He would tell her, eventually.
He thought of Olivia, and their last conversation. The concern in her voice. Did she live with the fear that Ra’if would relapse? How could he make everyone understand that he was a completely different person now? His recovery had been hard-fought, but it had been complete.
Drugs were of no interest to him; he didn’t seek that high, nor that obliteration.
He had made his peace with the grief in his heart. “Yes.” A tight answer that gave little of his silent ruminations away.
“Do you resent not being Sheikh?”
He pulled his own coffee from the machine and held it against his lips for a moment before taking a scalding sip. “I am Sheikh.”
She waved a hand through the air, her bracelets clinking together prettily. “You know what I mean. The guy in charge.”
He propped a hip against the kitchen bench, staring out of the windows. “No. I am grateful to my brother for taking over. He is far more suited to the role than I was.”
“I find that hard to believe,” she murmured.
“Do you, my beautiful little Christmas elf? Why is that?”
“Well, you’re just so … authoritative. You were born to rule.”
“Yes, I was.” His eyes sparkled. “I enjoy the business side of our family interests.”
“And you’re very good at what you do,” she said softly.
“Am I?”
“Uh huh. I Googled you.”
A bolt of adrenalin chased breath through his body. He felt it like metal in his blood. “And what did you discover?” His voice was so calm! So relaxed! Inside there was a stampede of elephants lumbering across his nervous system.
“That you are regarded as having the Midas touch when it comes to investment.”
He laughed. “Oh, really?”
“Yeah.” She dragged her lower lip between her teeth.
“Numbers make sense to me. I look at business opportunities and see numbers.”
“So simple?”
“For me.” He put a hand out and laced his fingers through hers. “What about you, Melinda?”
Her heart turned over at the way her name sounded on his lips. “Me?”
“Hmmm. Had it not been for Brent, and Jordan, what would you have done with your life?”
She sipped her coffee, enjoying the feeling of his hands laced with hers. “I never thought about it.”
“That is a sign of your goodness,” he said softly, moving closer. “That you do not mourn the loss of a life that can never be.”
“That would be a pretty depressing way to exist. Besides, nothing could live up to the joy I have had with Jordan.” She wrinkled her nose, lost in tangles of thoughts and ancient dreams. “At one time in my life, I wanted to study law. Like you said about numbers, that’s how I always felt about law. It’s black and white, yet the application of it can be so subjective. I always saw it as some big magical code that could be cracked.” She shook her head. “I haven’t thought about that for a long time.”
“You enjoy what you do?”
“I do.” Her smile was like the sun. “I work with great people. My boss, Jennifer, is really understanding whenever I have things with Jordan. You know, doctor’s appointments or pre-school commitments. I’m lucky.”
Ra’if nodded, but all he could think was that he was the lucky one. “I spoke to my sister-in-law the other day,” he said quietly. “She has asked me to go home for Christmas.”
Melinda’s face drained almost completely of colour. “She did? What did you say?”
“That I would think about it,” he said with a shrug, as though it was of little importance. “I should go back. It is not a long flight and it makes sense to be with family.”
She nodded, but tears were stinging at her throat. They bit against her flesh and her eyes began to ache with their power.
“Hey, hey,” he pressed a finger under her chin, lifting her eyes to his face. “What is it, azeezi?”
“Nothing. It’s stupid.” She spun away from him, out of his grip, away from him.
“What is stupid?”
She ground her teeth together, pushing the tears deep down inside of her. “This. Crying. I’m sorry.”
“Be sorry that you are not telling me the truth,” he said, fully aware of the hypocritical statement. “I’ve upset you.”
“It’s just …” she turned back around, and her face was such a picture of emotion that his heart squeezed painfully in his chest. She sucked in a breath, as though bracing herself for something and said, “I know we hadn’t discussed it. But … I can’t imagine you not being with us for Christmas.” Her eyes were huge, her cheeks pale. “And Dashan is so far away!”
His laugh was a soft sound, but pleasure was spinning through him. “Dashan is not so far away,” he promised.
“I always knew you’d go back. But I just can’t …”
“It would only be for a few days,” he said softly.
She nodded, forcing a smile to her face. It was brave, and it was watery. He lifted a finger and smudged it over her lips. “I did not anticipate that you would want to share the day with me.” His voice was dark.
“Yeah, well, I’ve kind of got used to you.”
He laughed. “Have you?”
She nodded, her eyes on his. “So much for keeping things light, right?”
“Tell me what you do for Christmas,” he said, wrapping his arms around her back, linking them just above the curve of her rear.
She nodded shakily, but her upset was obvious. “I try to make it special for Jordan.”
“Obviously,” he grinned.
“We usually see Brent’s family for lunch on Christmas eve. They live just over the common, in Barnes, so we walk.”
“In the middle of winter?”
“I love the cold. We rug up and bundle across the common. It’s so beautiful. Crisp and white and there are squirrels and Ivy and Holly and the stream is often frozen solid so that we can throw leaves onto it.” She smiled. “The older Jordan gets, the more magical it becomes.”
He nodded, his mind absorbing the beauty of the images she’d created.
“Then we come home and, depending on the time, we either have a light dinner or Jordan goes straight to bed. It’s a big day, full of laughter despite their grief over … Brent.” She smiled awkwardly, before continuing. “Once I’m alone, I can indulge in my thoroughly glutinous love of mince pies. I eat so many that I think I’m going to explode, and watch Die Hard.”
“Die Hard?” He burst out laughing.
“What? You know it’s a Christmas movie.”
“I have heard this theory. I’m not sure that taking place over Christmas qualifies…”
“Yes, well, this is my tradition, mister. Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it.”
He nodded, his eyes shining with amusement.
“When we wake up, we open presents, and then go to church. It’s one of the few times a year we go, but it’s so lovely. Our whole community seems to turn up.” She smiled up at him. “And then we come home, and eat lunch. I cook turkey and stuffing and all the trimmings, and pudding and pies, and gravy and even though it’s just the two of us, and we eat together all the time, it’s Christmas and so it feels like a very special occasion.”
Ra’if’s heart was exploding in his chest. “And you want to share that with me?”
“I don’t know when I started to imagine that you would be there.” She groaned. “I’m such an idiot. I’m the one who’s been insisting that this has to stay casual. But my brain hasn’t been listening, apparently.”
“I would like to be a part of your Christmas,” he said softly. “If your brain decides it’s a good idea, then count me in.”
* * *
She stared at the painting, marvelling at the depth of colour. As always, a sense of awe swirled around her. Their time was running out. Soon she would need to head back to her apartment and this little slice out of reality would come to
an end.
“This is one of my favourite places to come when I have spare time,” she said to the man beside her. He stood like a sentinel. Were he cast from marble, he would have looked perfectly at home in the halls of this building. So strong and large, so muscled and patrician.
“You would love to see the art of my palace. We have renaissance masters, early religious carvings. Breathtaking pieces.”
“For your family’s private enjoyment?” She asked, surprised and a little disapproving.
He understood. “Our collection is extensive. At any time at least a third of it is on loan to art institutes around the world. We have a curator who oversees the management of this.” He put a hand in the small of her back, guiding her to the next painting. “It would not be right to keep such precious works for our own enjoyment alone.”
“I agree.” She moved closer, enjoying his nearness, taking strength from his proximity. “What was it like? Growing up in a palace?”
He stroked her hip absentmindedly, enjoying the contact. “It’s all I knew,” he said finally. “I suppose it was a rarefied way to grow.” He thought back; slices of his childhood clipped into his memory. “My mother wasn’t from Dashan.”
“Wasn’t she?”
“No.” His smile was nostalgic. “She was English.”
“Oh!” She stopped walking and looked up at him. “Like me?”
He lifted his hands and cupped her face. “In some ways, you are a lot like her.” His smile made her heart flip and flop in her chest. “She had the same zest for everything she did in life, just like you.” He stared into her eyes with an intensity that flushed her skin. “And until I met you, I did not know another soul who could be so graceful and kind.”
Tears – happy ones – began to dance in her eyes. “Thank you.”
He shook his head. “Thank you.” He smiled, breaking the mood that had wrapped around them.
“When did she move to Dashan?”
“When she met my father.” He began to move again, guiding her into the hall that housed the renaissance masters. “She was an intrepid explorer. She had been all over the world and had come to Dashan to visit some of our ancient sites. He saw her and, so the story goes, fell in love instantly. They were married within a week.”
“A week! Can you imagine?”
“I couldn’t. Until I met you.”
CHAPTER TEN
“It’s so big!” Jordan marvelled, staring at their work with a look of complete bemusement. “Do you think he’s going to like it?”
“He’s going to love it,” she promised, imagining Ra’if’s face when they turned up with the homemade offering.
Jordan reached for some more icing, spooning it over the roof joint.
“It’s soooo gloopy!” He cried, his laughter ringing around their small flat.
“It’s meant to be gloopy,” Melinda responded, concentrating hard on propping the gingerbread walls into place. “That’s what makes it stick.”
“It’s all over my fingers!” He lifted one to his lips, tasting the incredibly sweet royal icing mixture.
“Don’t do that,” Melinda chided gently. “It’s full of sugar.”
“It tastes so good.”
“Of course it does. It’s basically a creamed sweet.” She sent him a look that had been intended as admonishment and came across as amusement. “Go and wash your hands, lovey.”
“Why? I just did.”
“Yes, but now you’ve licked your little paws and I don’t want germs on the gingerbread house.”
“Oh-kaaay,” he said in an exaggerated voice, making it clear how hard done by he felt at the request.
“Good boooyyyy,” she mimicked in the same tone, earning another laugh from Jordan.
“Mama?” He paused at the door to the bathroom. When had he become so big? He had the body of a boy now, not the baby that first filled her heart with love.
“Yeah?” She used a flat bladed knife to scrape off the excess icing, neatening it so that none was visible beyond the joint.
“Is daddy coming for Christmas?”
Melinda froze. Jordan hadn’t mentioned Brent in a fortnight, and she’d been so caught up with Ra’if that she’d almost given up on trying to find Brent. Almost, but not quite. She thought with guilt of the calls she should have been making but hadn’t.
“He’s not, darling, no.”
Jordan’s little face was stoic. Her son was not one for dramatic displays of emotion. He was a concerned little human; always had been. Even as a baby he’d come out analysing the world for its intent. She’d sometimes worried that her own anxieties during pregnancy and his first year had transformed his personality, but she understood now that it was just his nature.
“Why not?” A careful, measured response. More information, so that he could decide how he felt about it.
Cursing Brent and his weakness and hating drugs and those who were tempted to them, she rinsed her hands patiently and wiped them dry, then crossed to her son’s side.
“Your daddy is sick, darling.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
He was big, but still not too big to scoop up in her arms. She did so now, lifting him to her chest and carrying him to the sofa. She sat with him on her lip, holding him close, staring out at the bleak London sky. “It’s hard to explain. It’s a grown up sickness,” she said thoughtfully. “But until he gets better, he can’t come and spend time with us.” Her voice cracked a little, hating Brent then. Hating him for making this their reality.
“When will he be better?”
She pressed her cheek against his soft, brown hair. “I don’t know if he ever will be better, my love. The sickness he’s got is hard to beat.” She cleared her throat. “But mummy is going to do everything possible to help him, okay?”
Jordan was quiet. Absorbing, thinking, processing. “Remember that time I fell over and you put that stuff on my knee that really hurt and then you gave me a Minions band aid? Maybe we could do that for daddy? Would that help?”
Her smile was weak. “Not this time. But that’s good thinking.”
She put him down gently on his feet. “Now. Go wash those lucky little fingers.” She watched him go with a heavy weight in her heart. When he returned, Melinda was back in the kitchen, readying the lollies on a tray. She demonstrated how to add a drop of icing to the back of each one before placing it onto the roof panels.
She watched him work for a minute and then leaned back against the bench. “Jordie? Ra’if was hoping to have Christmas day with us.” She waited, nervously, for the reaction. What would he think?
“Cool,” Jordie said without looking up.
Melinda pulled a face. Cool? She’d worked herself into a lather over ‘cool’?
“I like him,” Jordan said, fixing her with his direct stare. “He’s a nice person.”
“Yes, he is a nice person,” she said with a slow nod. “He’s a good friend to mama.”
“Kelvin says he’s your boyfriend. That you’re in love.”
Melinda froze, her heart hammering in her chest. Damn Tara’s oldest son and his big mouth and school yard perceptions. “Did he?” She smiled as though the statement hadn’t knocked her sideways.
“Yeah.”
Boyfriend! Just imagining introducing Ra’if as her boyfriend felt strange. Strange in the best possible way. She pictured him standing beside her, meeting her friends, Brent’s parents, being around her and Jordan all the time. Like a real family. And her heart swelled to breaking point.
“I like him a lot,” she said cautiously. “But we’ve only known one another a little while.”
“And you’re my girlfriend,” Jordan said seriously, earning a laugh from Melinda.
“No, I’m your mummy.”
“Okay, but you love me.”
“Yes. I love you.”
“So you can’t love him.”
Thump, thump, thump. Her heart hurt. “Love doesn’t work like that,” she said carefully. �
�That’s the amazing thing about it.”
“So you do love him?”
“That’s not what I meant,” she said quietly. “Do you love Granny?”
He nodded, his lips pressed together in deep concentration.
“And you love Papi?”
Another nod.
“And you love your daddy?”
“No.” His eyes were big, his face stony. “I hate him.”
Her throat was scratchy; sore. “You’re sad that he’s not in your life,” she murmured, even though she’d been thinking only minutes earlier how much she hated the man.
“No, I’m not.”
“Darling, it’s a sickness. It’s not … it’s not your daddy’s fault. And I don’t know if he’ll ever get better. I don’t know if you can get better from what he’s got.” She thought of the last time she’d seen Brent. How desperate he’d been. How thin and dirty. How he’d lost almost all his teeth and had marks all over his body. “But I know he loves you. Even when he’s sick, and far away from us, I know he thinks about you. I know he wishes he could be with you.”
“Then he would be here.”
“I told you …”
“Kelvin says daddy’s a druggo.”
She compressed her lips, biting back the very ungenerous thoughts she had in that moment for her friend’s son.
“Is he?”
“That’s a very unkind and simplistic way to describe what your daddy is going through.” She toyed with her fingers thoughtfully.
“I hate him.”
She expelled a sigh and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “You won’t always feel that way.”
“Yes, I will.” He pressed a spearmint leaf down on the house with force and it cracked a little. “Mummy!” He screamed, his lip wobbling as the dam of emotions he’d been holding in began to burst. “It’s breaking!”
“Oh, it’s not broken yet though,” she said soothingly, taking his little hands away. “Why don’t you go get changed and then we’ll take this to Ra’if? He’s going to love it, sweetheart.”
The Sheikh's Christmas Wish Page 11
