by Annie O'Neil
“Plane?”
“Yes.” He nodded as if she’d already been given a rundown of the day’s itinerary and hadn’t burned it into her psyche as everyone else had. “To England.”
“You’re sending me back to England?”
His hardened features were a cruel confirmation of what she’d feared but never put words to. Her life would always be a lonely one.
“What about Paddington’s?”
* * *
The question hung in the air between them until Idris pushed back from his desk with a harsh sigh he knew came across as exasperated when in fact he felt as if the universe was sucking his lungs dry. The look on Robyn’s face told him everything he needed to know.
In one swift moment, he had torn each and every fiber of connection they’d shared in their short time together.
But it was the right decision. Whatever it was that had passed between them had to end. No amount of wide-eyed, bewildered amber looks would change his mind.
“We’re all going to England. I’ve made the appropriate calls regarding Amira’s admission into Paddington’s and trust you are well placed to set the wheels in motion on your end. Sooner is better.”
Robyn just stood and stared, her eyes swirling with confusion, appalled by his behavior. He fought the urge to cross to her, hold her in his arms and tell her he knew he was being a fool. What would that do other than make things worse? The Idris he’d been over the past fortnight was gone now. The one who had felt happy. Contented. Prepared to face the world, at long last, with a smile. The shadow of a smile disappeared from his face. He couldn’t be that man. Not with a daughter to raise. A kingdom to rule.
Robyn’s unnatural silence threatened to be his undoing.
“I don’t think I need to remind you, Dr. Kelly, that I have responsibilities that override your holiday plans being curtailed. Perhaps it’s time to make good on all those promises you made at the press conference yesterday.”
Her jaw dropped at his words.
“Dr. Kelly, we’ve not got much time and I’m quite busy. If you don’t mind...” He gave his watch a cursory glance, ignoring the tangle of blond curls whose wisps had tickled along his cheek as they’d lain, limbs tangled together, in silken sheets. The amber eyes that had flickered with desire solely for him. The dusky rose lips that had whispered vows of commitment to him and him alone.
He slammed the door shut on the memories. He couldn’t give her his lacerated heart. Not with the loss he’d suffered. Not with an empty palace standing in the center of the capital—a hollow testament to the love he had once had and could never have again. Not with Amira’s future at stake.
He gritted his teeth and forced himself to swallow the bitter pill.
This had to end.
“Perhaps you could stop by Amira’s room, suggest some things she might bring along for her stay in the hospital.” His dismissive tone did not go unnoticed and, in true Robyn-style, he saw her heels press more soundly to the marble floor.
“Perhaps, as her father, you should explain to her what’s going on.”
“About what exactly, Dr. Kelly? She knew we’d be heading to London shortly.”
Robyn staggered back a step, sending him a look of disbelief so powerful it pierced straight through to his soul.
He was handling this about as well as he had handled the loss of his wife—which was precisely the point. He wouldn’t—couldn’t—give Robyn his heart. And his priority was Amira. She was used to the harsher edges of his personality. Sharp contours that had softened with Robyn in their lives.
“Your Excellency,” Robyn bit out, her voice now curling with well-deserved disdain, “while I appreciate your time is precious, it is my professional opinion that your priority right now is to be a father.”
Idris swallowed the words as if they were poison.
“Are you suggesting my daughter is not my absolute priority?”
“Not at all. But I do know it can be difficult for a parent to put their child through an experimental operation like this. You want what’s best for her, but it can be very frightening for both the patient and the parent.”
She was giving him an out—an excuse for behaving abominably. One he couldn’t take.
“I think you may have misread my intentions when I invited you to Da’har,” Idris bit out, the words tasting acrid as they crossed his lips. “My daughter is my one, my only, focus. The flight will be leaving shortly. You’d be well advised to pack your things.”
Robyn, to his astonishment, simply stood there, unblinking, her body soaking in the aftermath of his vile words. A jag of anger tore through him that she wasn’t finding this as painful as he was. He willed the burning in his heart to turn to ice, barely recognizing his own voice when he finally broke the silence he’d forced upon them.
“Dr. Kelly, let’s not add letting down Paddington’s to the day’s list of things to do.”
He’d been certain she would cry. Flee the room. Anything other than stand there and stare at him with her wide, amber eyes.
“You do remember you’re human, don’t you? That you’re allowed to feel pain and fear, just like the rest of us mere mortals.”
Robyn’s voice was steady as she handed him the olive branch, a move far too generous for someone who’d received such an unkind verbal swipe. Where he had become cold-blooded, she had become brave. A modern-day Boadicea, fearlessly protecting all that she held to be true. If his daughter’s welfare weren’t at stake, he’d see his own behavior as cowardice. But he had her heart to defend as well as his own and this was the only way he knew how.
* * *
Robyn shook her curls away from her eyes and met Idris’s gaze with an intensity she hardly knew she possessed. He may not love her, but she would not let him rob her of her dignity in the process.
“If you don’t mind me saying, it’s not right what you’re doing. Living in the past isn’t going to help your daughter.”
“I most certainly do mind!” His hand slapped against the mahogany sheen of his desk with a resounding clap, making it clear Robyn was stepping into extremely unwelcome territory. “Amira is my way of looking forward.”
“You’re imposing responsibilities on a child that you should be carrying!” she shot back.
“And I suppose your rich and varied experience as a parent enables you to make all these wise decisions?”
Robyn looked away, her throat constricting against a swell of nausea. She knew Idris wasn’t biting out at her. He was angry with the world, but whenever the barbs from a frightened parent became personal these were the moments that hurt the most. The judgments people made just because she didn’t have children of her own. As if they thought being barren rendered her incapable of empathy, of love.
She closed her eyes for a moment, imagining she was back in one of the family rooms at Paddington’s. White coat over sensible attire. Parents looking at her with wide-eyed disbelief that the perfect child they’d created was in hospital. A mixture of hope that whatever she said would fix it all and fear that life as they knew it would never be the same. All of the Pennys and Ryans flickered past her mind’s eye and poured the strength she needed back into her heart.
“Idris, Your Excellency, I may not have a child of my own, but I have spent each and every day of my professional life with children and their parents during their darkest hours. I have fallen in love with more of them than I can count. I have grieved with their parents when we have lost them. I have cheered alongside many more when their child, with Paddington’s help, overcame some of life’s cruelest hurdles. So, yes. I think my experience affords me a certain level of expertise in understanding when a parent’s wishes interfere with a child’s needs.”
“Is that what you think I’m doing? Interfering?” Idris rose from his desk with a surge of unchecked fury that ma
de Robyn grateful for the expanse of desk standing solidly between them.
“No. I think you are loving your daughter to the best of your ability.”
“And in your eyes—” his voice grew colder as he spoke “—my ‘ability’ to love my daughter falls short?”
Oh, you want me to insult you? Kick you while you’re down? Tough.
“I think you are capable of much more than you give yourself credit for,” Robyn replied, the painful sting of tears teasing at the back of her throat. He may not love her, but she’d be damned if she was going to let him wallow in self-pity. He had life, a daughter, a kingdom! She gave Idris a curt nod. “If you’ll excuse me, I’d better get my things together.”
When she closed the door behind her, it took everything in her power not to race to her room and release the flood of tears for all that she had gained and lost when she had left the safety of Paddington’s behind.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
EVEN THE ROAR of the jet’s engines couldn’t drown out Idris’s thoughts.
Robyn hadn’t so much as said a word to him since they’d left the palace. Not that he blamed her. If he could pull back the sand that had swept through the hourglass since this morning he would have. Whatever had passed between them, she didn’t deserve the icy blows he delivered with too much ease.
Seven years. Seven years of lashing out at a world that had done nothing but try and make up for the grief he couldn’t bear to set aside.
He accepted a glass of sparkling water from the flight attendant, grateful for the fleeting diversion from his thoughts.
Amira, he noticed, was back to her sober little self. The ready smile she’d worn so often over the past week, the laughter, all hidden away.
His lips carved a scowl into the sides of his mouth, knowing they could be smiling and laughing right now if history hadn’t ripped his heart out of his chest for daring to love. Trusting that such a perfect happiness would last.
Amira slipped out of the seat beside him, having teased the last of the stories out of him hours earlier. He reached out a hand to touch the long, slick gloss of hair, just missing the connection as she crawled into Robyn’s lap. He watched, transfixed, as after a moment’s discussion Robyn began to sing to her. His daughter’s small fingers traced Robyn’s lips as she mouthed along with her, occasionally forming words out loud, and in a bittersweet moment of perfection that nearly brought tears to his eyes, the pair hit a perfect harmony when their voices converged as one.
A flash of insight struck him. How talkative Amira had become since Robyn had been with them. Amira’s voice bore the telltale thickness of a deaf child’s, instinct unable to conquer the inability to hear, and yet, hearing her join in as Robyn sang about mockingbirds and diamond rings, he wondered how it would sound in a week’s time, when Amira could hear her own voice.
Hot, searing pain rammed into his chest as he reminded himself Robyn would play little to no part of Amira’s voyage of discovery. He’d made sure of that this morning.
“There, can you see?” Robyn stopped singing and pointed, then signed rapidly as she spoke to Amira. “London.”
They each peered out of an oval window, Amira’s face alight with interest as Robyn pointed out Buckingham Palace and the London Eye. Even Paddington’s signature turrets were easy to spot from the flight path their pilot had taken. It was the place where his daughter’s life would be changed forever—where both of their lives had already been changed by this whirlwind of a woman who had burst into his hotel room only a few weeks before.
He shifted in his seat, uncomfortable with the pendulum swing of his thoughts. He’d made his decision.
* * *
Even with only ten minutes to go, Robyn would have happily forsaken the luxury of his private jet for a knee-cramping, elbow-jabbing economy seat on an overcrowded commuter plane in lieu of enduring the torture of sitting across from Idris.
His eyes lifted to meet hers, the darkness of his irises, as ever, fathomless and inaccessible.
Her hands curled into fists, gathering up the thick fabric of the skirt she’d worn on the flight out. A pathetic gesture, really. As if her slim fingers could defend her from the churning disappointment and loss she knew she’d finally give in to when this was all over. Already she missed the silken caresses of the clothes she’d worn in Da’har. The exotic, hot scents of the country. Idris’s smile.
She sat back in the soft leather seat with a huff. Just thinking of pawing through her bag, finding her key, putting it in the lock of the flat she knew had never been a home, exhausted her. She’d probably slept more nights in the hospital’s on-call rooms than at her “nest.” It was neither nest, nor home. Just a place she hung her clothes in between surgeries.
Idris’s palace in Da’har had been more of a home to her in less than a fortnight than her own had ever been.
Squeezing her eyes shut tight against the thought only let the darkness creep further into her overanxious heart.
She eased one eye open, then the other, blinkering her vision so that she could only see Amira. Her beautiful heart-shaped face. The sheet of ebony hair cascading down her slim, little shoulders. Robyn’s chest squeezed tight when she saw the hope and light that lit up Amira’s almond-shaped eyes when she realized Robyn was looking at her. Saying goodbye to this little girl was going to be particularly painful.
Swallowing down the tears she refused to let come, she pasted on a smile.
Never mind. She was back in London now. She could jump into a taxi and go straight to Paddington’s where everything would right itself back into its natural order once again. What had happened in Da’har was...an aberration. A mirage more like, she silently chided herself. A beautiful, sand and sea and Idris-filled mirage.
She tugged a few folders out of her satchel, blindly training her eyes upon the papers as if the words she could barely focus upon would save her life.
The diagrams and side notes began to pull her back to her comfort zone and at long last she felt a smile begin to creep onto her lips. The surgery wouldn’t save a life—but it would most assuredly change Amira’s for the better.
As the plane touched down and she turned on her mobile, it sprang to life with some sobering news.
Ryan Walker had had a turn for the worse. The sooner she could get back to Paddington’s and help with the fallout, the better. Ryan’s brain injury wasn’t her area of expertise, but the young boy had had the entire staff rooting for his recovery. Losing him now, when he’d fought so hard against the odds...
What was it Idris was fond of saying in his darker moments?
Life wasn’t fair.
She pulled her satchel up onto her lap and unbuckled herself from the luxurious leather seat before giving Idris a quick nod. “I’ll see you two tomorrow at Paddington’s.”
She planted a swift kiss on the top of Amira’s head, and the moment the stairs were lowered to the private entrance, she began to run. Lungs burning, feet racing, heart pounding so hard she could hear nothing but the rush of blood in her head. She ran and ran until she was safely in a taxi heading back to Paddington’s where she belonged.
* * *
The platter of chocolate-covered ginger biscuits stared at Idris accusingly. One side amber, the other inky black. He had half a mind to fling them off the balcony.
“Who on earth requested these?”
“No one. I think they just assumed, given your order from the last time we stayed, you might want them again?” Kaisha answered from under the desk where she had been plugging in the various laptops, mobiles and other electronics they never seemed to be able to travel without these days.
“I don’t think we’ll stay here next time,” he growled. “If there is a next time.”
“The hospital has offered you a suite at Paddington’s if you prefer. Amira will need to be pre
pped and ready quite early tomorrow morning, so...” Kaisha crawled out from the desk, managing to intersect him as he stalked from room to room in the hotel suite he wished he’d never taken. It was too awash with memories of his first meeting with Robyn.
Across the suite, Amira’s little face was pressed up against the rain-streaked windows as she stared at the iconic buildings they’d seen from the airplane. She was missing Robyn, too—and no amount of sterling British architecture would fill that gap.
Kaisha discreetly cleared her throat as she waited for an answer, only to stumble back a few steps as he wheeled on her, hands splayed out in disbelief.
“They think I’m going to be able to relax while my daughter’s future is hanging in the balance?” Idris’s eyes shot heavenward, realizing as he spoke that this could be the last time he could speak loudly, harshly even, without causing distress to his daughter, whose eyes were still glued to the London cityscape beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows.
He glanced at Kaisha, now slowly backing away from him, a hint of fear all too visible in her eyes. The same look she’d often worn before Robyn had come into their lives.
A streak of remorse twisted his features as he pressed his hands to his face. Had he used Amira’s deafness as a means of justifying this way of speaking with people?
“I think it was more so you’d have somewhere private to—”
“To what?” Idris interjected. “Wait and find out if my daughter is still deaf?”
“I believe Robyn—Dr. Kelly, I mean...” Kaisha’s voice faded out as the expression on Idris’s face grew dark again.
Robyn. The light to his shade. The woman with courage enough to challenge him with what he himself could not bear to confront: his fear. The creeping, terrifying tendrils of laser-sharp fear threatening to drown him in darkness as the moment approached when he would hand over his daughter’s welfare to—
