‘She had to understand,’ Bristow said, and Gemma shrugged, not wanting to agitate the woman again. Bristow was right, and even if her methods were a little extreme, Gemma was reasonably sure that Jackie would never touch the insulin again.
‘So maybe now we can talk.’
Gemma shut the door on the ill-assorted pair and turned to find her visitor right behind her. He’d taken off the happy, hopping bunny wrap but hadn’t put on his jacket, which he’d hung on the knob at the bottom of the stair banister. He’d also removed his tie and draped it over his coat, so, with his shirtsleeves rolled up and his collar unbuttoned, he looked a very different man from the one she’d met earlier that morning.
An even more attractive man!
And given the attraction, she should be seeing him off the premises as quickly as possible, but politeness—and his promise of even more donations—prevailed.
‘I’m sorry we keep being interrupted, but it’s lunchtime and Beth’s just arrived to relieve me. Can I offer you some lunch? We can go up to my flat where we won’t be disturbed, or do you have to be somewhere?’
Yusef thought of all the business he’d hoped to get done after his morning meeting at the centre, and all the reasons he shouldn’t be spending more time in this woman’s company, but so far he’d achieved nothing of his main purpose. He had to spend more time with her.
‘Lunch sounds good but can’t I take you somewhere?’
‘Tempting though that sounds, I think we should get down to business and we can hardly do that in a restaurant. Besides, I’m sure you’re already way beyond the time you scheduled for this meeting, so it will be quicker and easier to eat next door.’
She ducked into one of the consulting rooms to speak to someone, then returned, a bundle of keys dangling from her fingers.
‘Beth’s another of the doctors on staff. She’s done the O and G short course and hopes to go back to study next year to do a full specialty course. We’ve been lucky to get so many good quality staff, especially as the pay isn’t nearly as much as they’d earn in private practice.’
She led the way outside, Yusef pausing to grab his jacket and tie, then down the steps and up the steps of the adjacent house, unlocking the bright red front door.
‘The steps are a nuisance but we’ve a ramp at the side entrance next door, which makes it easier for mothers with prams and strollers.’
Was she nervous that her conversation sounded like anxious chatter? Yusef found himself wishing he knew her better so he could judge this reaction.
‘The house is a twin of the one next door?’ He was looking around a black and white tiled foyer, a wooden staircase curving up on the right, doors opening off the passageway on the left. He hung his discarded clothing on the banister again.
‘Exactly the same, except that I’ve only one consulting and treatment room downstairs, and upstairs I’ve converted all the space into a small flat. Come on up.’
Gemma felt a shiver start at the top of her spine and travel down to her toes as she uttered the invitation. But why? She’d been attracted to men before, not often, admittedly, but it had happened. And there’d been handsome men, and wealthy men, and very ordinary men that had stirred something in her—but attraction had never felt like this. Never so instant, so physical, so—hot?
She unlocked the door into her flat, mentally chiding herself for not accepting the man’s invitation to go out somewhere for lunch. Once he’d been into the flat, his image, she guessed, would haunt it.
Shaking her head at such fanciful thoughts, she waved him into the big room that was divided into functions by its furniture—living room, dining room and at the far end a small kitchen.
‘Compact and functional,’ he said, looking around but not taking an armchair in the living area, moving instead to the kitchen bench where he pulled out a stool and settled on it. ‘And a coffee machine! Thank heavens. Do you do a strong espresso?’
Gemma turned the machine on and programmed it, setting a small cup under the spout. She felt uncomfortable now that she had such a luxury in her own home yet the kitchen-cum-tearoom in the centre was so poorly furnished. Embarrassment curled her toes.
‘It was a present from a cousin,’ she said. ‘I could hardly give it away to the centre.’
Sheikh Yusef Akkedi, the highness, smiled at her.
‘So defensive,’ he teased, making the toe-curl far worse than it had been. ‘Believe me, in my tent in Mogadishu, I treasured little comforts myself. Not a coffee machine but a small coffee pot I could put over a flame, and coffee grounds I hoarded like a miser.’
Gemma turned from where she was digging lettuce and tomatoes out of her refrigerator and stared at him.
‘You mentioned Africa before, and I know of the wonderful work medical organisations do in such places, but—’
‘But me?’ he said, smiling again, although this time the sadness was back in his eyes. ‘You hear Sahra use the “highness” word and wonder what such a person is doing working with refugees?’
‘Well, yes,’ Gemma admitted, taking the little cup of espresso from the machine and passing it to him, being careful to set it down in front of him so their fingers didn’t touch. It was bad enough having him close, but touching him? ‘Even being a doctor,’ she added, pulling herself together.
‘The “highness” part is very recent,’ her visitor replied, unaware of the confusion he was causing in her body. ‘And totally unexpected. My oldest brother inherited the title from my father, but there are no strict guidelines of succession in my country. The current ruler chooses his successor, choosing someone he believes will follow in the way he has ruled. He might choose a brother or a cousin, although my father chose his eldest son. Unfortunately my brother didn’t want the task. He is an aesthete and prefers to spend his life in spiritual learning and contemplation. He could not tell our father this for it would have disappointed him, but when my father died my brother relinquished the crown.’
‘Passing it to you,’ Gemma put in, wondering if there was an actual crown or if it was a figure of speech. She wondered about the country her visitor now ruled. There’d been no mention of it, but she knew it would be a long way off—way beyond her hope of ever reaching.
And that couldn’t possibly be regret she was feeling…
Yusef moved his head, just slightly, indicating she’d guessed incorrectly. Was she interested or just making conversation? With women he could never tell, a gap in his education he put down to not having known his mother, although there’d been women aplenty in his life. Transient women, he considered them, there for a while but moving on, perhaps being forced to move on by his lack of commitment to them—his detachment—
‘My brother intended passing the title to his next brother, the one above me, because that is how it would most easily have been done,’ Yusef explained. ‘But even before my father died that brother was working with foreign companies, bringing them in to search for oil, making treaties that would allow them access to whatever they discovered in return for favours for the country.’
The woman frowned at him.
‘You sound as if you disapprove, but isn’t that how the countries around yours have been able to go ahead? And hasn’t oil made the people of those lands wealthy?’
‘Of course it has, and what my business brother does is good—essential—and that is his life—his love,’ Yusef told her, a little curtly, though why her pointing out the obvious about their wealth should worry him he didn’t know. Maybe it was because her frown had disturbed him. ‘But you must know that wealth is not everything. Wealth, as I said earlier, attracts more people to the country. My brother sees this as a good