Heart of the Desert Read online

  ‘The people would never accept it.’

  ‘Oh, please.’ Georgie was sick of it. ‘The people don’t mind Felicity.’ She let out a mocking laugh. ‘Oh, yes, but she was pregnant with a possible heir.’ She watched as Ibrahim briefly closed his eyes, his strong features paling a touch at how very careless they had been. ‘I’m not going to fall pregnant. Don’t panic. I’m on the Pill.’

  ‘Of course you are.’ And that was the bit for Ibrahim that hurt, really hurt. This was a girl who carried condoms in her make-up bag for just in case, who waited on the street outside nightclubs. This was the divorced woman who could not be his princess, and he was angry, and it showed. ‘Don’t tell me—you’re on the Pill for medical reasons.’

  She could have slapped him.

  Gone was the tender man who had held her. Back now was the scathing one and she didn’t understand why. As the helicopter hovered, as she turned her head and covered her eyes with a scarf, as they ran beneath the blades and climbed inside and Georgie put on her headphones, she watched the tent where they had found each other disappear in the distance, and all too soon she saw the palace come into view, but not once did he look at her, not once did he attempt conversation.

  As they stepped out and walked to the palace, he still refused to communicate. Elders and advisors were waiting for him and Georgie stood in the hallway a moment as Rina spoke in rapid Arabic, unsure how to behave without Ibrahim or Felicity to guide her. Briefly he glanced in her direction and only then did he speak.

  ‘She asks if you want a room next to Azizah. If they should move your things?’

  ‘Please.’ Georgie nodded. ‘Can you tell her for me?’

  ‘Of course.’ He spoke to Rina and to another maid for a brief moment, and then he turned back to her.

  ‘All is taken care of. I have asked that they move Ms Anderson’s things.’ He hissed the word so savagely that there could be no mistake. He had been told that she had been married, and for a second she was angry at her sister for telling Karim, but she knew the fury was misdirected.

  She was angry at herself.

  As for Ibrahim, he still hoped his brother was mistaken, wanted her to tell him he was wrong. ‘Is it Miss or Ms?’

  ‘Ms.’ She croaked the word out, then tore her eyes away, but not quickly enough to miss his look of disgust.

  It should have been she who told him first. At least she could have explained things better. Now, looking at his cold black eyes, Georgie wondered if she’d ever get that chance. ‘Ibrahim …’ There were people everywhere, there was nothing she could say, but she willed him to give her one moment of his time, willed him to pull her aside, for a chance to explain, but he gave her nothing. ‘Can we talk? Just for a moment.’

  ‘Talk?’ Ibrahim sneered. ‘I have nothing to talk about with you—there is nothing to discuss.

  ‘And never can there be.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  IT WAS the longest day.

  All Georgie wanted to do was throw herself on the bed, curl up into a ball, hide and grieve and cry and mourn, but there was Azizah to think of.

  Azizah, who hated the bottle that wasn’t her mum, who wasn’t used to the bonier arms of her aunt and cried through the afternoon and long, long into the evening.

  Georgie had been pacing the floor with her and had finally sat in the family lounge, where Felicity often did, and Azizah had at last given in, taking the bottle she hated and almost, almost falling asleep, until Ibrahim returned from a visit to the army barracks. It wasn’t just her heart that leapt at the sound of him. Hassan, the prince first in line, did too. He came pounding down the corridor to greet his brother.

  ‘You should have consulted me!’ Hassan was furious. Georgie could hear them arguing as she sat in the lounge. When Ibrahim had returned she had wanted to flee, but the baby had just been settling and she’d sat as the argument had spilled into the living room. ‘You should have spoken with me before closing the airports.’

  ‘You were with your wife and son,’ Ibrahim pointed out. ‘You are needed there. I am more than capable of dealing with this.’

  ‘You have closed the airports, cancelled surgery.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ Georgie said, and perhaps it was poor form to interrupt two princes when the country was in crisis, but the palace was big enough for them to take their argument elsewhere and a restless Azizah was just closing her eyes. ‘She’s almost asleep.’

  ‘Then take her to the nursery,’ Ibrahim snapped, and it was face him or flee. As Hassan took the phone from a worried maid, Georgie chose to face him, turned her blue eyes on him and refused not to meet his gaze.

  ‘Hard day at the office, darling?’ she said in a voice that was sweet but laced with acid. ‘Should I make the children disappear?’

  ‘Just you,’ Ibrahim hissed, because it was hell seeing her and not being able to have her, hell having dared to almost love her and then to find out what she had done. ‘I wish you would disappear.’

  ‘It is our father.’ Hassan handed him the phone. ‘It is you he wishes to speak to.’

  And now would have been an ideal time to leave, to slip away, as Ibrahim wished she would, except Georgie wanted to hear, wanted to be there, even if he’d rather she wasn’t.

  She could hear the king’s angry voice even from across the lounge, and though Hassan was pacing, Ibrahim was calm, his voice firm when he responded to his father.

  ‘I took advice,’ was his curt response, but when that clearly didn’t appease his father, he elaborated. ‘I took advice from experts. You have known about this for days apparently and did little.’ She could see a pulse leaping in his neck. It was the only indication of his inner turmoil as he stood up to the king. ‘The priority is the people,’ he interrupted, ‘not your flight schedule and certainly not Hassan’s ego. His mind is on his newborn son, where it should be, where it can be, because there is another prince more than capable of stepping in. I have spoken with our soldiers, and the army is to open a field hospital to the west. Flights will remain grounded till we are happy this virus is contained. If you move for an exemption from the flight ban, if you feel I am not capable, then of course you must return,’ Ibrahim said, and then his voice rose slightly in warning. ‘And if you do, I will hand the reins back to you.’ For a second his eyes flicked to Georgie. ‘And I will leave Zaraq on your incoming plane.’

  ‘You—’ he spoke to Hassan when the call had concluded ‘—either take over completely or leave it to me. I am not ringing the hospital and waiting while they pull you from the nursery to make my decisions.’ He eyed his brother. ‘What is it to be?’

  ‘The people need—’

  ‘The people need strong leadership,’ Ibrahim said. ‘Which I am more than capable of providing. If you think otherwise, I suggest you ring Jamal and tell her a helicopter is taking you out to the west tomorrow, as is my schedule, to see first hand how this illness has affected our people.’ He did not relent, he did not appease, he was direct and he was brutal. ‘And perhaps you should check with the pediatrician. We have all been immunized, of course, and if that proves ineffective there are anti-virals, but I would check if they want you in contact with a premature newborn.’

  Georgie watched as Hassan paled.

  ‘So what is it to be?’ Ibrahim pushed. ‘Because if I’m not needed I’m heading for the casino.’ And he would, Georgie knew. He’d head too to another woman, any woman. He was angry and she had provoked it.

  ‘You have my full support,’ Hassan said. ‘And I thank you for stepping in. I am going to visit my wife and son.’

  He nodded goodnight to Georgie and a now sleeping Azizah and finally they were alone.

  ‘That was low,’ Georgie said.

  ‘That was common sense.’ Ibrahim snapped. ‘I don’t care how safe it is, how effective the immunisation is, if it were my newborn …’ And he looked at where Georgie sat holding a baby, and he was black with anger, because that morning he had almost envisaged it, not a wife an
d a baby but a future with someone who was not a stranger to his heart. The role of prince and a return to the desert had seemed manageable with her by his side. ‘I have to work.’ He turned to go, but she called him.

  ‘Can we please talk, Ibrahim?

  ‘I don’t wish to talk to you.’

  ‘Please.’ Georgie said. ‘It was something that happened a long time ago, something—’

  ‘That cannot be undone,’ Ibrahim interrupted.

  ‘When did you become so perfect?’ Georgie asked. ‘I don’t get why everything has to change.’

  ‘Because it has.’

  ‘It was a few weeks,’ Georgie said. ‘I was nineteen. It was hell at home and I’d lost my job when I got sick again …’ She tumbled out words when he didn’t respond immediately, argued her case while she still had a chance. ‘I thought he was nice.’

  ‘So you married him because he was nice.’

  ‘There are worse reasons. He was older, he seemed safe, but I see now that he was a drunk like my father. I see now I just ran straight to the same thing.’

  ‘You think that makes it better. That you tossed everything away for some middle-aged drunk.’

  ‘It was ages ago,’ Georgie said. ‘I know it’s frowned on here but in London—’

  ‘I am a royal prince!’ Ibrahim struggled to keep his voice down, for the sake of the baby.

  ‘Not when you’re there.’ And she watched lines mar his forehead, his hand going up to his face in a gesture of frustration. He was saving her from herself and that she didn’t understand. He thought of his mother, sitting by the phone, waiting. Of a life married to a man who could not always be there, who had children scattered by both geography and allegiance, and he must not, Ibrahim told himself, do that to Georgie. So instead he did as his brother had suggested, said words that would leave her in no doubt.

  ‘I’m a royal prince,’ Ibrahim said again. ‘Which means …’ He swallowed before continuing, but she didn’t see it, just heard his low, even voice as he very clearly stated his case. ‘I don’t have to deal in damaged goods.’ If she hadn’t been holding Azizah Georgie would have stood and slapped him, but instead her eyes left his face and she sat holding the baby for comfort, holding her sweet, warm body as she chilled inside. ‘The bride that will be chosen for me will know what is expected. A bride fit for my side is not found outside nightclubs with a smorgasbord of contraception and her divorce papers in her bedside drawer. If you want me to look you up in London, if you’re bored one night—’

  ‘Never!’

  ‘Then …’ Ibrahim shrugged ‘… we’re done.’

  ‘You’re a bastard.’

  ‘When I choose to be.’ Ibrahim shrugged again. He heard her shocked silence and little Azizah start to whimper.

  ‘Would you do as you suggested earlier and disappear with the baby?’ Ibrahim said. ‘I’ve got a country to run.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  IT DID not abate.

  Not for a single minute.

  There were demands and there were questions and he dealt with each and every one.

  He flew deep into the desert and witnessed the suffering, then returned to have his competence questioned by a hungry press.

  He did not care about tourism was his surly response at the conference.

  And anyway, he questioned the questioners, did the tourists want to visit an empty desert—a ghost town of what once was?

  He silenced his critics with his performance, yet for Ibrahim there was no respite, for each night he slept alone.

  He went for the phone on several occasions, but it wasn’t just sex he wanted. For the first time it was someone else’s opinion he craved.

  One other person’s opinion.

  ‘I tell him he does well.’ Home from the hospital before her baby, Jamal sat at breakfast and spoke in broken English to Georgie, when Ibrahim made a surprise appearance one morning. She spoke for a little while longer to Ibrahim then turned and smiled at Georgie. ‘Soon Felicity back.’

  ‘How soon?’ Georgie asked, her eyes jerking to Ibrahim, because she wanted to leave so badly, because even if she hardly saw him, just the occasional passing on the stairs, where the greeting was polite and cool had been hard enough. Now that he was sitting at the table, it was almost more than she could bear.

  ‘Karim called and said the situation is much improved—he wants her to come home, though he will stay out there.’

  ‘And the airports?’ Georgie asked.

  ‘I’m meeting with the doctors today. They are proposing that all visitors be vaccinated … but …’ He paused, waited for her to fill in, to offer her thoughts, but Georgie didn’t. ‘Once the new guidelines are in place, there seems no reason not to reopen them.’

  ‘How soon?’ Georgie asked, because she did not want a debate, just answers.

  ‘Perhaps as early as tomorrow.’ Ibrahim selected a fruit from the platter, then changed his mind and Georgie looked down and saw the pomegranate. She could have picked it up herself, could have taunted him a little, but she was too bruised and raw to play games: she just wanted to go home.

  ‘You stay till I bring the baby home,’ Jamal said—the future king would not be named for some time yet. ‘It will be a good day.’ Georgie gave a noncommittal smile and when the maid came to tell Hassan and Jamal that the car was ready to take them to the hospital, Georgie stood to leave too, but Ibrahim halted her.

  ‘Will you stay when Felicity gets here?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘As Jamal said, the baby will be home soon and with the illness receding, there will be much celebration.’

  ‘I don’t really feel like celebrating.’

  ‘You could have time with your sister.’

  ‘Not this visit.’ Georgie gave a shrug and went to leave.

  ‘Georgie.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Maybe we should talk …’

  ‘Ab out what?’

  He didn’t know, but he was aching for her.

  ‘Maybe tonight, when the palace is quiet, you could come—’

  ‘As I said,’ Georgie hissed, ‘never.’ And she went to walk out but he called her back and she was more angry than she had ever been in her life, because he thought he could summon her, that sex might soothe the heartache; angry too, that she was considering it.

  ‘Georgie, you do not walk out—’

  ‘Am I supposed to curtsey?’ she hurled back at him.

  ‘You do not leave till you’re excused.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve already been excused,’ Georgie responded. ‘When you called me damaged goods, Ibrahim, you excused me for life.’

  ‘Like it or not, we are here together.’ He just wanted to talk, but she was too angry to see that.

  ‘Not for much longer,’ Georgie snarled. ‘Felicity’s back tomorrow.’

  ‘We still don’t know about the airports.’

  ‘I’ll swim home if I have to.’ Georgie said, and she meant it, absolutely she meant it. At the very least she would check into a hotel.

  She spent the day packing, in-between looking after Azizah. She did everything she could to keep him from her mind, but as night crept in, she gave in a little and fed her craving—watched the news reports, flicking channels, because sometimes there were subtitles, and even if she didn’t understand completely, there was no denying that the young prince had stepped in and brought calm. His deep voice soothed the troubled nation. Difficult decisions, it seemed, were effortlessly made, but they had taken their toll.

  She could see that.

  Did everyone notice the clench of his jaw as he listened to questions, or the tiny fan of new lines around those dark Zaraq eyes? Did they see that those magnificent cheekbones had become more accentuated in these past days, or the taut lines of his shoulders?

  Or did only love make those details visible?

  And she changed channel and changed it again, but it made no difference, because even if she closed her eyes, his face was still there and, ye
s, very unfortunately for Georgie, she loved him.

  ‘Oh!’ She jumped as he walked into the lounge. It was close to ten but still early for Ibrahim to be back and she had wrongly assumed the interview she was watching was live. ‘I thought you were …’ She gestured to the television. ‘I’ll say goodnight.’

  ‘You don’t have to hide in your room.’

  She felt safer there, but didn’t say that. She simply didn’t answer, just walked past the sofa, but he caught her wrist.

  ‘Did you understand what was being said?’ He glanced over at his own image on the screen.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Things are improving.’

  ‘That’s good.’ She could feel his fingers on her skin, feel the pull to join him, to sit, but she stood. ‘I saw the news earlier.’ She still couldn’t look at him. ‘There were subtitles … they were talking about the young prince, what a magnificent job you were doing …’ She watched her tears fall on his fingers. ‘There was talk of a bride …’

  ‘There is always talk of marriage,’ Ibrahim started, but the plight was real, he could not lie. ‘If I am here as a prince, if I stay …’

  ‘There’s no if.’ Georgie was angry. ‘You’ve had your taste of power and now you want more.’

  ‘No.’ He wished it was that simple. ‘It is not about power, it is not about want. I am their prince. The people have been patient while I grew up, but now it is time to accept the responsibility, all of it …’ He looked at the television screen, the arguments, the raised voices. ‘Do you understand what is being said?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That is one of the elders. He asks if our rulers do care, why is there no hospital on the west side? Why does it take five days to get aid? Zaraq is rich, yet its people suffer.’

  ‘It’s changing, though.’ Georgie swallowed. ‘There are outreach programmes, there is a hospital—’

  ‘That they cannot access.’ Ibrahim looked at her. ‘They choose to be isolated—that is what the journalist is saying now. They make us promise not to invade their desert, not to take away their ways … It is complicated.’