‘I believe that Zahir has gone to the desert abode.’
‘Fetch Queen Leila’s nurse,’ the King said in a voice that had even the little hummingbird hovering at the fountain falter.
Oh, Leila would not be getting her lie-down!
‘You are dismissed for now,’ she said to Bashir, rather than have him answer that Adele too was at the desert abode, and she followed her husband back down and into his office.
‘He took her to the desert!’ an enraged Fatiq said to his wife as soon as they were alone.
‘Adele always said that she wanted to see it. Perhaps he is giving her a tour. There might have been a sandstorm.’
The King gave a derisive snort, which told Leila what he thought of that. ‘The palace staff are embarrassed. Thanks to your nurse—’
‘My nurse,’ Leila interrupted, ‘saved me from embarrassment.’
She was angry too but she was also conflicted.
Zahir always kept to the rules.
Now, were it Dakan who was home she might have been better prepared for such goings-on.
But Zahir?
A short while later there was the sound of the helicopter and they stood at the window and watched it descend.
Leila watched the helicopter land on the lawn and saw Zahir and Adele disembark.
They were relaxed and laughing and there had been no sandstorm, neither had this been an innocent tour.
They were lovers, she could see that it was so, and so too could Fatiq.
And then Zahir must have seen the royal jet for he stilled and put a protective arm around Adele.
The King sucked in his breath at the public display of affection.
Leila watched as Adele startled and turned as if to run.
‘My parents are here,’ Zahir told her.
‘They can’t find out.’
He looked up at the office window.
They already have.’ He took charge immediately. ‘Come. We will go in by my private entrance and I shall take you this morning to the airport myself. You don’t have to face them.’
Adele had never even set foot in his wing.
And now she sat on his bed with her head in her hands and she felt mortified.
‘Can you say we got stranded, or that we slept apart...?’
‘I’m not going to lie, Adele,’ Zahir said. ‘My only regret about what went on is that it now makes things difficult for you.’
‘And impossible for us,’ she said.
‘Not necessarily.’
‘Somehow I don’t think there’s going to be a solution here,’ she said, and it was a jibe at the faith he had that things would turn around.
But he remained calm.
‘Adele, it is better they know. Not yet, of course, but in the long run it is better than doing and saying nothing and marrying a neighbouring princess simply to appease him. I am not going to apologise for last night.’
His only regret was that Adele would be embarrassed and he would now do his best to handle that.
He left her on his bed and walked down the stairs towards his father’s office. He nodded to Samina, who was crying, and he gave a small nod to Bashir. He knew they would have done their best to cover for him and Adele.
One of the guards gave him a small grim smile of quiet support as he opened the door and admitted Zahir to face a very angry king and a rather strained queen.
Zahir returned the guard’s smile.
And then he stepped in and took charge.
‘We shall speak later,’ Zahir informed them by way of greeting. ‘Right now I am going to take Adele to the airport. Clearly it will be uncomfortable for her to remain here.’
‘You don’t even try to hide it,’ the King shouted in exasperation. ‘You don’t even attempt to come up with a polite excuse!’
Zahir’s response was calm. ‘I refuse to hide any more that I have feelings for Adele. I have been doing just that for the past year and it has got me nowhere. I have driven past her, drenched in a storm at a bus stop, and told myself I was right to do that, that it was essential to keep my emotions in check. I have ignored her, I have tried to remove myself from her and I refuse to do so any more.’
‘You have free rein in England,’ the King retorted angrily. ‘And I know full well that you and Dakan use every inch of it. You know not to bring those ways here.’ He looked at Leila and of course he now made it her fault. ‘Now, if there were still a harem none of this would have happened...’
‘This isn’t about sex!’ Zahir said.
And Leila blinked in confusion, not at what Zahir had just said but at his words before.
‘Zahir, I don’t understand,’ she admitted. ‘Why did you drive past her when she was drenched from a storm? I taught you better than that.’
He did not answer and Leila’s heart broke for her son as she realised the reason was a love that could never be.
Never, because she looked at Fatiq and he had become a stranger.
‘We shall leave by my private exit,’ Zahir said to his father. ‘There is no need for Adele to receive your disdain.’
He walked out.
‘I expected better from Zahir,’ Fatiq said.
‘Why?’ Leila retorted. ‘He is his father’s son. Remember how you used Bashir’s ladder to come to me after the selection ceremony because you could not wait for the wedding night?’
The King said nothing.
‘We had the biggest premature baby that this kingdom has ever seen,’ Leila now shouted. ‘Zahir’s shoulders nearly killed me and we had to smile and pretend he was small.’
‘At least we were betrothed.’
‘Barely,’ Leila snarled.
It had been the night of the selection ceremony that they had first made love and she had told him that night that if he wanted her then the harem was to be gone.
Fatiq had readily agreed.
They had known on sight they were in love, Leila thought.
Look at them now.
Oh, she ached for her son and Adele.
And she ached for herself and her husband too.
* * *
Zahir spoke with Samina and told her to pack Adele’s things and then to arrange to have them put in his car. He told Bashir to move Adele’s flight forward by a day.
Then he headed to his suite.
‘Should I go down and apologise?’ Adele asked.
‘No,’ he said. ‘You have nothing to apologise for.’
‘I’m her nurse!’
‘Adele, we didn’t exactly do it in a cupboard while she was breathing with the aid of a ventilator.’
That made her smile.
‘No,’ she admitted.
‘You were on holiday by then and she was away in another country, trying to sort out the disaster of her own relationship while I was working on mine.’
And