Secrets of the Oasis

She could feel his look, his frown. ‘What do you mean? How would you know?’

She took a shaky breath. ‘Because I was pregnant before and the symptoms hit me almost immediately. But about a month after I fell pregnant I lost the baby.’

He turned her to face him, but instead of seeing the dawning of understanding all she saw was compassion. ‘Is that why it’s been so long since you were with anyone?’

It took a long second for her to realise that he wasn’t putting two and two together. Could he really be so obtuse? Jamilah wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. And suddenly her desire to tell him the truth faded. What purpose would it serve when he clearly couldn’t believe for a second that she spoke about him? And after everything he’d told her last night? Treacherously, she didn’t want to give him something else to feel guilty about, and she hated herself for that weakness because it meant she was just as lost to him all over again.

She brushed his hand aside and said, ‘Something like that… Look, I’m really quite tired. I’d like to go to sleep now. Alone.’

To her intense relief, after a long moment when he clearly didn’t know what to do with the information she’d just given him, he said, ‘Are you sure you want to be alone?’

Jamilah nodded, and with a last look Salman got up and left the room. Jamilah got into the bed with the towels still wrapped around her hair and her body. She curled up in a ball as silent tears trickled down her cheeks and she grieved for the baby who’d never had a chance.

Salman lay awake for a long time, thinking about what Jamilah had revealed. Hearing that she’d been pregnant with another man’s child sent all sorts of ambiguous emotions to his gut. One in particular felt very similar to the jealousy he’d felt earlier.

He’d always vowed to himself that he wouldn’t bring a child into this overpopulated world. The main reason being that he was quite simply terrified that he wouldn’t be able to protect it from the terrors that were out there. From the terrors that he himself had witnessed, which he felt were indelibly marked in his blood and might possibly be passed down to a son or daughter. That was why he’d taken the drastic decision to have a vasectomy nearly ten years previously.

He’d mentioned his lapse about protection more out of a concern to keep them both safe from disease or infection. But Jamilah, understandably enough, had assumed he’d been concerned about pregnancy. He hadn’t corrected her as he’d never told anyone about the vasectomy. But just thinking of it brought his mind back to how it had felt to take Jamilah like that, skin on skin, and arousal flared all over again.

He grimaced and rolled over, punching a pillow before settling his head on it. He could see now what had added shadow and depth to Jamilah in the intervening years, and curiously Salman had to battle down an urge to find out more…to protect.

The following day Jamilah felt paranoid—as if everyone was looking at her. Could they see where it felt as if a layer of skin had been stripped off her body? Thankfully she was caught up in meetings for most of the day, so she didn’t have to cope with facing Salman. Eventually she went to the bathroom to see if there was something on her face, and grimaced at her reflection. Despite the fact that she’d not had a good night’s sleep her skin glowed, and her eyes were so bright they looked almost feverish.

Her lips seemed to be swollen, and they tingled at the memory of Salman’s kisses. As if on cue she felt her breasts tighten and her nipples harden against the lace of her bra. She wanted him even now. She stifled a groan of despair.

Just then an acquaintance came out of a cubicle.

Jamilah composed herself and smiled at the woman, and washed her hands. The other woman smiled back, and was about to go, but then she turned and said hesitantly, ‘I know it’s not my place, but I feel you should know that Ahmed, Sultan Sadiq’s aide, has been spreading rumours about you and Salman al Saqr…’

Jamilah flushed, mortification rising upwards. Stiffly she said, ‘Thank you for letting me know.’

The woman walked out and Jamilah faced the mirror again. She sighed. No wonder people had been looking. She couldn’t really blame the other man; that was effectively twice that Salman had upstaged him. But as of now her reputation was muck. Not that she was really worried about that; she wasn’t bound by the same strictures as a lot of women from her part of the world. She had no family, and one of her parents had been European, so she’d always been something of an anomaly.

But it would be all over the place by the end of the day that she was sleeping with Salman, and he would have another very public notch to his bedpost.

She stood tall and smoothed her hair, before leaving the bathroom with her head held high. She had nothing to feel ashamed about except for her own very personal regret that she’d let herself be seduced by Salman all over again, despite all her lofty protestations.

‘I have to go to a charity function tonight. I’d like you to come with me.’

Jamilah looked at Salman. He was dressed in a tuxedo again, and he’d been waiting for her when she got back to the suite. She was trying not to succumb to his intensely masculine pull—especially when she remembered the previous night. She was about to say no—she wanted to say no—and yet she hesitated. There was a quality to Salman’s wide-legged stance which should have suggested power and authority, but which actually made Jamilah think of him as being vulnerable.

?

?What charity?’

Salman’s face was unreadable. ‘It’s a charity I founded some years ago.’

Jamilah knew she couldn’t stop the shock from registering on her face, and she saw Salman note it and smile cynically. ‘You didn’t have me down for a philanthropist, I see.’

Jamilah blanched at the fact that Salman was constantly surprising her with his multi-faceted personality, and got out something garbled, her curiosity well and truly ignited now, despite her best intentions.

‘The charity is in someone else’s name. They head it up publicly, and lobby for funding, but essentially it’s my project.’

A thousand questions begged to be answered, but Jamilah held back. She couldn’t not go now. ‘Give me fifteen minutes and I’ll be ready.’

Salman inclined his head and watched as Jamilah went to her bedroom. He’d actually been afraid she’d say no, and that realisation sent a feeling of nausea to his gut. He released a long breath, his heart hammering against his chest. He had no idea why he’d felt compelled to ask her. But some force had made him wait for her, and as soon as he’d seen her the words had spilled out. Frustration had been gnawing at his insides all day at being apart from Jamilah, and he didn’t like it. Yet here he was, ensuring she be at his side for the whole evening and, more than that, witnessing him in a milieu that he’d never shared with anyone else. But then, he thought angrily, he’d spilled his guts to her only the other night, so why stop there?

The earth was shifting beneath his feet and he couldn’t stop it. His desire for her burned even more fiercely now that it had been re-ignited, and in all honesty any woman he’d been with in the intervening six years was fading into an inconsequential haze.