‘What is Demyan like?’ Layla asked as they took the elevator up.
Mikael just shrugged, not quite comfortable with the cosiness of it all.
‘Surely he’s not as talkative as you?’ she teased. ‘What about his wife?’
‘I have only met her a couple of times,’ Mikael said. ‘She seems more pleasant than the first wife, but the bar was not set very high.’
Back to cynical, Mikael told himself. It was safer that way.
‘This is Layla,’ Mikael introduced her.
Alina was sitting down, holding the baby, and Demyan looked as if he hadn’t shaved or slept since they’d last spoken. Mikael tried to ignore the slight start of surprise on Demyan’s face. He had never brought a woman to his friend’s home before.
‘Actually, this is Princess Layla, and she’s on the run.’
‘You said not to tell anyone,’ Layla scolded. ‘You said that I was not to use my title.’
‘Demyan and Alina are fine,’ Mikael said. ‘Congratulations!’ He gave Alina a brief kiss on the cheek and then peered at the baby. ‘She’s beautiful,’ he duly said.
‘It’s okay, Mikael.’ Alina smiled. ‘I’m not going to breastfeed in front of you.’
Mikael actually smiled at someone who wasn’t Layla. ‘Okay, I will have a seat, then!’
Despite his reluctance to bring her along with him, Layla made the whole visit so much easier for Mikael. She handed over their gift to Alina and oohed and ahhed over the baby while Mikael and Demyan walked over to the bar, where they chatted for a while as they shared a congratulatory drink, speaking in Russian.
‘She’s gorgeous!’ Demyan said. ‘You are good together.’
‘We are good together because she’s temporary,’ Mikael said.
‘So was Alina,’ Demyan said, and they shared a wry smile because Alina had started as Demyan’s temp.
‘Well, in this instance it really is temporary. Layla has to return to her family in a few days.’ Mikael shrugged as if it really didn’t matter. ‘I’ll probably be bored with her dramas by then.’
He very much hoped that he would be.
But he doubted it very much too.
‘How is fatherhood second time around?’ Mikael asked.
‘Just as good,’ Demyan said. ‘Actually, better. I know a bit more what I am doing than I did with Roman. Alina is a natural mother.’
Even though they spoke in Russian this was all a foreign language to Mikael. What was a ‘natural mother’? He looked over to his friend—a man he had had a fist fight with a few months back, when Mikael had suggested that he stop paying child support for his son, given that Demyan’s ex-wife had told him that Roman might not be his.
Mikael had laughed then at Demyan’s passion.
He was starting to glimpse it now.
‘Why does she have to go back to her family?’ Demyan asked.
‘Because they love her,’ Mikael answered, ‘and because she loves them too.’
‘Mikael—?’ Demyan started, but Mikael shook his head.
‘Don’t.’
There was no point discussing it, for there was nothing he could do.
As they headed out to the elevator Layla was all smiles, but when the doors closed she rolled her eyes.
‘What does that mean?’ Mikael asked.
‘You know.’ Layla smiled.
‘No.’
‘All my cousins have babies, and you hold them and you smile, and you say the right thing, but…’ Layla held out her palms in a helpless gesture. ‘Then you run out of things to say.’
Very reluctantly Mikael smiled, but that was enough incentive for Layla to speak on.
‘Now Trinity and Zahid are having a baby it will be the same with them. That was how I escaped. Trinity was watching me like a hawk, but I suggested we go in a baby boutique and once we were in I might just as well have not been there.’
‘You don’t like babies?’
‘I don’t dislike them,’ she said, ‘though they do freak me out a bit, with their big heads and eyes. I know I shall love mine, but really I would love more of this.’
‘Of what?’
‘Kissing and dancing,’ she said as they stepped out of the elevator. ‘Anyway, pregnancy isn’t always a good thing…’
‘Are you worried that it might ruin your figure?’ He smiled.
Just when he thought he knew a little of what went on in her mind, Mikael found out there was so much more he didn’t know.
‘No.’ Layla shook her head as they stepped out onto the street. ‘I worry about death, given that it was pregnancy that killed my mother—she died giving birth to me.’
‘Layla…’ He went to catch her wrist but she shook it off.
‘It is not something I wish to speak about,’ she said.
‘You can.’
‘What’s the point in that?’ she challenged.
There was none.
They walked to the car in silence.
Layla was dreading a future with Hussain by her side.
Mikael felt suddenly ill at the thought of the same.
It was a bit strained on the drive to his property.
Layla was lost in her thoughts and Mikael glanced over several times, trying to work out what she was thinking. Layla wished she hadn’t told him that, for she did not like to discuss her fears about getting pregnant, and there was nothing that could be done about them anyway.
So, as they left the city behind, rather than sit in pensive silence Layla nagged him to teach her to drive instead.
‘Please, Mikael….’ she said, for perhaps the twentieth time. They were miles from anywhere and there was barely a car on the road, just mile after mile of ocean, and then a low white property came into view and she glimpsed what must be his luxurious house. ‘Please let me drive.’
‘No,’ Mikael said as they pulled up on his huge drive.
He took her case in and left it in the hall as Layla looked around.
It was like nothing she had ever seen—a green oasis, and the tropical bush land outside seemed a feature of the home.
The place gleamed with a mixture of modern appliances and a few treasured antiques. A huge black and silver globe hung in one corner, and Layla guessed rightly that it was perfectly angled.
‘I am there,’ she said, pointing straight to Ishla.
If only the world were really that small, Mikael thought as she clipped on high heels through his home.
It was terribly hard for him to comprehend that the last time he had been home Layla hadn’t existed in his world.
‘Oooh, I like your chess set.’
‘Leave it,’ he said, watching her fingers hover over his knight. It felt strange having her here—a streak of feminine beauty in a home that was very male. He did not like the way her eyes seemed to take in each ornament, or each book that lined the walls, and he tried to distract her with the