To make slow, tender love to her.
Yes, he had slowed down the car once, but the sight of her in that short wet dress had been too much.
She was a relentless assault to his senses and six feet three of turned-on sheikh had decided it was safer to drive on.
It was hell to drive past her and leave her standing in the dark. It was hell to work alongside her.
It was hell.
And perhaps time away was needed before self-control ran out.
Nothing could come of them, Zahir knew that. It was the reason that he kept his distance.
His feelings for Adele were serious and that was why he held well and truly back. But it was getting harder to do so.
And it was another reason why it might be better to return to his country.
Zahir rang home.
‘I have just come from visiting the Queen.’ Zahir spoke formally with his father. ‘She is doing very well.’
‘How long until she can come home?’ The King asked.
‘Not until she is ready,’ Zahir said. ‘I have spoken with Mr Oman and usually it would be several weeks before she could fly but, given she will be on the royal jet, I don’t expect it to be that long. And I shall accompany her, of course.’ He took a breath and then told his father what he had decided. ‘I am not renewing my contract at the hospital. I’m coming home to sort out the building of the new hospital. I’m going to be speaking with architects over the coming weeks. I shall do my best to find someone who can understand the need to respect our traditions, as well as incorporate the new. When I return things will immediately get under way.’
‘Nothing is to get under way without my permission.’
‘Too many lives have been lost,’ Zahir said. ‘Your delay in implementing changes has caused your own wife to collapse. What about all our people?’
‘I am King.’
‘And I am Crown Prince and I refuse to do nothing until your death. I shall be returning with the Queen and change will happen.’
‘Don’t speak of this now, Zahir. Not when I am concerned for my wife—’
‘No,’ Zahir interrupted. ‘You can no longer ignore that fact that there are better ways. The Queen collapsed while she was visiting me at work. What if she had been at a formal dinner or a royal event? Luckily she was in a hospital at the time.’
Zahir let out a tense breath, embarrassed on behalf of his mother as to how events could have panned out.
He was so grateful that Adele had dealt with things so discreetly.
Adele.
All roads led to her.
Even in the middle of a difficult conversation he smiled at the memory of her blocking his path as he had tried to get into the cubicle to care for his mother.
Then his smile faded and he returned to the subject.
‘We shall discuss this in person,’ Zahir said to his father. ‘For now, know that she is resting comfortably and that she is receiving excellent medical care.’
‘If you are returning then there shall be a selection ceremony and a wedding.’
‘You know where I stand on that,’ Zahir said. ‘I will not marry and have children when I cannot ensure adequate health care for them.’
Zahir hung up.
He saw a few more patients and then went through to the staffroom. Those flowers really were following him. They had been placed on the table and the word ‘Adele’ had been written on a sheet of paper, as well as an arrow, a row of hearts and a lot of question marks.
It was tease from the other nurses, informing her that she would need to explain!
Zahir did not want to hear it.
* * *
Adele walked into the staffroom fifteen minutes before the start of her shift to the beautiful sight of Zahir stretched out and asleep on a sofa. His mouth was slightly open, he needed to shave, but she’d prefer that he did not. But then her heart sank when she saw the large floral arrangement and the note with her name on it. Not for a second did she hope that the flowers were from Zahir. With trepidation she opened the card and read the message.
Adele
Thanks for a great night. Hope to do it again very soon.
Paul x
Unlike their date, there was a kiss at the end.
Zahir awoke to the sickly scent of flowers and to Adele’s blue eyes as she stood in the middle of the staffroom.
She looked over as he stirred and wondered what it would be like to wake up beside him.
‘You got flowers.’ He stated the obvious.
‘I did.’
But not from you, her eyes accused.
Never anything from you.
Not even a smile.
‘How is your mother?’
‘She’s doing well.’ Zahir stretched his long body. ‘The operation went smoothly.’
‘That’s good.’ she said, wondering how the mere sight of him stretching had her on slow burn. How a night being wined and dined by a friendly and good-looking Paul couldn’t garner a kiss, yet she could happily go over and straddle Zahir right here and right now.
Honestly!
She had never slept with anyone but she could almost feel the pull in her groin to walk over to him, to bend her head and to kiss that sulky mouth.
He sat up and she was very glad that he did.
‘My mother said that you have been visiting her and are going to see her again.’
‘I just thought with her being so far from home—’ Adele started to explain, but Zahir cut in.
‘I appreciate it,’ he said, and then abruptly stood and left.
It didn’t feel as if he appreciated it, Adele thought as he stalked off.
Still, she wasn’t visiting Leila to earn favours from him.
She liked his mother and enjoyed their conversations.
Adele missed talking with her mum so much and Leila helped with that.
Zahir went home and it was a quiet night in Emergency, which made it a very long one. By morning, all Adele wanted was to go to sleep but she remembered she had promised to visit Leila.
‘Don’t forget your flowers,’ Janet called out as she left.
Blasted things, Adele thought, but then she decided they might brighten the room up a little for her visitor.
‘Flowers!’ Leila was wearing a gorgeous nightgown, had all her jewels on and was back to looking stunning. She smiled when Adele knocked on her door and quickly dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief. ‘You shouldn’t have.’
‘I didn’t,’ Adele admitted. She knew Leila had been crying. ‘The man I went out with on Friday sent them.’ She rolled her eyes.
‘Do tell.’
Adele did.
Well, a little bit.
‘It didn’t go well.’
‘Why?’
Because he wasn’t your sexy son!
‘It just didn’t,’ Adele said. ‘I kept wanting to check my phone. That’s not a good sign, is it?’
Leila laughed.
‘Then he called over the weekend and asked me out again and I said no. I thought he’d got the message but he sent these. I didn’t want to look like an idiot on the bus, and I thought they might cheer you up.’
‘Well, they have.’
They were like a snowflake in a snowstorm, though, Adele thought as she looked around.
There were flowers everywhere.
‘How do you feel?’ she asked Leila.
‘I had a lot of pain in the evening but they changed my pain control and now I feel much more comfortable. I’ve just had my first drink of tea. I asked Mr Oman when I can go back to the hotel. He says not for a few more days.’
‘You’ve got on your jewels.’
Leila nodded. ‘I was appalled when they tol
d me I had to have them off for surgery. I insisted they were brought to Recovery and I was to wake up with them on.’
Adele smiled.
‘Adele,’ Leila said, ‘I’ve been thinking.’
‘About what?’
‘Well, I need a private nurse and I would very much like it to be you.’
‘I’m on night shift for the next couple of weeks,’ Adele said.
‘No, I’m not talking about back at the hotel. I mean for you to fly back with me. You said that you wanted a holiday.’
Adele’s shocked expression was misinterpreted.
‘I wouldn’t be making too many demands on you,’ Leila said quickly. ‘I would just feel safer knowing I had a nurse for those first few days at home, and then you could do what you wanted. I would page you if required. You would have your own wing with its own beach and of course you would be well reimbursed.’
‘Leila...’ Adele didn’t know what to say.
She was stunned to be asked and very flattered too.
And the more she thought about it, the more excited she felt.
There, in her chest, was something that had been missing for so long—the hope of adventure.
The thought of Zahir didn’t enter her head. Not at that moment. He would be here, working. This had nothing to do with him.
It was the thought of a holiday at such an exotic location. Yes, it would be a working holiday perhaps but that suited Adele even better—it didn’t have to be a holiday or a new flat, she could have both.
Yet hope was dashed even before it took form.
‘Ah, Zahir!’
Adele, who had been perched on the bed, hurriedly stood up as Leila greeted her son. He was dressed in a suit for now. No doubt later he would be wearing scrubs, but for now he was all glossy and freshly showered, and the scent of his cologne as he came over was more heady than a room full of flowers. ‘I was just saying to Leila that I need a private nurse and she had told me that she has some annual leave coming up. I thought—’
‘I will arrange your nurse,’ Zahir interrupted, and his voice was terse.
‘I don’t need you to arrange anything,’ Leila said. ‘I would like Adele—’
‘Adele is a junior emergency nurse. I shall find a surgical nurse who specialises in women’s health to take care of you. In fact, I already have. She will be looking after you when you go back to the hotel.’
‘Zahir!’ Leila reprimanded her son.
‘It’s fine.’ Adele halted them. Her cheeks were on fire and she was angry and hurt at Zahir’s cutting words. Clearly he didn’t even think her capable of nursing what would by then be a two week post-op patient. ‘It was lovely of you to think of me, Leila...I really do have to go now.’
She said goodbye and gave a very brief nod to Zahir.
‘Zahir,’ his mother admonished once they were alone. ‘You were very rude to speak like that in front of her.’
‘I work with Adele.’ He shrugged. ‘I shall find a more suitable nurse. Anyway, perhaps you were the one who was rude. Adele might already have plans.’ He tried not to think of her topless on a beach in France and then he thought of Paul. ‘Maybe she wants to go away with her boyfriend...’
‘Rubbish,’ Leila said. ‘She doesn’t have one. In fact...’ She gestured to her locker and those flowers really were following him everywhere because Zahir caught sight of them as Leila continued to speak.
‘She had a disastrous date on Friday. She said all she wanted to do was to check her phone. She spends all her spare time taking care of her mother and I want to do something nice for her.’
Zahir held in an exasperated sigh.
There was a debt to be paid and his mother had now come up with a way to pay it.
‘I shall think of a more suitable way to thank her,’ Zahir said, and then he asked a question. ‘Why do you want Adele?’
It was a question he had asked himself many times over the past year.
‘I find her easy to talk to and she knows about...’ Leila shook her head and lay back on her pillow and closed her eyes. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’m going to have a little rest now. I’ve been up since five.’
The subject was closed.
So many subjects were closed.
He could see that she had been crying and Zahir thought about what Adele had said to him in the car: You need to discuss that with your mother.
He didn’t know how to, though.
He could speak with grief-stricken parents, he could tell someone, with skill and care, that they did not have long to live.
Yet this was a conversation that was almost impossible to start. From seven years old he had been warned not to ask questions. Not to upset his mother or anger his father by bringing the subject of his brother up.
But they weren’t at the palace and things had been left unsaid for far too long.
‘I miss him too,’ Zahir said to his mother, and he watched her face crumple. ‘I know I never saw him, but I still think of him and when I go to our desert abode I pray for him each time.’
As Leila started to cry he let her and then after a while she asked him something.
‘Could you pass my bag?’
She took out her purse and Zahir saw his brother for the first time as his mother spoke. As he finally found out what had happened Zahir wasn’t in doctor mode, or crown prince mode, he was just remembering the sadness and the silence that had returned with his parents to the palace and he looked at the tiny, beautiful reason why.
‘Zahir, I had to tell the doctor about Aafaq and Adele was there when I did so. I don’t want to go through it all with another nurse. I am very tearful at the moment. I know that. Mr Oman says it is to be expected after such an operation and it may continue for a few weeks. Maybe the nurse you arranged can care for me at the hotel—’
‘You don’t need to be in a hotel,’ Zahir said. ‘Please come back to my home.’
‘Your home is in Mamlakat Almas,’ Leila told him. ‘I would prefer to stay in a hotel.’
Despite being more open than Fatiq, she did not approve of his lifestyle here. Leila did not like the fact that Zahir and Dakan dated when there was an array of brides waiting for them to choose from.
Staying in a hotel was her protest.
‘Please let me have Adele care for me.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ he said.
Adele was all he could think about of late.
He had been about to head to Admin to tell them he was taking the last fortnight on his contract as leave and that he would not be renewing it.
The ramifications of a relationship with Adele had long troubled him—his father frowned on his lifestyle here and certainly any serious relationship would be even more frowned upon. It would be dire indeed if anything happened in Mamlakat Almas. He could never choose Adele. The rift it would create between him and his father would be irreparable.
The King was a stickler for tradition and those traditions did not allow for a woman without a title who had dated before.
He could well be exiled and unable to fulfil his duty to his country.
No, he did not want to consider his mother’s request.
He was trying to get away from Adele.
Not bring her to his home.
CHAPTER FIVE
FOR A MOMENT there Adele had thought that her luck was finally changing.
You make your own luck, Adele told herself.
She just didn’t know how.
It was her second week of nights and she couldn’t wait for them to be done and for her two-week break to commence.
She was still smarting at Zahir.
It was six p.m. and there was a staff accreditation that Adele needed to have signed off. She wanted to get it done before she went
on annual leave.
She wasn’t going to the south of France. Despite the offer still being available, it remained too expensive, so she had decided she would take the Eurotunnel to Paris.
In the morning she would book it.
It really was time to move on with her life, while still including her mother.
And she was going to have a holiday romance.
Absolutely she was.
She was tired of her lack of a love life and that she was twenty-four years old and still a virgin.
And, as she went over to the nurses’ station and Zahir didn’t even acknowledge her, she decided was tired of having feelings for someone who thought so little of her.
He looked immaculate. He was wearing his suit and clearly hoped to get away quickly.
‘Zahir,’ Meg asked, ‘is there any chance of you staying back?’
‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I have to finish at six. Bella is waiting for me to pick her up. We are going to the theatre.’
Ouch, Adele thought.
‘I just need to write up this drug regime and then I’ll have to go,’ he said.
With all the drama of his mother being sick and settling her into the hotel, as well as the constant calls back home, he had forgotten to tell Bella they were over. Zahir did not want to put it off for even one more night. He would tell her tonight soon after the curtain came down.
Helene came in then, all ready for staff accreditation too before her night shift.
The staff rotated, and did two weeks of nights every twelve weeks or so.
‘You made it!’ Janet smiled.
‘I nearly didn’t.’ Helene gave a dramatic sigh. ‘I took Hayden out for a driving lesson this afternoon and I’ve decided I’d rather pay for an instructor. I actually value my life. Honestly, he’s—’
‘Adele.’ Janet halted Helene’s latest rant about her son. ‘Could you get the annual leave roster from my desk?’
Janet had seen Adele’s eyes shutter.
It wasn’t Helene’s fault. She didn’t know.
Few did, but Helene loved to give dramatic blow-by-blow accounts of her day, and with her son just learning to drive, it must be pretty hellish for Adele.
‘You know Adele’s mother isn’t well?’ Janet checked with Helene once Adele had gone.
Seduced by the Sheikh Surgeon Page 5
