how it was with them? Father told me once that loving our mother made him feel more complete and content than anything material this world could ever do.’