It took a couple of hours for hope to be formally delivered.
Karim, tired but elated, smiled as he walked into the nursery, where Felicity was checking the baby’s temperature as Garth watched anxiously on.
‘Your wife is fine.’ He got straight to the point. ‘It was a difficult operation because there were a lot of adhesions. I had to remove some bowel, but I achieved a healthy anatomises—’ He frowned and checked himself. ‘A good union. There is no colostomy.’ He carried on with the good news as Garth stood, tears streaming down his face, and then Karim moved onto the not so good—which, after all Jessica had been through, sounded like a walk in the park. ‘She will stay in Recovery for a couple more hours and then she will be looked after on my surgical ward by my team. Of course she is postnatal, and has had a Caesarean section, but I would prefer that my team watch her. They know my ways, know the things I like to be called for…’
Helen was here now, telling Felicity to go on her break, and Karim didn’t hang around—as Felicity moved off, so did he. Her respiration rate increased as she walked towards the staffroom, her heart pounding as she felt his eyes on her, heard footsteps behind her. She paused as he called her name.
‘Felicity…’
She went to turn round, and it was at that point it all caught up with her: yesterday’s shocking news, her sleepless night, the warmth of the theatre and Karim’s black eyes waiting to meet hers. She was drenched in cold sweat, could feel it running between her breasts, breaking out on her forehead. Leaning against the wall, she was glad to see Helen over his shoulder, hear the question in her voice as she took in Felicity’s grey face. But Karim was already on it, seizing her arm before she fell, breaking her fall as the floor slammed up to meet her.
He somehow guided her to a side room with only the minimum of fuss. Not that Felicity cared by then. She was completely out of it. She came to at the horrible plastic smell of an oxygen mask, and saw Helen’s kind, worried face as she let down a blood pressure cuff.
‘Low!’ She smiled at her colleague. ‘My fault for not sending you for your break earlier.’
‘I’m fine.’ Felicity tried to sit up, but Helen pushed her down.
‘It happens to all of us—the food, jet lag. Rest there…’ She stopped talking then. Chatty, effusive Helen was suddenly silent. Karim had come back from wherever he had been.
‘I have spoken with the nurse co-ordinator—you are to be moved to a side ward. Staff health—’
‘I’m fine.’ Embarrassed now, Felicity sat up, but Helen pushed her down, her eyes warning Felicity to be quiet. ‘It was a simple faint. I really don’t need—’
‘I have said what will happen,’ Karim broke in. ‘You are to be admitted.’
‘I don’t want to be admitted,’ Felicity argued. Helen’s eyes widened in horror, but she didn’t care if she was arguing with a surgeon—or a prince, come to that. All Felicity cared about was not being admitted. Because there were many reasons for her to faint, but she knew the real one. ‘I just want to…’
‘Excuse us, please.’
She saw the dart of confusion in Helen’s eyes at his request to be alone with Felicity, but Helen took her own advice and didn’t argue. She slipped out of the area and they were alone. Felicity wanted him to scoop her into his arms, wanted him to hold her, to say that he had missed her, to say anything at all. All he did was stand there.
He gave nothing away—could not smile, could not hold her. Couldn’t because if he did he would surely snap. He had operated throughout the night on what was meant to be his last ‘on call’. The operation had been long and intense, yet he had loved it. He had stood under the lights and performed in his theatre as only a surgeon could. His choice of music playing, his team—the team that he had individually chosen. They had worked together for the very last time and then he had walked out to Recovery to speak with his patient—a halal butcher from the main street of Zaraqua, a man who had held his hand and thanked him not as a royal prince but as a doctor.
Unusually for a consultant, he had stayed at the hospital, had lain on the bed where he had slept as an intern, deciding he would hold onto his pager till nine—because he just couldn’t stand to let it go.
At seven fifty-five he had been summoned.
He had run through the hospital with adrenaline chasing his heels, had walked into crisis and felt calm, had seen Felicity there, reassuring husband and patient. If there was one day in surgery he could capture this would be it…
This was it.
And now he had to walk away. He stared at her pale face on the pillow, knew he could drag her in deeper—or let her walk away.
He chose to give her no option.
‘Tell me now why you do not want to be admitted.’
‘I don’t want any tests.’ Her eyes were blinking rapidly.
‘Because?’ His mouth that had been wet was suddenly dry. He wished that she would answer, wished that she would prove his mind wrong.
‘Because I’m pregnant.’
He heard the prison doors slide closed, heard the turn of the key not imprisoning him but her, his child. And he couldn’t stand it. His mind flashed to Kaliq—to the frail babe he had held in his hand, the tiny babe who should have lived to be King. How proud Karim had been of his nephew as he had slipped from this life to the next.
No, he would not tolerate prison for his child, so he refused to even consider that it was his. She had to leave, had to go away—and he had to ensure that she did.
‘Don’t.’ His voice was like ice. ‘Don’t even try it on me, Felicity. Don’t even think of playing games with me.’
‘It isn’t a game…’ Her voice was bewildered, reaching out to him, and he couldn’t stand to see the pain on her features. ‘Karim—I found out yesterday. I know we were careful…’
‘Careful!’ Karim breathed, angry now, in fact enraged—because she had to be lying, because this couldn’t be true. ‘I am more than careful! Do you know how precious my seed is? I don’t go to the local chemist for protection. Do you think I would take risks with a whore like you?’
She couldn’t believe the brutality of his words. The sexy, tender lover who had won her heart so easily was un-recognisable now. Each word spat a warning, each growled sentence told her not to even attempt to argue. ‘Did you find out who I was, Felicity, at that introduction day? Use your little sob story, your ways, your wiles and pretend to be a virgin?’ It was so much easier to loathe her than to love her, so much easier to send her away than to claim her now.
‘I am…’ she sobbed. ‘I was.’
‘Please!’ Karim sneered. ‘There was no evidence…’ He shooed her away with his hand, dismissed her sobs, her story, as easily as he would swat a fly. ‘There is no place for your sort here in Zaraq. I could have you arrested.’
This was a different man—a completely different man from the one who had held her. ‘Karim, please. If you will just listen—’
‘No. You listen.’ He was standing directly over her, his menacing face silencing her. ‘I will not let you smear my name with these lies. Because I know the consequences a woman in your position faces, you will be admitted tonight under my care. I will arrange for your contract to be broken. Your things will be packed and you will fly home tomorrow. A car will collect you. I will arrange your ticket.’ He stared down at her and forced himself to say it. ‘You will be generously remunerated for your services that day.’
‘Karim!’ she begged.
He was unmoved by her pleas. Whether or not she was telling the truth, in time she would realise he