Shackled to the Sheikh
If only Rashid had been more accepting of his sister in the start. If only she hadn’t felt as if she had to compensate, to give Atiyah the love she should have got from him.
Damn.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
NIGHT FELL FAST, the way it seemed to do here, the daylight hurrying away to make way for the night. Atiyah settled the same way, her bellowing cries becoming snuffles and then sniffs and before long sleep had overtaken her. Tora knew she had to wean herself off Atiyah and take a back-seat role in looking after her, but still she sent Yousra to visit her family and have a night off after her trying day. She’d talk to Rashid tomorrow about getting an extra carer then. He was busy with his friend tonight and, besides, for now she was happy to sit back and relax with the meal they’d had sent up to her and check her emails.
She smiled when she found one from Sally with the subject line I love you!
After she’d read the message, she was sniffing and there were tears in her eyes for the second time tonight. Steve was doing all the right things according to his test results and he was ready to be transferred to Germany. Sally had been able to tell the doctors to get the ball rolling.
They wouldn’t waste any time now. If all went well and Steve could hang in there, Sally wrote, he’d be on his way within the next day or so towards the treatment that could save his life. And there were no promises, she said, being brave, but it was the only chance he had and they were staying positive and whatever happened, she owed Tora a debt she could never repay.
Happy news, Tora thought, blinking away the tears. The very best kind of news. And she was glad of Rashid’s deal now, for all the grief it had caused her, and for all the grief it would inevitably cause her when she had to return home.
It would be worth it if the treatment worked.
It would all be worth it.
* * *
‘So what’s she like, this half-sister of yours?’ Zoltan asked, plucking grapes from a bunch on a platter. They were seated on low sofas in one of the palace reception rooms that had doors that opened onto the gardens so that the scent of frangipani wafted in.
‘I don’t really know,’ Rashid said. ‘She’s a baby.’ But then he thought about Tora leading him to Atiyah’s cradle to look down upon the sleeping infant and felt a pang of pride. ‘She’s a cute little thing, though.’
‘Huh,’ said Zoltan. ‘That’s all you can say? Spoken like a man who hasn’t had children yet. Just wait until you have your own. You won’t be so vague about the details then. You’ll be hanging out for that first smile and that first tooth.’
Rashid snorted. ‘Dream on,’ he said, because even if he was warming to the child, he wasn’t about to go all gooey over her any time soon. Not like Tora at least, who had been so excited about Atiyah smiling.
‘That’s where you’re wrong, brother,’ Zoltan said, waving a grape between his thumb and forefinger for emphasis, ‘An Emir needs an heir. So you don’t want to wait too long—you’re not getting any younger.’ He popped the grape between his teeth and crunched down.
Rashid shook his head. Just because he’d had some kind of epiphany out at the oasis today, didn’t mean he was looking to ensure there were an heir and a spare any time soon. ‘Give me a break, Zoltan. One thing at a time.’
‘Not a chance. Now you’ll have to find yourself a wife. Last desert brother standing, but not for long. You don’t have a choice any more. Your footloose and fancy-free playboy days are toast.’
It was all Rashid could do to stop from blurting the news that in actual fact he was married, just to shut his friend up. Because that would be a mistake and there would be no shutting Zoltan up once he learned that particular snippet of information. What was more, he’d be off and running, firing off messages to Bahir and Kadar before they got here, get their wives all excited in the process, and Rashid would never hear the end of it.
No, he had serious stuff to get done before he let that particular cat out of the bag. He didn’t want them to know about Tora just yet. He didn’t want them making a bigger deal out of it than it was. Let them find out in their own good time—but by then he’d be halfway to sending her home.
Although why that left him suddenly cold, he wasn’t entirely sure.
‘You make marriage sound such fun,’ he said, suddenly grumpy, and not just because he knew for a fact that it wasn’t fun and that in his case it was nothing more than the means to an end. ‘Anyway,’ he said, needing to change the subject, ‘I didn’t ask you here to talk about my love life. Let’s get to work.’