‘And a couple of servants?’ James checked, and Leila nodded.
‘That would be very kind.’
‘How about I try and see if there’s a fiscal awareness course for displaced princesses?’
‘How about you accept that despite your lavish proposal, despite your attempt to pressure me, it is not what I want. I don’t want to be married to a man with a penis that acts like an untrained puppy jumping to greet any vague passerby.’
She looked at him and saw that he was smiling.
The oddest thing was, that even though she hadn’t been joking, Leila found herself smiling back.
‘Was that a row?’ Leila checked.
‘It was a discussion,’ James said. ‘Now, I’ve found an OB—you have an appointment tomorrow, at six.’
‘Six?’ Leila checked. ‘But I eat my dinner at six.’
‘She’s staying back to accommodate you.’ James rolled his eyes at her ingratitude. ‘I’ve also booked dinner in the restaurant tonight for seven but I can change it to six if you prefer.’
She wrinkled her nose.
‘What?’ James asked. ‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘Your array of silverware tires me,’ Leila said, and then flounced off to bed for a rest as she often did in her life, simply to pass time.
She was very used to a knock on the door that woke her in the evening and told her she was allowed to come out for dinner.
Leila sighed as James gently knocked and reminded her that dinner awaited. She rolled from the bed and padded out to get a glass of water before she dressed up for dinner and then she froze.
The lights were dim; there was cloth on the floor and cushions too. The food she had brought back from the restaurant was dressed on beautiful plates and there was a package of silver in the middle with a bow.
‘I thought that we might eat here,’ James said as she sat down. ‘Not a fork in sight.’
He poured her some lovely cool tea and she sipped it. As she tore some pita and ladled it with minted lamb, her eyes were drawn to the silver box, but she did not comment.
‘Why are we not eating in the restaurant?’
‘Because...’ James shrugged and then looked over to her. ‘I didn’t think you’d prefer to eat here. Most people like eating out.’
‘I do,’ Leila said. ‘I was very excited to try it when I first came here, but I find it all just so confusing. I like the restaurant that I work at. I recognise the food there.’
‘I might have to pay it a visit again,’ James said. ‘I hear they have an amazing musician.’
He got the reward of a small smile.
‘Don’t tell me if you ever come in,’ Leila said. ‘It might make me nervous to play.’
‘Well, you’ll see me if I do,’ James said, but Leila shook her head.
‘I don’t lift my eyes to meet the guests.’
The food was amazing, even by James’s high standards, and yes, he might drop in for dinner one night to hear her play.
‘Maybe it would be nice to eat out more,’ Leila mused as she thought of going out to dinner with James and the nice way he explained things to her. She didn’t tell him that part though. ‘Now that I don’t feel so unwell.’
‘How long have you felt unwell?’
‘Pretty much since the morning you left.’ Her voice was accusing and she looked at him and then acknowledged to herself that those early days after he had so coldly left her had been grief. She had lain on her bed crying and shut herself away just to mourn the man who had walked out on her. ‘Well, a couple of weeks after you left me alone after a whole night of making love to me...’ She watched the press of his lips as she remade her point. ‘Then the ill feeling started. I had no idea what was wrong.’ She blinked and he could see her confusion as to that time.
‘Tell me,’ James said, because he had missed out on so much. ‘When did you know you were pregnant?’
‘Not for a few weeks. I was ill and thought it was because of the different food, but even when I stopped eating it and went to a restaurant where the food was more familiar, still I felt sick. I asked the hotel to send me honey water but it tasted wrong. In my home the honey is from bees that pollinate orange blossom. I have a very sensitive palate... I told them to call for a doctor when I could not even keep honey water down. She came to the room and...’ Leila could still recall the shock, from being told to pass urine onto a plastic stick of all things, to being told that she was with child. ‘I told her I was on the pill.
‘I tried calling you and then when Zayn tracked me down I had to tell him what was wrong.’ She was a little bit more giving with information. ‘My sister, Jasmine, was in trouble with men when she died. That is why my brother is so protective of me,’ Leila lightly explained. ‘When I told him you left after one night and didn’t come back, that you didn’t even call...’