She glanced up at him and saw his face change—well, not change so much but relax just slightly as if an image of his country or one small part of it had flashed across his mind.
‘Not in Africa but on the Gulf—a country called Fajabal.’ He spoke softly, yet so confidently Gemma wondered if she should have heard of it. She ran the names of Gulf countries she did know through her head but no Fajabal came up.
‘Fajabal?’ she repeated, thinking how musical the name was.
‘It is a contraction of two words, fajr, meaning dawn, and jabal, meaning mountain,’ his deep voice continued.
‘Dawn mountain,’ she said, feeling again the familiar tug of distant lands—lands she’d never see except in pictures. But it was better to be thinking about the lands she’d never see than the way this man, sitting so close, was affecting her.
‘Mountains of dawn is how we think of it,’ he corrected, offering her a smile that confirmed all her feelings of apprehension. The man was downright dangerous.
‘That’s a beautiful name—poetic and evocative.’
‘It is a beautiful country, small, but varied in its geography as we have the red-gold desert sands, craggy black mountains and the clear turquoise sea.’
Gemma finished the sandwiches. Maybe one day she’d get over her fear of flying and actually go somewhere like Fajabal. Though maybe not to Fajabal if all the men were as dangerously attractive as this one.
She put the sandwiches on plates, found some paper napkins and pushed a plate towards her guest.
‘You are going to sit down?’ he said, and knowing if she remained standing in the kitchen while she ate it would look peculiar, she walked around the bench, grabbed the stool beside the one Yusef was using, and returned with it to the kitchen.
‘Easier to talk if we’re facing each other,’ she muttered by way of explanation, while, in fact, she knew it would be easier for her to eat not sitting next to him where bits of his body might accidentally brush against hers, and cause more of the uneasiness it had been generating since his arrival.
‘I am pleased, no, more than pleased, totally impressed by the centre and by the work you and your staff do there,’ he began, then he took a bite of his sandwich and chewed on it, leaving Gemma with the distinct impression there was a ‘but’ hanging silently on the end of the sentence.
‘I will definitely increase my contribution to it, and I would like to fund your second house, but I wish for something in return.’
Ha, here comes the but. But how big a but could it be? What strings could he possibly want to attach that they couldn’t accommodate?
Gemma chewed her own sandwich and waited.
Dark eyes studied her intently and he put down his sandwich, wiped his hands then said quietly, ‘I want you to come to Fajabal.’
CHAPTER THREE
GEMMA stared at the once again impassive face, disbelief making thought impossible. She’d half suspected, from the time she’d heard from his secretary that the Mystery Benefactor wanted this meeting, that he might want something more than to check out the centre. But never in her wildest dreams could she have imagined this.
‘You want me to come to Fajabal?’ she said, thinking maybe her ears were playing up and he hadn’t said that at all.
‘You could leave tomorrow and both centres would keep running smoothly, you said so,’ he reminded her. ‘In fact, you have leave due and a replacement starting tomorrow.’
‘How do you know that?’ She snapped the demand at him but it was better to be thinking about his seeming omniscience than thinking about a place called Fajabal, red desert sands and all.
‘Should I not read the reports you so dutifully send? Would you not expect that of me?’ The words were cool and crisp and he seemed to sit a little taller—every inch the sheikh highness for all he was sitting at her small breakfast bar, eating a salad sandwich.
Gemma was reminded of her grandfather and had to fight the instant reactive cringe.
And fight back!
‘I would have thought you had minions who did that for you—draw your bath, read your reports. You probably even have someone who could have checked out the centre for you, rather than having to come yourself.’
‘Ah, but I came for you,’ he replied, the dark eyes fixing on hers so it seemed like some other kind of message—one that sent fire racing through her veins and what could only be desire pooling in her belly.
Could he turn on that kind of magnetic attraction? Had he done it to divert her anger, however feeble it had been?
Impossible! She was reading things that weren’t there into his words.
‘So, Fajabal?’ The deep voice lingered on the name, turning it into musical notes.
Longing replaced desire—if that’s what it had been—a longing so deep and strong she doubted she could fight it. To go to Fajabal? To actually travel to a foreign land? To a land with the magical, mystical name of Mountains of the Dawn?
If only…
‘Perhaps if I tell you of my plan you will understand,’ Yusef said. He’d watched so many expressions flash across his companion’s face he had no idea how to sort them out. There’d been wonder, and excitement, certainly, but fear, he thought, as well. Was she less confident than she appeared, this woman who had achieved so much?
She nodded in response but seemed to have retreated from him, something that caused a momentary pang, for he felt their emergency work as colleagues had forged the beginnings of a bond between them. While the attraction—but it was better not to consider that, although it was definitely there, as strong as he had ever felt for any woman.
‘I spoke of education for the women of my country, and while many women have been attending schools and colleges and even universities for many years, there are women who are still outside the mainstream of modernisation. These are tribal women, from the nomadic tribes who have roamed all the desert lands of the Middle East right through the centuries, but in recent times more and more of these tribes have made their homes in Fajabal, escaping war and oppression in other countries.’
‘People like those I spoke of, but instead of washing up on your shores, they have come across the deserts to your land,’ she said, smiling at him so his determination to ignore the attraction weakened once again.
But he’d caught her attention—now all he had to do was keep it.
‘You are right. However, settling into life in one place is not easy for these people and unless I can make it work, tribal divisions I have seen in other countries could arise, tribal divisions that lead to the horrors of civil war. If I can help these new settlers feel at home, all will be well, but right now, with overcrowded facilities, with children picking up contagious diseases at school, things are not good.’
‘Could it really be as bad as civil war?’ she asked, looking so anxious he hurried to allay her concern.
‘I sincerely hope not but there are divisions already within my country—there are those who believe money solves everything, but these people, my brother amongst them, do not see the sick children in hospital, the malnourished babies, the overcrowded facilities. Until these issues are addressed, Fajabal will never be the great country that it could be.’
He paused and shook his head, trying not to think of his brother and the unrest that was probably spreading in his, Yusef’s, absence.
‘But surely this is a problem—the lack of facilities, the overcrowding—someone local could solve. Why are you talking to me?’
He studied her, trying to find a reply that would swing her decision his way, when her voice told him all too plainly that she didn’t want the job. Yet now he’d met her and seen her in action with two very different patients, he knew he had to have her. As an employee, of course, no matter that his body had reacted to that thought.
‘You looked at some issues in your city—women’s issues and medical issues—and worked out a solution to meet the needs of two very disparate groups. I need someone from outside to take a look at what is happ
ening in Fajabal. You have experience in helping women settle in a new country. The people, women in particular, I wish to help are also settling into a very different world—a modern world. It is not your actual training I require but your fresh eyes.’
‘But surely there are a hundred doctors who could do that for you?’
She sounded desperate now, although he couldn’t understand why she would have such an aversion to the idea that she wouldn’t even discuss being part of it.
‘More than a hundred, I am sure, but I fear they would fail because there is a philosophical aspect to it as well. I have already told you that I would hate my people to lose the values by which they’d lived for centuries. These are the things that have made us strong in the past and will again in the future. We cannot throw them away. You would understand that and could plan to help the new settlers with the courtesy and tact they deserve—helping them within the parameters of their lifestyles. More than that, you have the ability to instil your beliefs into others who will carry on the work. That is what I want from you.’
He studied her, trying to work out what was wrong. That something was wrong he had no doubt. She’d retreated from him.
‘Is it personal, that you do not wish to travel at this time?’ he asked, and caught a rueful smile tilting up one corner of her lips as she shook her head.
Not personal, then what? Why?
How stupid was this? Gemma chided herself as she pushed away her half-eaten sandwich. Although she hadn’t admitted it even to herself, she’d been beginning to feel she was ready for a new challenge. Much as she loved the work she was doing, now both houses were established and running well, her life lacked the fizz and excitement that had accompanied setting up the centres and, to be honest, now they had this man pouring money into the place, she no longer even had the challenge of worming it out of government agencies.
And to work in a foreign country—helping women and children who really needed help, and teaching them to adapt to a different lifestyle yet in a way that was in keeping with their traditions, even to learn of their traditions and learn from them? Wasn’t that the dream of a lifetime?
Of course it was—she could feel the excitement of the project humming in her blood.
Yet here she was, refusing to contemplate it because it entailed a plane trip.
She glanced at the man across the breakfast bar, hoping he hadn’t noticed the shudder that went through her at the thought, because no way could she admit her fears to such a confident man.
‘Are you thinking deeply—considering the idea—or wondering how you can politely say no?’
‘There’s no polite way to say no,’ Gemma began, but he silenced her with a raised hand.
‘Then don’t say it. Think about it. I will have someone drop off information about Fajabal and an outline of how I see the clinic working, plus a job description and wage package for you. Maybe you would have time to study it this afternoon, then have dinner with me tonight to discuss it further.’
What could she say? The man had done so much for the centre, it would be churlish to refuse without even looking at his plans.
She nodded, and he stood up, pushing away his empty sandwich plate.
‘Good,’ he said, sounding as satisfied as if she’d already agreed to go to Fajabal with him, then he smiled at her. ‘Remember, as you read the information, that we have already established a—is rapport the word I need?’
‘You probably speak better English than I do,’ Gemma muttered at him, unwilling to admit even something as nebulous as ‘rapport’ existed between them, although something certainly did. Unless it was all on her side—
‘Not better,’ he assured her, ‘but I have read a lot of the English poets, even Shakespeare who is very good—very wise—about human relationships.’
Gemma found herself frowning at him, having only ever considered Shakespeare as a necessary evil to be got through in high school.
‘You rule a country and have time to read Shakespeare?’
He smiled and she wished she’d dropped the conversation back at ‘rapport’. His smile made her stomach, nearly empty, churn uncomfortably and she could feel blood heating her face.
‘There is always time for poetry, as there is always time to hold a baby in your arms and feel the blessing it bestows. Poetry can teach us much. One of our great Arabic poets once said something to the effect that love doesn’t come from long companionship, but is the offspring of affinity, created in a moment. I am not saying that there is love between us, but was not affinity created early on?’
Gemma stared at him, hoping the tumult inside her wasn’t evident on the outside. Surely he didn’t mean the attraction she was feeling was mutual. Surely he was talking of their colleague-type affinity.
Yet the truth was there, deep inside her, that she did feel an affinity for this man—or maybe she was confusing affinity with attraction. Attraction was different, it was chemical, it could be ignored.
With difficulty, she decided as she followed him to the door, mesmerised by the wide shoulders and the way the broad back sloped down to a narrow waist and hips. He was a sheikh, a highness—he was so far out of her league it was impossible so it was time she stopped checking out his attributes at every opportunity.
Like now, when he’d turned at the doorway and smiled, white teeth gleaming behind those sensuous lips, eyes glinting humorously at her as he said, ‘Is it safe to walk downstairs, or will some other wandering soul be waiting to accost you?’
Gemma stopped in her tracks, held frozen by the effect of that smile—that glint.
Oh, come on! she told herself. Get your brain into gear. You’re not some thirteen-year-old meeting a heart-throb popstar.
But she could only stare at him, so when he took her hand and lifted it to brush his lips across her fingers, she didn’t snatch it back or slap his face or do anything at all but continue to stare at him.
‘Later,’ he said, then he strode off down the stairs, collected his jacket and tie and, slinging them over his shoulder, departed. As he opened the door Gemma noticed that the limo that had driven him up earlier was still waiting outside, which was a funny thing to be thinking of when her brain was numb and her fingers trembling from a kiss.
Entering the foyer of the Nautilus that evening, Gemma felt an unfamiliar dread settle on her shoulders. Nothing to do with the man she was to meet—more to do with the fact that the posh hotel was the kind of place her grandfather had always taken her to celebrate a birthday or good results on a school report card. She had dreaded the outings, alone with her grandfather, certain she’d drop her knife or burp and bring that look of condemnation into his eyes…
She glanced down at her clothes, automatically, checking herself as she always had before a formal occasion with her grandfather. Her hair was as neat as she could get it, the wild curls pulled ruthlessly back and knotted at the nape of her neck. And even Grandfather could have found nothing to criticise in a plain black dress that skimmed her figure without clinging, black stockings and—well, Grandfather would certainly have criticised her shiny black pumps with their slender, four-inch heels.
But a woman had to have some weakness and, anyway, Grandfather was dead. He no longer controlled her life. But the reminders failed to lift her spirits and she looked around the new six star venue with more anxiety than appreciation. Although it was beautiful, the décor understated—big cream couches set on darker cream and gold marble tiles, marble topped tables between them; homely flowers like roses and carnations massed in crystal vases, and on the walls not the usual paintings but tapestries and carpets, ancient by the look of them, the muted colours giving the big, airy space a sense of continuity as well as welcome.
She tried to relax, but as she approached the desk to ask for the sheikh, her discomfort from her memories changed to discomfort over the meeting that lay ahead. She had read and reread all the information, feeling herself drawn more and more deeply towards the country over which the man n
ow ruled. The pictures his secretary had included in the bundle had been deliberately planted, she realised that, but as she’d looked at the ruby red of the desert sands under a setting sun, and the black, rocky islands standing out of the turquoise water of the Gulf, she’d felt a physical longing to see this place and experience the life of the busy, narrow markets, and enter some of the white-washed stone buildings, or huge black tents.
‘Yes, Dr Murray, Sheikh Akeddi asked that you be taken straight to his suite.’
Suite? Of course he’d have a suite. Gemma followed a black-clad staff member to the elevator, watched as he put a key into a special slot, and then rode with her to the top floor.
The staff member led her into a foyer nearly as grand as the one downstairs, though on a smaller scale. He knocked on a door opposite the elevator and waited until another black-clad man—though this one was in a suit—opened it.
‘Dr Murray,’ the staff-person announced, then backed towards the elevator and disappeared behind the closing door.
‘Ah, Dr Murray,’ the man greeted her, holding out his hand. ‘I am James Wharton, the sheikh’s secretary. He is momentarily unavailable but asked me to take care of you. Come this way.’
He led Gemma into a seriously beautiful lounge room, with deep couches the colour of the richest chocolate, polished brass and silver pots and urns decorating marble-topped cabinets, and more tapestries on the walls, while the marble floors had intricately woven rugs thrown carelessly across them, creating an ambiance of Middle Eastern splendour in a very modern setting.
‘You would like a drink. His Highness won’t be long.’
‘Highness again?’ Gemma echoed faintly. ‘Does he always use that title?’
James Wharton smiled.
‘Very rarely, although his close staff are using it whenever possible in order to get him used to it. In the beginning he started and turned round every time someone said it—looking for his father.’
Desert King, Doctor Daddy Page 4
