The Sheikh and the Surrogate Mum (11 page)

Thankfully, she moved, just slightly, in his arms, then pushed away, her glasses dropping onto the floor of the car, her hands rubbing furiously at her face, dashing away remaining tears, reddening her cheeks, tousling her hair, so when she turned to him she could only shake her head.

‘I’m sorry, I truly am! I had no idea all that emotion was going to come pouring out! I didn’t even know it was in there! And, believe me, I don’t do tears—not like that. Blame the hormones.’

She was acutely embarrassed and angry with herself as well, that much was clear to see, but…

‘I don’t think there’s anything to be ashamed of in emotion,’ he said quietly. ‘We all feel it, so can’t we be allowed to show it?’

He won a smile—not the reaction he’d expected but one he enjoyed nonetheless.

‘Do you?’ she teased, and he must have looked bemused because she clarified the question for him. ‘Show emotion?’

‘Me?’ he said, but he had to smile, teasing her back. ‘But I’m a highness, remember. It wouldn’t do for me to be weeping all over the place.’

He touched her lightly on the cheek.

‘Seriously, though, those tears probably needed to come out, hormones or not. It’s all very well to carry on working as if nothing has happened in your life, but losing your brother, your last living relative, that must have brought terrible pain.’

She turned away from him—from his touch?—and…

A memory stirred, a recent memory that had been lost in
his
emotional reaction to holding her in his arms.

‘You said the child…’

How to put it?

‘The child you’re carrying—a relation—a niece or nephew? It’s not your child?’

For a moment he thought she was going to ignore him, then she rested her hands on the bulge of her belly, smoothing the material of her tunic over it.

Hesitating…

Debating whether to tell him something.

‘The baby is Bill and Oliver’s,’ she said quietly. ‘I think I told you how they saved my sanity and kept me going when our parents died. They were my only family, and I loved them both. For years they’d talked of having a child, of getting a donor egg, finding a woman willing to be a surrogate, but every time they discussed it with me—Bill was a lawyer and Oliver’s in finance so I was the best person to talk to about it—I felt this twinge deep inside me. It took me a while to figure it out, but in the end I knew it was something I could do for them—that I
wanted
to do for them.’

‘To carry their child?’

She looked up at him, her eyes clear now, and smiled, a smile so full of loving memories he felt his heart tear.

‘It made sense, you see. Using my egg would be as close to Bill’s DNA as we could get, so Oliver donated sperm and that was it.’

‘You make it sound so normal, but carrying someone else’s child? Giving over nine months of your life to provide your brother and his partner with a baby? Was it legal? And personally did it not bother you in the slightest? Did it not bother the two men that you wanted to do it?’

She shook her head, the dark red hair, which had come out of its knot as she’d cried, now tumbling about her shoulders.

‘The legal side was okay. Surrogacy is legal as long as it’s not for profit. And of course it bothered Bill and Oliver, especially when the bloke I was going out with at the time was so horrified he dropped me like a hot potato. But once they knew I was serious, they were delighted, and just so excited. They made me see a counsellor first, and they discussed it with the same psychologist, but eventually it all fell into place.’

Liz smiled as she remembered the joyous delight of that time—a sad smile maybe, but the pair had been beside themselves.

‘They went nuts,’ she told Khalifa. ‘They made recordings of their voices singing lullabies and talking—recordings I could play to the baby day or night, always changing them, telling the baby things about their lives and the lives all three would have together.’

‘And you? Where we you in all of this?’

He sounded stern, almost angry.

She met his gaze, knowing other people had found the decision hard to accept but wanting this man to understand.

‘I did it willingly. It was my idea to carry their child—you have to believe that. Oh, I knew the dangers. I knew I couldn’t get too emotionally attached to the baby, but Bill and Oliver were so besotted that was easy.’

‘Until the accident?’

Emotion closed her throat again but she was
not
going to cry! Not again!

Instead she nodded.

‘Bill was killed, Oliver is in a coma, and the poor baby is in limbo.’

‘But surely now you’ll keep him or her,’ Khalifa protested.

Liz sighed.

‘You’d think it would be that easy, wouldn’t you? But, in fact, if Oliver comes out of the coma, and if he still wants the baby, really it’s his.’ She tried for a smile but knew it hadn’t worked too well when Khalifa reached out and drew her close again, holding her against his body, stirring
her
body so heat moved in places she hadn’t known existed and tremors of excitement not only fizzed but bounded along her nerves.

She wanted to snuggle closer, to bury herself in him—not an easy task given the size she was—but to lose herself in sensation for just a short time would be so blissful, so soul-restoring. She snuggled just a little bit…

* * *

The kiss began as nothing. All he did was hold her close to comfort her, then press his lips against a bit of skin that was right there beside them. The pale bit near her temple where a pulse fluttered as his lips touched it.

How it became a lip kiss he later couldn’t work out, but lips
had
certainly been involved and awkward as it had been in the front of a vehicle, with a very pregnant woman, it had galvanised his body in a way he’d never felt before.

She tasted of peach and honey and warmth and woman, her lips opening to him, her breath coming in little gasps that tightened his body even more. His hands found her breasts, and a tiny moan escaped her lips, catching on his tongue—igniting him.

A thousand reasons not to be here—not to be doing this—were thundering in his head, but nothing mattered except the kiss…and holding her and having her kiss him, feeling her hot, soft body up against his, tasting the honey and the peaches and the woman…

He supposed it had to end, yet he felt distinctly put out when she drew away, rubbing her hands across her face then turning to look at him.

‘Oh, I’m sorry!’ she cried. ‘Oh for heaven’s sake! I can’t believe I did that!’

He was assuming she meant the kiss, but when she pulled a handkerchief from her handbag and reached out towards him, he realised the kiss, apparently, had meant nothing more than comfort and her distress was the result of something quite different.

As she rubbed ineffectually at a bright yellow streak of saffron across his kandora, he wasn’t sure whether to be offended or amused.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he told her, taking her hand and closing it gently over the handkerchief.

She looked at him now, at his face—met his eyes, her own seeming naked, defenceless, without the terrible glasses.

‘None of it?’ she asked.

‘Ah!’ he said. ‘As to that, I don’t know! Can you deny the attraction between us?’

A shake of her head, a grimace, then she sighed.

‘At least I can blame my hormones being out of kilter,’ she said, attempting a smile so valiant it made his toes curl. ‘What’s your excuse?’

And when he didn’t answer—how could he when he didn’t know?—she spoke again.

‘And what’s even more bizarre is how you could possibly be attracted to so hugely pregnant a woman? Is it a kinky thing?’

He laughed and reached out to push the hair back off her face.

‘I’ve no idea,’ he told her, knowing she deserved honesty. ‘Though I can tell you I’ve seen my fair share of pregnant women and it’s never happened to me before.’

‘Which is probably a good thing,’ Liz replied, the sternness in her voice belied by the smile with which she said the words. ‘So let’s put it down to an aberration and ignore it,’ she suggested. ‘I’ve got a job to do and from all I hear you’ve got about a hundred different duties on top of your hospital work, so we’ve really no time for a dalliance.’

‘Dalliance?’ he echoed, not knowing the word.

‘A little fling—a flirtation—that kind of thing,’ she told him.

‘Ah,’ he said again, and wondered just what else there was to say.

Not that she gave him a chance.

‘It was just a kiss,’ she said, setting her glasses firmly back in place. ‘Let’s not make too much of it. Now you know where I am at the moment, you’ll understand I don’t need any further complications. I’m here to do a job and I’ll do it. I’ll get the unit going for you then return home to have this baby and sort out something for it. Honestly, Khalifa, that’s about all I can cope with at the moment.’

He heard truth in her words—heart-rending truth—and marvelled that she’d coped as well as she had up to now. He wanted to tell her how much he admired her, and offer any help within his power, but she’d obviously decided the conversation was finished for she was clambering out of the car then steadying herself on the door as she slid off her sandals.

‘Do you realise this is the first bit of desert I’ve seen since the plane landed and I saw sand hills in the distance? I want to feel the sand, to see if it’s as soft as it looks.’

She stepped away from the car, squishing her feet in the sand, then bent to take a handful and let it fall like water from her fingers.

‘It is!’ she called to him, her delight so obvious he had to smile.

And had to join her as she climbed the hill. He took her hand as it grew steeper and hauled her up to the top.

They sat together, not too close but close enough that he knew she could feel his warmth as he felt hers. Not far away a random gust of wind stirred the sand into an eddy.

‘There’s a sand sprite,’ he said, pointing to it.

‘We’d call it a whirly-whirly,’ she said, as the lifting twirl of sand danced across the surface of the dune.

‘But are your whirly-whirlies real?’ Khalifa asked her.

‘Real?’

He nodded, smiling at her surprise.

‘My people believe the sand sprites are good spirits—a little like djinns but less mischievous. There’s a story of a sand sprite we tell the children.’

Liz lay back in the sand, so at ease with this man she barely knew, so delighted to be in this strange place, she wanted the moment to go on and on.

‘Tell me?’

He smiled at her, then relaxed, easing back on to one elbow so he could watch her face as he talked.

‘The legend tells us that once, long ago, there was a sand sprite who had magical powers. At night she turned into a beautiful woman, and she went about the land, fixing things that the djinns had interfered with, making things right for people, helping them.’

He paused then added, ‘Not unlike a certain Australian doctor in that way.’

‘I’ve been doing my job, nothing more. Just get on with the story.’ She was embarrassed by his words but not as embarrassed as she felt every time she saw the smear of yellow across his white gown, or thought of how she’d reacted to his kiss.

‘Well, one night she met a prince who was so handsome and dashing she couldn’t help but fall in love with him, so now, every night, instead of doing good deeds she sought out the prince and spent her time as a human kissing him.’

‘Which just shows the danger of kisses,’ Liz put in, only half joking.

‘It does,’ Khalifa agreed very solemnly, ‘for kisses led to other things and in the end they spent a night making love, but what the sand sprite didn’t realise was that once she’d made love with a human, she couldn’t go back to being a sand sprite ever again and had to stay as a human for ever.’

‘They made love? This is a children’s story?’ Liz queried.

Khalifa grinned at her.

‘In the children’s version they get married.’

‘But if it’s told as a cautionary tale, what’s the catch?

Did they not live happily ever after? Did she prefer being a sand sprite to being human and pine away and die? Did the djinns take over the world, without her to undo their mischief?’

‘I’m not entirely sure,’ Khalifa admitted. ‘My grandmother told me the story and her stories usually carried a warning of some kind. “Be good or the djinns will get you” was the most common.’

‘Perhaps the story was more for girls,’ Liz offered. ‘A warning about the dangers of kissing handsome princes.’

She sat up and dusted the sand off her hands, then gasped in wonder as she turned and caught the full beauty of a desert sunset. Above the sea of dunes, the sky was aglow with orange fire, streaks of red along the horizon and paler gold melting into the dark blue of the evening sky.

‘I hope she came to life in time to see this every evening,’ Liz whispered, reaching out to rest her hand on Khalifa’s because she had to share the beauty and the wonder of it, for all she knew touching him was dangerous.

‘I’m sure she did,’ he told her.

They sat in silence, hand in hand, until the colours faded from the sky, then he helped her to her feet and steadied her as they clambered down the sand hill and back to the vehicle.

‘Thank you,’ she said, when she’d fastened her seat belt and he was about to shut the door. ‘Thank you for giving me comfort when I needed it, for telling me the story, and most of all for sharing the beauty of that sunset with me.’

He touched her lightly on the cheek.

‘It was my pleasure,’ he said, and for some obscure reason the words made her feel sad again, as if something wonderful had ended when, in fact, there was so much still ahead. The palace, and seeing more of this magical country, and then there was her job—setting up the new unit—a challenge she’d been looking forward to.

So maybe the sadness was hunger.

She was silent as he drove back to the main road, silent as they passed through the outskirts of the city, where streetlights were coming on and the dusk masked any difference she might have noticed in daylight. But as they approached the palace Khalifa watched her turning this way and that as if the rammed-earth walls of what had been an old fort needed to be viewed from many different angles.