‘You need my help, James. How is your Arabic going?’
‘Absolutely terrible.’ James told her a few of the phrases that he had learned and Manu laughed at his attempts to speak from the back of his throat, just as James expected her to, just as his father would too.
‘Well, I’m glad it amuses you so much,’ James said.
‘You’ve got a very long way to go.’ Manu could not stop laughing but James did not feel smacked upside the head this time. He was sick of the lot of them. ‘Oh, James, thank you for the laugh. I needed it.’
Leila wouldn’t laugh.
He knew that now.
What he didn’t know though was that at this very moment he was breaking the heart of the woman he loved.
* * *
Leila had walked into the reception unseen by James and Manu. She had watched them walk over to the elevators and had hoped upon hope that this was not what it looked like.
Leila tried to trust him, tried to tell herself that he wouldn’t take another woman to a bed that they had shared.
She watched the light on the elevator stop at the seventeenth floor instead of the top one and she pressed it and watched in dismay as the elevator came straight down and opened empty.
No.
Even now she still wanted to trust him.
Even now, as she stepped in and pressed the button and took the elevator up to the seventeenth floor, she tried to tell herself that she was wrong.
She had to be wrong, for the man who had made love to her the night before last would not do this. The man who had brought her to his home could not do this to her.
Or had he brought her to his home so that he could free himself to carry on with his ways here?
As she walked along the plush corridor Leila thought of the nights he had returned smelling of perfume.
Leila walked, wondering what one he was behind, and then she heard the one thing she was dreading—the sound of James’s voice and a woman laughing behind a hotel door.
She wanted to kick the door, she wanted to burst in on them and scratch his face, but what was the point?
What would it change?
From the start he had told her he was a playboy. She had fallen in love with a man who had, as it turned out, wanted nothing more than a one-night stand.
Circumstance had forced them together.
Tears would not come, anger would not come—all she felt was weary from a world that denied her love over and over.
She asked his driver to take her home.
‘You are loved though,’ Leila said to the small life inside her. ‘You are so loved and you are so wanted and I am going to do everything I can to ensure that you know it every day that I am with you.’
And she would do it alone.
Leila refused to be with a man who did not truly love her, refused to be like James’s parents. Her daughter would have a mother who was a strong woman instead of a martyr. Her daughter would have a mother who refused to turn the other cheek.
Anger was coming now and Leila threw a few clothes into the small case she had brought with her from home.
She wanted nothing from him.
Nothing.
Leila tore off the robe he had made for her and put on the one she owned and decided that she would send for her things later. She simply couldn’t bear to be here anymore, amongst his things, his scent, close to the man who had stolen her heart.
She took her cash she had saved from working and her passport and put them in her bag and then Leila removed the ring that James had given her at that appalling showy proposal where he had attempted to trap her.
He never would.
I hope she was worth it... Leila texted, and sent it, and then she threw the phone he had given her onto the bed and left the building.
James received the text just as he was getting into his car after leaving The Chatsfield and he immediately called her but it went straight to messages.
‘Was Leila okay when you took her home?’ James asked his driver.
‘She didn’t say much,’ he answered, ‘although she never does.’ Then he told James he had taken her to The Chatsfield earlier, and James felt his stomach clench. ‘Then I brought her home again.’
He told his driver to wait for him, but as soon as he stepped in their home James knew that she had gone.
Her phone was there, her ring was there, everything was there—just not Leila.
He went to the drawer where she kept all her cash and passport and even without opening it he knew they’d be gone.
He asked his driver to take him to The Harrington and when they told him about their confidentiality policy, one look at his murderous expression and they reneged. ‘We haven’t had anyone by that name check in.’
‘By any other name?’ James said, and perhaps it was more his anguish than anger that produced a small shake of the receptionist’s head.
James called Manu and told her what had happened and asked her to park herself in The Harrington’s reception just in case Leila did arrive.
‘I will explain what happened to her if she arrives,’ Manu offered, and James thanked her.
She wouldn’t go there though, James knew it. Leila would surely know that it would be the first place he would look.
It was the worst evening that turned into the worst night ever.
His driver drove around for hours as James’s eyes scanned the busy streets but all to no avail. They went to the Middle Eastern restaurant where she had worked, but no, they hadn’t seen her either though they promised to let him know if she did show up.
James rang Spencer and asked him to be on the lookout.
He went to JFK airport where she had stood tasting snow on the night she had arrived here and he actually didn’t know what to do.
He had her phone and he even considered calling her parents, and asking them if he could be put through to Zayn, but James knew the pointlessness of that.
It had finally happened, James thought, when, like some drunk, he found himself calling out her name in the alley where Zayn and he had fought.
She’d made his wish come true because here he was at rock bottom and it looked as if he had lost them both.
Leila could well be on her way back to the cold of her family, to live a life of shame for the street bastard she had produced, and he thought then how her family would be with his daughter.
James looked up at the sky that might be carrying them both away now and there were no stars tonight. There would be no more stars without Leila, but then, as easily as that, he knew where she was.
He found her just a ten-minute walk from his door.
‘You shouldn’t be here at night on your own,’ James said, and he sat on a bench beside her. She could not bring herself to look at him so she looked at the park that she loved where she had for a little while believed she’d belonged.
‘The only thing that scares me about this night is that I’ll believe your lies and your excuses...’ She turned very briefly and it hurt too much to look at his cheating face so she turned away. ‘I see you’ve gone off blonde women since you met me,’ Leila sneered in disgust.
‘Yep.’
‘Well, was she worth it?’
‘Actually, no,’ James said, and he caught the hand that came to meet him. ‘It was Manu...’
‘I don’t need her name,’ Leila said, and she crumpled because even in their darkest row he sat patiently beside her.
�
�She’s been trying to help me so that I can contact your brother, so I can ask him to speak with your family.’
‘In a hotel room?’ Leila challenged. ‘I heard you talking. I heard you laughing...’
‘In a business suite,’ James said. ‘Manu’s sitting parked at The Harrington in case you go there.’
‘You come home stinking of perfume...you are laughing with another woman behind closed doors...’
‘She was laughing at me, Leila,’ James said, and something in his voice made her turn around and she watched as he gritted his teeth and then made himself say it.
He took a breath, forced the words out.
‘Ana ata’allam al arabiyya.’
She didn’t laugh as he told her that he had been learning Arabic. She just stared and did not feel a fool for believing him.
‘You’ve been doing that for me?’
‘I was hoping that I might be able to speak with your father. I didn’t want to tell you because honestly, at times, Leila, I’m not sure if I am ever going to be able to speak it well enough. I didn’t want you to get your hopes up and I didn’t want you laughing at my attempts.’
‘Why would I laugh when I think that is the nicest thing you could do for me. You are disappointed it’s a girl though...’
‘I am beside myself with happiness that we’re having a girl,’ James said, and his voice had her again believing him. She felt his hand on her stomach, caressing her the way she had wanted him to at the scan. ‘I thought I’d lost you both. I thought you were on your way home...’
‘I would never keep you from your baby, James,’ Leila said, and he nodded as she finally excised that dread forever.
‘I’ve messed up, Leila. Manu was furious about the photo and told me off for touching you in public. She says it will offend not just your family but you. You were right—she wasn’t worth it. I should have spoken to you.’
‘You should have, for your touch has never offended me,’ Leila said. ‘Well, once, and I think you registered my displeasure.’
‘I did.’
‘You haven’t made things worse with my family, James. It was terrible already,’ Leila said, and started to cry again. He saw the pain and agony and he knew he hadn’t caused all of it.
‘Maybe they’re grieving...’ James attempted, because he knew the school of thought about not criticising another’s family, but then Leila told him there was more.
‘I’m too ashamed to tell you.’
‘Never be ashamed with me,’ James said.
‘She’s never loved me...’ And he didn’t pat her on the shoulder and say of course she did. He just listened in silent horror as he found out that Leila’s mother wouldn’t even touch her. ‘The maids fed me,’ Leila said. ‘She hated me so much that she could not bring herself to give me her milk. Even the maids thought me greedy. The night I left she finally told me that she wished it had been me who had died instead of Jasmine. When I called she asked if you said you loved me before or while I parted my legs...’
‘I said that I loved you here, Leila.’ James pointed out. ‘I would never look you in the eye and say that I loved you if I didn’t.’
‘You would marry me, though, without loving me.’
‘I don’t know that now,’ James admitted. ‘I didn’t like what I saw at my parents’ home. Forcing anyone into anything is not the type of person I usually am. I overreacted when I found out you were pregnant. I was terrified that you’d go back to them.’
‘Never,’ Leila said. ‘She has told me that the palace is better off without me. That the maids are happier now. She says that my father has taken up walking again in the evening...’
‘I’d take up walking if I was married to that lunatic,’ James said. ‘I’d be walking morning, noon and night and playing golf too, if I was married to her.’
‘You think he does it to get away from her?’ Leila frowned.
‘Hello!’ James said. ‘I’ll bet the maids aren’t as happy as Muriel,’ James nudged, and now she properly smiled.
‘She’s a wicked queen,’ James said. ‘A wicked, wicked queen. And when our daughter is born I’m going to read the fairy tales. You never have to hear her voice or see her ever again unless you choose to.’
‘Promise?’
‘I promise,’ James said. ‘And I don’t make promises that I might not be able to keep.’
‘I believe you.’
He understood now why it had been so impossible for her to believe in his love.
She simply hadn’t known what it was.
He kissed her right there in the park and there could have been twenty photographers around them, snapping away—neither cared, neither would notice.
Leila felt his arms wrap around her and the feel of his lips on hers and the caress of his hands on her head and back. His touch was for her.
Love more than existed, it was hers.
* * *
James hated Farrah.
More than Leila would ever know. James learned to speak her language and he sat with Manu for hours, working out best how to work through the latest problem that had arisen.
It was early August and their baby was due in two days’ time and still James had not been able to marry her. Despite polite letters, despite Manu and Zayn’s best attempts, they were blocked at each turn as they tried to get the necessary documentation.
‘I’m just going to ask her father,’ James said, and then he picked up the phone and spoke in Arabic, not with Farrah but with the king.
He kept it brief.
‘I need Leila’s birth certificate,’ James said, and he knew the drama that would be going on in the palace tonight because he had had the audacity to call. ‘If I am to marry her.’
He was met with silence.
‘If it isn’t here within a week, then I will call every day,’ James said. ‘Or I will write letters, or I shall email, or I shall write to your press. I hope the noise I make—’ Manu’s lips pursed because of course what James would do would cause offence, but James had been practising this on his own and he cleared his throat ‘—will not upset your wife too much and in turn cause too many problems for you?’
It came in the post a week later.
Two days after that he stood with Leila in Central Park and married her on the very spot that James had told her he was in love with her. Then they had a photo taken on the bench where Leila had used to sit, drinking coffee, and where he had found her sitting that night. Already they had so many memories.
It was the tiniest of weddings.
Leila wore a cream robe that was threaded with silks that were the colours of the changing trees around them and, as James had said it would be, her favourite place in the world was spectacular at this time of the year.
James wore a suit but not socks and though he had had his hair cut for the day, on Leila’s instructions he hadn’t shaved.
They just grabbed passing joggers who were happy to stand for the brief service that was so terribly important to them but especially to Leila, for she wanted to be married before the baby was born.
James had been on the wagon for a little longer than he’d expected to be and tomorrow Leila was being induced because the baby was overdue. It lay low in her belly and kicked its applause as they shared a kiss that some passerby would make a fortune with when they sold it to the press.
No, Spencer would not be pleased.
Care factor?
Zero.
They ate at he
r favourite restaurant and Habib made sure they had the very best table, but even with the best food and happiness on tap, Leila could not get comfortable.
‘Anything?’
‘Nothing,’ Leila said. ‘It’s been the best wedding I could have hoped for but now I just want to go home.’
When they got there Esther and Matthew were coming through the foyer and for once not arguing. ‘Esther! Matthew!’ James called out to them. ‘I’d like you meet my wife.’
The pride in James’s voice was unmistakable.
‘How wonderful!’
It was.
Leila felt completely at home and James never thought he’d be carrying his bride, let alone his very heavily pregnant bride, through any door, but it had never felt more right.
They made love as they had rather frantically for the last week because Muriel had said that it might bring the birth on.
Again, it didn’t.
Leila lay afterwards, listening to James sleep and watching the moon drift past her window and thinking of her new name.
Mrs Leila Chatsfield.
It was everything she could have hoped to be.
Her back was hurting and Leila had a long shower, then got back into bed, but nothing, not even happiness, could get her to sleep tonight. As she started to realise what was happening, she let out a moan because this wasn’t uncomfortable—this hurt.
‘It’s a dream,’ James said, and he rolled into her. ‘It’s just a dream.’
‘No, James it really hurts...’
‘I know...’ James started, but then he felt her stomach hard beneath his hand and he understood that it wasn’t some nightmare that Leila was locked in.
This was real.
‘This isn’t pain,’ Leila said later at the hospital as she refused an epidural.
Pain was what others did to others.
This was physical.
The need to bear down.
The need to have her husband’s face beside hers telling her she was almost there but the knowledge she could do this too.
‘A girl,’ James said as if they didn’t know that already.
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