Yusef walked quietly along the dimly lit corridor, for he couldn’t rest without seeing his little daughter, no matter how late the hour. He had not been here when she was born, and for that he carried guilt with him every day.

Pushing open the door, he saw light fall on red hair, and Yusef could only stare in disbelief, for there, on a mat on the floor, lay Gemma, her fiery red hair splayed across the pillow, her clothes dishevelled and creased. But her arms were around his daughter, who was snuggled close into Gemma’s body.

His instinct was to wake the visitor, to tell her this wasn’t her place. Yet why seeing her there should anger him, when all he should be feeling was gratitude, he didn’t know.

Or did he? Wasn’t it the stirring of his body, the shamefulness of such a reaction, that had angered him?

But as he watched the sleeping woman, with his child in her arms, desire departed, to be replaced by a feeling he didn’t recognise, a kind of churning deep inside him, a longing—but for what he didn’t want to consider…

Meredith Webber says of herself, ‘Some years ago, I read an article which suggested that Mills and Boon were looking for new Medical™ Romance authors. I had one of those “I can do that” moments, and gave it a try. What began as a challenge has become an obsession—though I do temper the “butt on seat” career of writing with dirty but healthy outdoor pursuits, fossicking through the Australian Outback in search of gold or opals. Having had some success in all of these endeavours, I now consider I’ve found the perfect lifestyle.’

Recent titles by the same author:

GREEK DOCTOR: ONE MAGICAL CHRISTMAS CHILDREN’S DOCTOR, MEANT-TO-BE WIFE* THE HEART SURGEON’S SECRET CHILD** THE HEART SURGEON’S BABY SURPRISE** A PREGNANT NURSE’S CHRISTMAS WISH

** Jimmie’s Children’s Unit

* Crocodile Creek

Desert King, Doctor Daddy

by

Meredith Webber

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Excerpt

About The Author

Other Books By

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

Copyright

Chapter One

SHE was almost done. The place shone—well, as much as an old terrace house in the inner city could shine. Magazines in the waiting room were neatly stacked, the toys tucked into toy boxes, the consulting rooms tidy, treatment rooms gleaming, crisp white paper on the examination tables. Flowers for the kitchen table, that’s all she needed then she could change and be ready for the arrival of the Mystery Benefactor.

His donations had become so important over the last two years that Gemma couldn’t help but think of him in capital letters. She grabbed a pair of scissors and headed out the door, knowing from the perfumed air that the valiant old mock orange tree on the eastern side of the house must be in flower again. A few sprays would lift the kitchen—the only room in the old house that hadn’t benefited from the centre’s extra income.

‘Lady, lady!’

She was on the top step when she heard the call and turned to see a young man all but carrying a heavily pregnant woman along the footpath.

‘Help me!’ the man cried out again, but Gemma was already on her way towards him, the black limousine pulling up outside ignored in her haste to get to the couple.

Reaching them, she hooked her arm around the woman’s waist to take her weight on one side, and recognised the beautiful features—Aisha, a young Somali woman who had stopped her antenatal visits two months ago, refusing to return to the Women’s Centre in spite of repeated requests that she come in.

And now she had so, whatever the circumstances, Gemma welcomed her warmly.

‘Aisha, it is good to see you. Are the pains bad? Have you been able to time them?’

Gemma kept talking, hoping her voice would reassure the labouring woman.

They’d reached the steps and as Gemma wondered how to make the journey up them easy for her patient, a tall, dark stranger appeared at her side.

‘Go ahead and hold the door open, I will lift her,’ he ordered, but he spoke with such authority that Gemma not only went ahead and opened the door but continued on into the house, opening a door to the treatment room as well.

The stranger set his burden down on the examination table but the woman screamed and lunged and would have fallen if the young man accompanying her hadn’t caught her.

‘Floor, she wants floor,’ he said.

That was okay with Gemma. She’d delivered babies on the floor before today, but the young man’s presence was nearly as puzzling as the stranger’s. Somali men, in her experience, were rarely present at their baby’s birth. It was an all-women affair. And surely the beautifully suited, slightly severelooking man who’d appeared couldn’t be her M.B.—she’d been picturing a doddering octogenarian, not a suave, handsome fashion plate who couldn’t be a day over forty.

Not that there was time to question either of the men. Squatting on the floor beside Aisha, one arm around her, supporting her, the other on her belly, Gemma felt the strong contractions and although the woman was doing no more than making tiny mewling noises, Gemma knew she must be in agony.

‘What’s been happening?’ she asked the young man.

‘The women who help, the doula and the other women who promise to help, they say baby die and they walk away from my Aisha. I bring her here.’

Gemma nodded her approval but her hands were feeling for the baby’s position now, and she was discovering exactly why the women who’d been going to help Aisha had opted out. It was a breech presentation, and the baby was too far down the birth canal for her to try to turn it. The problem was, she reflected as she squatted on the floor seeking the degree of cervical dilatation, that a baby’s bottom didn’t provide as effective a wedge as a head to force the birth canal open and the cervix to dilate.

‘You must help her,’ the young man implored. ‘She has suffered too much already, my Aisha. You must get her baby out. It is for the baby she lives.’

‘He is not exaggerating,’ the other man, the stranger, said, as if he was tuned into the labouring woman’s thoughts. ‘You must save the baby.’

Startled by what sounded very like another order, Gemma glanced across at the stranger who was squatting now, for all his immaculate clothing, beside the woman, talking soothingly to her in some language Gemma didn’t understand.

Somali?

He caught her eye and said, ‘I will help. I will monitor her pulse and breathing, you do what you have to do.’

Did he know what she would have to do? Know that freeing the little infant legs before easing them out and delivering the baby would not be comfortable for Aisha?

‘We’ll manage,’ she said, her heart in her mouth because she knew it wasn’t going to be easy. Fortunately, it wasn’t the first time she’d had to deliver a baby at the centre so she was now prepared with a sterile bundle on hand—everything she’d need, and wrappings for the infant as well. She spread a thick paper mat beneath the woman, who had insisted on squatting as soon as Gemma had finished the examination. But squatting wasn’t going to work, so Gemma, with the stranger’s help, eased her backwards and administered some local pain relief before making a small incision. After that it was a straightforward breech delivery, feeling for a leg and releasing it, then another scrawny leg, gentle pressure until the buttocks were revealed, a slight turn of the shoulder, her finger finding the baby’s mouth to keep its head in position for the final push.

And through it all the two men talked to and encouraged the woman, who still made no more fuss than the occasional mew of discomfort.

Gemma suctioned the tiny boy and as he gave his first cry, she handed him to his father, who pressed the little one against his wife’s chest, the umbilical cord still trailing.

Gemma smiled at the picture, her heart as always gladdened by the miracle of birth, especially gladdened by this one. Here were two young people starting a new life in a strange land—and now they had a child to enrich their future.

‘Do you want to cut the cord?’ she asked the young man.

‘Do Australian men do that?’ he asked, amazement widening his shining black eyes.

‘A lot of them do,’ she said, but when Gemma handed him the scissors, Aisha cried out in protest, then spoke urgently in her language.

‘Let me handle this,’ the stranger said, and something in his voice made Gemma turn her attention to the baby, wrapping a cloth around him as she lay against his mother’s breast.

‘He’s beautiful,’ Gemma told her, hoping her smile would translate the words. ‘Truly beautiful.’

With the final stage of delivery finished, Gemma cleaned up her patient then left the little family on the floor of the treatment room, nodding her head towards the door so the stranger followed.

‘They need time alone and I need time to figure out what to do next,’ she explained. Then she looked at him—really looked. Stared, in fact, at mesmeric black eyes set in a swarthy skin, dark eyebrows arched across the obsidian eyes, while his nose was finely boned, leading the gaze down towards lips rimmed in paler skin, not too full but suggesting a sensuality that made her skin tingle.

Skin tingle? It must be because she’d been nervous about the visit that she was reacting this way!

‘Mr Akkedi? I’m assuming that’s who you are?’

He moved his head in such an infinitesimal nod that if she hadn’t been staring at him she wouldn’t have noticed.

‘I’m sorry not to greet you properly. Even now, I can’t really spend time with you. Aisha should be in hospital, or at least somewhere she and the baby can be cared for. I need to get hold of our translator as she’ll know—’

‘Can you not even pause to be pleased with the wonder of birth? To enjoy the achievement of delivering a healthy baby?’

It wasn’t exactly criticism but it felt like it to Gemma.

‘How can I be pleased,’ she protested, ‘when she risked so much? And when she has suffered unnecessarily? Somehow we must learn to overcome the fears some women have about visiting doctors, we must do better—’

She broke off, shook her head at her own regrets, and smiled at him.

‘Of course I should pause,’ she admitted, ‘for surely the birth of a child is a reaffirmation of all that is good in humanity, no matter what has gone before.’

Yusef stared at her—at the smile that had transformed her face. She was a mess, this woman with the wild red hair escaping from the bounds of a scarf, clad in a faded T-shirt and jeans worn by age rather than fashion. Shadows of tiredness lay dark beneath her pale green eyes, almost translucent, like the new spring leaves on the almond trees at home. Yet her smile made her face come alive, as if all the tiny golden freckles on her skin were sparking with electricity, causing a glow.

Was he mad? Standing in this shabby house, staring at a woman, when so much work awaited him at home? He had to talk to her, professionally. Had to explain his plans.

Not that he could when she was obviously still thinking of the couple and their baby. Her smile faded and worry etched lines in her forehead.

‘Surely time, and perhaps the experience of those like Aisha, will overcome those fears,’ he said, wanting to see Gemma Murray smile again.

‘I keep hoping that’s the case,’ she said.

Yusef nodded, although the doubt in her voice puzzled him. Everything he had learned about this woman and the centre she had set up built a picture of someone who really cared not only about her patients but about treating them with respect for their culture and heritage. As for fear, how could she think the patients might fear her when he had seen at first hand her kindness to the young couple, her empathy and understanding as she’d delivered their child?

He watched her cross the hall, her mind no doubt on her patient, but as she passed the front door it opened and another young woman, also from her looks Somali, came bursting in.

‘Aisha?’ she asked, and Gemma Murray, for although introductions hadn’t been completed Yusef knew it must be her, replied.

‘Sahra, I was about to call you. Aisha’s in there,’ she said, pointing to the room, ‘with her husband and new son. Will you talk to them, Sahra, and sort out what’s best to do for both of them now? This is Mr Akkedi, our benefactor. I have to talk to him but I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.’

She led the way towards the back of the house and Yusef followed her, then looked with distaste at the collection of old chairs that surrounded an equally old Formica table.

‘You do not use the money for some decent furniture?’ he asked, then realised his mistake for the woman had turned back towards him with a frown.

‘New tables and chairs for the kitchen or an ultrasound machine—there’s no choice, you know. Actually, a new table and chairs would cost much less but there’s always something more important. Would you like a coffee?’

He glanced at the tin of instant coffee on the kitchen bench and gave an inward shudder, although he’d drunk the same brand when he’d been working in Africa, and had survived.

‘No, thank you.’

A man who only drank real coffee, Gemma surmised. He was reminding her more and more of her grandfather! Well, that was too bad! She put on the kettle, explaining as she did so that she needed caffeine, and needed it now!

‘The young woman, Aisha, was a patient?’ the man asked, and she sighed, poured boiling water over the coffee powder, added sugar and sat down.

‘Aisha came to us early in her pregnancy. She knew her delivery might be difficult and we discussed all options, including Caesarean.’

She took a sip of coffee and risked another look at the man, who was now sitting cautiously on the edge of a chair across the table from her. A table without mock orange flowers to brighten it or perfume the room.

‘You spoke to her in her own language. Do you know Somalia?’ she asked him, thinking she might have less to explain if he’d been in the country.

‘I worked there in a refugee camp for some years,’ he said, surprising her so much the coffee went down the wrong way and she coughed and snorted.

‘I am dressed for business today,’ he said, ultra-cool but reading the cause of her surprise with ease. ‘Neither should you judge by appearances!’

‘Of course,’ Gemma managed realising she’d been put firmly in her place. ‘But I asked because I wondered if you knew much of their customs and beliefs, which obviously you would. Perhaps not the women, though. They want big families, many children…’

‘And they worry that a Caesar will prevent them having as many as they want?’

Gemma nodded.

‘Not all of them, but some. Perhaps that’s why I’ve seen little of Aisha lately, why I feel I’ve failed her.’

‘She came to you when she needed help, that is not failure.’ He sounded so stern she had to look at him again, although she’d been trying to avoid doing that, as looking at him was causing some very strange reactions in her body.

‘I suppose so.’

‘Of course so. You cannot make patients come to you!’

‘You know this?’

‘I am a surgeon—or was a surgeon. Working with refugees, you try to help wherever you can and whoever you can, but you cannot help those who do not wish to be helped.’

The dark eyes held shadows of pain so deep Gemma wondered just what horrors he must have seen, but every instinct told her he was a very private man and she shouldn’t—couldn’t—pry.

‘Is it because of your work with the refugees that you have put so much money into our centre?’

‘That, and other reasons,’ he said, his voice suggesting he was still lost in memory.

Fortunately, Sahra appeared at that moment.

‘I will take Aisha and her baby home to my place. My mother will take care of them both and if they are there and either of them have problems I will take them to the hospital.’

‘Fantastic,’ Gemma told her, then turned to her visitor. This is Sahra. She, too, is from Somalia but has been here longer, going to school then university and getting her nursing and specialist midwifery qualifications, so as well as translating for those of us who find it hard to learn the language, she understands the best ways to help the women.’

The stranger stood up and held out his hand.

‘Sheikh Yusef Akkedi,’ he said, and to Gemma’s amazement, the usually undemonstrative Sahra simply took his hand, sank low into a curtsey and kissed his fingers.

‘But you are famous, Your Highness,’ she said, still on her knees. ‘My family get papers from home, we read of you and see your name, learn of your elevation to be the leader of your country. I did not recognise you immediately—you have no beard now.’

She released his hand and put her own hand to her cheek, then, even through her dark skin, Gemma saw her blush as the visitor helped her to her feet.

‘I am honoured to have met you,’ Sahra added, then hurried out the door, almost falling over herself in her confusion.

Confusion resounded in Gemma’s mind and body.

‘I’d better check on the couple and the baby but I’ll be right back,’ she told the man—a sheikh? A highness?

She’d heard of the incredible wealth of sheikhs, but Sahra curtseying like that—is that how she should have been treating him?

Gemma followed Sahra, needing time to sort out why this man’s status should come as such a shock to her. Surely she wasn’t worried about who donated money. It didn’t matter as long as the centre could continue its work.

Aisha was on her feet, cradling the swaddled baby in her arms, her husband proudly supporting his wife and child.

‘You are sure you don’t want to take her to the hospital so both of them can be checked out?’ Gemma asked the young man.

‘No hospital,’ he said, so firmly Gemma suspected they’d made the decision some time ago. ‘We go with Sahra, and Aisha’s mother will help Sahra’s mother care for the baby while Aisha rests.’

Gemma led them out but couldn’t let them go without having one more look at the tiny infant, so perfect in every way, his ebony skin shining, his dark eyes gazing unfocusedly at the world into which he had been born. Aisha let go of the swaddled bundle long enough for Gemma to hold him, and her arms felt the familiar heavy ache, not of loss but of dreams unfulfilled…

‘Definitely miraculous,’ she admitted to the sheikh, who had appeared at the back of the hall to see the little family off.

Yusef watched her as she handed back the baby, reluctantly it seemed to him, then opened the door to let the group out. What had made this woman, who could be earning big money as a specialist in a city practice, take on the frustrating and often, he imagined, impossible task, of providing medical care for immigrant women and their children?

That she also went beyond straight medical care, he knew from the reports he had read. She had a part-time psychologist on staff, and ran various clubs and get-togethers for the women who visited the centre. She had dragooned a dentist into service once a fortnight and a paediatrician visited once a month to see the children of the women who used the centre.

He studied her as she spoke to the nurse, seeing a profile with a high forehead beneath the red hair, a long thin nose, neatly curved lips and a chin with a small dimple that saved it from being downright stubborn. A handsome woman, not beautiful but attractive in the real sense of the word—attracting glances, he was sure, wherever she went.

Yet she made nothing of herself, scraping the vibrant hair back into a tight knot and swathing it with a scarf, although he doubted it stayed tidy long, and wearing no make-up to hide the little golden freckles most women he knew would consider blemishes.

She was back inside, shutting the door behind her, and she must have seen his visual check because she gave a shrug and said, ‘It is Sunday morning and I was in the centre, making sure all the paperwork was in order for your visit, and that the place was clean. I do have some decent clothes to change into if you’ve time to wait.’

Yusef had to smile.

‘Of course you mustn’t change for me. Was my study of you so obvious?’ he asked, as she led the way back to the kitchen.

‘Not as obvious as the look on your face when you were wondering why on earth I do the job I do,’ she said, and Yusef, who, like all his people, prided himself on keeping all his thoughts and emotions hidden behind a bland face, felt affronted.

And she read that emotion too, chuckling, more to herself than to him, then explaining.

‘I deal with women who are past masters at hiding their emotions behind the blankest of expressions. Reading their faces, the slightest changes in their expressions, helps me to know when I’ve pushed too far, or reached ground too delicate to tread.’

It was the simple truth, for he too could read people, but the mystery remained.

‘And why do you do the job you do?’

She slumped down in a chair and picked up her coffee, which by now must be lukewarm as well as revolting.

‘Because I love it?’

‘You make that a question. Are you not sure, or are you asking me if I’d believe that answer?’

She glanced his way then shrugged her shoulders.

‘I do love it, but it wasn’t because I doubted you’d believe me. I think the question you were asking was more than that, because how could I possibly have known how much pleasure it would give me before I began the centre?’

‘Yet it gives you grief, as well,’ Yusef persisted, although he was coming close to personal ground—ground he rarely trod with either men or women, particularly not with women he didn’t know. ‘I saw your face as you examined Aisha.’

Gemma studied him in silence and he could almost hear the debate going on inside her head. Would she answer him or brush him off? In the end, she did answer, but perhaps it was a brush-off as well.

‘Terrible things happen to innocent people, we all know that, our news broadcasts are full of it every day. A war here, a famine there, floods and earthquakes and tidal waves—these things we can’t control, but what we can do is help pick up the pieces. Some of those pieces wash up on the shores of my country, and it gives me more joy than grief if I can help them.’

Yusef heard the truth of what she said in every word and although what he wanted back at home was not someone to pick up scraps left by disasters, well, not entirely, he did want someone with the empathy this woman felt and the understanding she had for marginalised people. His country was changing, and many tribal groups that had once roamed freely over all the desert before those lands had had borders and names were now having to live within the boundaries of a particular country—many of them in his country.

These people saw the money flowing into his country, and the life it could provide, and wanted some of it for themselves, but their arrival was putting stresses on basic infrastructure like hospitals and clinics. This, in itself, was causing difficulties and unrest, something Yusef wanted to put a stop to as early as possible. He knew the tribal women made the decisions for the family, and that it would take someone special to help them settle comfortably in his land. He’d suspected, from the first time he’d heard of this women’s centre in Sydney that the woman who ran it might be the person he was seeking.

‘You are committed, but your staff? Do they also feel as you do?’

She smiled at him, and again it seemed as if a light had gone on behind the fine, pale skin of her face, illuminating all the tiny freckles so she shone like an oil lamp in the desert darkness. Something shifted in his chest, as if his heart had tugged at its moorings, but he knew such things didn’t happen—a momentary fibrillation, nothing more. Stress, no doubt, brought on by the task that lay ahead of him.

‘I could walk out of here tomorrow and nothing would change,’ she assured him proudly. ‘that is probably my greatest achievement. Although everyone likes to believe he or she is indispensable, it’s certainly not the case here. My staff believe, as I do, that we must treat the women who come here without judging them in any way, and that we must be sensitive to their cultural beliefs and customs and as far as possible always act in ways that won’t offend them.’

She paused then gave a rueful laugh.

‘oh, we make mistakes, and sometimes we let our feelings show—I must have today for you to have picked up on my anxiety when I examined Aisha. But generally we manage and the women have come to trust us.’

‘Except when it comes to a Caesarean birth?’

She gave a little shrug.

‘You’re right. No matter how hard we try to convince them that they can have more children after a Caesarean, they don’t believe us.’

She sighed.

‘There’s no perfect world.’

Yusef took a deep breath, thinking about all she had covered in not so many words. He knew the trauma many women suffered in the refugee camps. Of course this woman—Gemma Murray—would feel their pain, yet she continued to do her job.

He now reflected on the other thing she’d said. She could leave tomorrow and the centre’s work would continue.

Was this true?

What was he thinking now? Gemma wondered.

Had she made a fool of herself talking about the centre the way she had?

Been too emotional?

Gemma watched the man across the table, his gaze fixed on some point beyond her shoulder, obviously thinking but about what she had no clue for his face was totally impassive now.

‘Would you leave tomorrow?’ he asked.

Chapter Two

THE question was so totally unexpected, Gemma could only stare at him, and before she could formulate a reply, he spoke again.

‘And your second house, would you be equally confident leaving it?’

She could feel the frown deepening on her forehead but still couldn’t answer, although she knew she had to—knew there was something important going on here, even if she didn’t understand it.

Think, brain, think!

‘None of your money has gone into the second house,’ she said, then realised she’d sounded far too defensive and tried to laugh it off. ‘Sorry, but I wasn’t sure you knew about it.’

He had a stillness about him, this man who had virtually saved their service, and perhaps because he’d let emotion show earlier and had regretted it, his face was now impossible to read.

‘I know of its existence,’ her visitor said, ‘but not of how it came to be. It seems to me you had enough—is the expression “on your plate”?—without taking on more waifs and strays.’

Was it his stillness that made her fidget with the sugar basin on the table? She wasn’t usually a fidget, but pushing it around and rearranging the salt and pepper grinders seemed to ease her tension as she tried to explain. Actually, anything was preferable to looking at him as she answered, because looking at him was causing really weird sensations in her body.

She was finding him attractive?

Surely not, although he was undeniably attractive…

She moved the pepper grinder back to where it had been and concentrated on business.

‘The sign on our front door, although fairly discreet, does say Women’s Centre, and with our inner-city position, I suppose it was inevitable that some women who were not immigrants would turn up here. Not often, in the beginning, but one in particular, an insulin-dependent diabetic, began to come regularly, and sometimes bring a friend, or recommend us to another woman.’

‘These are women of the streets you talk of?’

The pepper grinder was in the wrong place again and Gemma shifted it, then looked up at her questioner.

‘I don’t know about your country—or even what country you call home—but here a lot of people with mental health problems or addictions end up living on the streets. The government, church and charity organisations all do what they can, and homeless people have the same access to free hospital care at public hospitals, but…’

What did she not want to say? Yusef watched her restless hands, moving things on the table, the tiny golden freckles on her long slim fingers fascinating him. Everything about this woman was fascinating him, which in itself should be a warning to find someone else. The last complication he needed in his life right now was to be attracted to a woman, particularly one he was intending to employ.

Yet his eyes kept straying to her vivid hair, her freckled skin, the way her pale lips moved as she spoke—which she was doing now so he should concentrate.

‘Sometimes there is an element of judgement in the treatment of these women, or if not judgement then a genuine desire to help them, but to help them by changing their way of life.’

She tucked her hands onto her lap where they couldn’t fiddle—and he could no longer see them—and looked directly at him.

‘I am not saying this is a bad thing. I am not saying that organisations dedicated to helping these people shouldn’t exist, it is just that sometimes all they want is a diagnosis of some small problem and, where necessary, a prescription. Sometimes they don’t want to be helped in other ways, or cured of an addiction, or to change their lives.’

Was she so naïve? Could she not see that a lot of the organisations set up for these people were funded on the basis that they did attempt to change lives? It was their duty to at least try!

‘But surely a drug addict should be helped to fight his or her addiction?’ he asked, and watched her closely, trying to fathom where her totally non-judgemental attitude had come from. Trying to focus on the discussion they were having, not on the effect she was having on his body.

‘Of course,’ she said, ‘and as I said there are plenty of places willing to help in that way. If someone asks for that kind of help we refer them on, but our—our charter, I suppose you could say, is purely medical. We are a medical centre for people who are intimidated by the public health system, or for some other reason do not wish to use it.’

‘And for that you bought a house?’

Defiance flashed in the pale eyes. Would desire heat them in the same way?

Yusef groaned, but inwardly. It had to be because he’d been so busy these last six months, too busy for anything but the briefest social encounters with women, that his body was behaving the way it was. Not only his body, but his mind, it seemed.

‘I live in that house,’ she said, the words carrying an icy edge. ‘It is my home. And if I choose to turn the upstairs into a flat and the downstairs into a surgery, then that is my business.’

Ah, so she had the fire that supposedly accompanied the colour of her hair—fire and ice…

‘I am not criticising. I think it is admirable, and that brings me back to my original question. Could you walk away from these services you have set up?’

Gemma studied him, suspicion coiling in her stomach, keeping company with the other stuff that was happening there every time she looked at this man. It couldn’t be attraction, for all that he was the best looking man she’d ever seen. She didn’t do attraction any more. Attraction led to such chaos it was easier to avoid it.

‘Why are you asking that?’ she demanded, probably too demandingly but he had her rattled. ‘Are you implying that if I left, the staff I’ve trained, the staff who work here because they hold the same beliefs I do, would turn the services into something else? And if so, would you withdraw your funding? Is that where your questions are leading?’

Fire! It was sparking from her now, but he had to concentrate—had to think whether now was the time to talk of the new venture. Probably not. She was too suspicious of him.

‘You may be sure of my contributions to your service continuing, even increasing,’ he said. ‘Though perhaps now would be a good time for me to look at more of the facilities than the treatment room you used for Aisha. Perhaps you can tell me what else is needed.’ He stood up, relieved to get off the uncomfortable and not totally, he suspected, clean chair. ‘Apart,’ he added with a smile, ‘from some new kitchen furniture.’

Gemma was sorry he’d smiled. She’d been okay denying the attraction right up until then, but the smile sneaked through a crack in her defences and weakened not only her resistance but the muscles in her chest so she found it hard to breathe normally and had to remind herself—in, out, in, out!

‘A tour, good,’ she said, standing up and all but running out of the kitchen—anything to escape the man’s presence. Although he’d still be with her, but surely explaining the use to which they put the various rooms would take her mind off the attraction.

She led him through the ground-floor rooms first, then up the stairs to where she’d had two small bedrooms altered to make a larger meeting room.

‘We have playgroups for the children here,’ she said. ‘It’s wonderful to see them all singing nursery rhymes in English, and chattering to each other in a medley of languages that they all seem to understand. In the beginning the mothers usually come along as well, but as they grow in confidence themselves, they will leave the children and go off for a coffee. And as they get to know each other, they make arrangements to meet at places other than the centre, in a park at weekends, with their extended families. The centre has become a kind of cultural crossroads, and that pleases me enormously.’

Talking about the centre was good—Gemma was so wholehearted about what the place had achieved that she didn’t have to pretend enthusiasm. Neither did she have to look at her visitor—well, not more than an occasional glance.

‘And the other rooms on this floor?’

‘A bedroom and bathroom for on-duty staff. I was on-duty last night and although I only live next door I do a night shift here once a month.’

Now she did look at him.

‘We need a doctor on hand for obstetric emergencies. It doesn’t seem to matter how careful we are in our antenatal clinics and how often we take pregnant women to the hospital and show them the birthing suites, nurseries and maternity wards, some, like Aisha, will not go to a hospital.’

He nodded as if he understood, and the haunted look was back on his face, as if he’d seen things in hospitals in other places that he’d rather not remember.

She wanted to reach out and touch his arm, to offer comfort, though for what she didn’t know, but she shrugged off the silly notion as he evidently shrugged off his memories, asking, ‘And is there someone on duty in the other house?’

Gemma shook her head.

‘The other house is strictly week-days, day and evening appointments although most of the patients who attend don’t bother with appointments. From time to time, someone turns up here late at night or on a weekend, but it’s rare. I think the women who use the service consider it a bit special so they are reluctant to abuse it.’

She had no sooner finished speaking than the doorbell peeled, echoing through the empty rooms downstairs.

‘Surely not another emergency birth,’ she muttered as she headed down the steps. She could hear her visitor coming down behind her but her focus was on the door, beyond which she could hear shrill wails.

Gemma flung open the door to find two women grappling on the doorstep. The air smelt of old wet wool and blood, which was liberally splattered over both of them. As Gemma moved closer she thought she saw the flash of a knife, then she was thrust aside by a powerful arm and the man who’d followed her stepped past her, putting his arms around one of the women and lifting her cleanly off the step.

‘Drop the knife,’ he ordered, not loudly but with such authority the woman in his arms obeyed instantly, a battered, rusty carving knife falling to the ground.

Gemma scooped it up and shoved it behind the umbrella stand in the foyer, temporarily out of harm’s way, then she turned her attention to the woman who had had collapsed onto the floor just inside the door—Jackie, one of the older women who used the medical services at the house next door.

The sheikh—after his authoritative intervention Gemma found herself thinking of him that way—was talking soothingly to the attacker, whom he had settled into a chair.

‘What happened, Jackie?’ Gemma asked as she bent over the woman on the floor. Jackie didn’t reply but Gemma could see blood oozing between the fingers of her left hand, which were clasped tightly on her upper right arm.

‘Touched my things. She touched my things,’ Bristow, the second woman, roared from the other side of the room.

‘Jackie wouldn’t do that,’ Gemma said, turning to face the attacker, who was huddled in the chair, her damp and wrinkled layers of cardigans and coats making her look like an insect that had sunk back into its chrysalis. The sheikh stood beside her, perhaps perplexed by her retreat. ‘She’s your friend,’ Gemma added. ‘She knows not to touch your things.’

Gemma helped Jackie back to her feet and half carried her into the treatment room, the sheikh joining her and lifting Jackie onto the examination table. This time the patient didn’t object and Gemma was able to unfasten Jackie’s fingers and move enough clothing to see the long, deep gash in Jackie’s arm.

‘She needs to go to hospital—it’s deep, there could be nerve and ligament damage.’

The sheikh was right behind her, and Gemma turned, puzzled by his instant diagnosis.

‘I told you I was a surgeon,’ he said, but his voice was drowned out by Jackie’s cries.

‘No hospital, no hospital. I can’t go to hospital,’ she wailed, and Gemma turned towards the visitor.

‘There are reasons,’ she said quietly.

‘Then I’ll do it,’ he said. ‘You can get me what I need—I assume you have sutures—and assist me. Her friend will be all right?’

Gemma didn’t know how to answer that. She’d known Bristow for over a year and never seen any signs of violence, but now this had happened, who knew what the little woman might do?

‘You’ll do it yourself?’

It didn’t seem right. The man was a benefactor—not to mention a sheikh and apparently a highness, although that really wasn’t the point. Surely sheikhs had as much right to be surgeons as anyone else. It just seemed…unseemly somehow that the man in the beautiful suit should be—

‘Shall I look for myself to see what’s available?’ Curt words! The man had tied his handkerchief around Jackie’s arm to slow the bleeding and was obviously getting impatient.

Gemma hurried towards the cabinet. Jackie’s tremors were getting stronger and though a quick glance had shown that Bristow was still sitting on a chair in the foyer; if she disappeared further into her coat she’d be nothing but a bundle of rags. And, Gemma knew from experience, she wouldn’t emerge to answer questions or even move from the chair for some considerable time.

‘Here,’ she told the visitor, unlocking the cabinet and piling all she thought he might need onto a tray. Local anaesthetic, a bottle of antiseptic liquid, swabs, sutures and dressings joined a couple of pairs of gloves.

‘A gown—there must be a plain gown,’ she muttered, but as hard as she flipped through the folded gowns on the bottom shelf there was nothing that was really suitable for such a man.

‘Anything will do,’ he said, calling to her from the sink at the corner where he’d stripped off his coat, rolled up his shirtsleeves and was now scrubbing his hands.

‘It’ll have to,’ Gemma muttered to herself but the largest gown she could find, one she often wore herself, had bunny rabbits hopping gleefully all over it.

Yusef grimaced as she held it up for him but, wanting to save his shirt and suit trousers, he slid his arms into it and let her tie it behind him, concentrating on the job ahead, not his awareness of the woman who’d slipped her arms around him to get the ties. He snapped on gloves and returned to his patient. She was trembling, but whether from nerves or from pain or from a pre-existing condition he had no idea.

All he could do was try to soothe her, talking quietly to her, knowing that the sound of a human voice was sometimes more important than the words it spoke. The gash on her arm was deep and he worried that it might be infected.

‘Will she take a course of antibiotics?’ He turned so he could quietly ask the question of Gemma without upsetting the patient.

‘Probably not, but if we give her a tetanus and antibiotic shot today, that might hold off any infection. We can try to get her back to have the stitches removed.’

Yusef understood what she was saying—that these women might not return to the surgery for months, but if Jackie could be convinced to come back for some reason then they might be able to give her more antibiotics.

He swabbed and stitched, talking all the time, feeling Jackie growing calmer under his prattle. And it was prattle. He talked of a wound he’d had as a young boy, out in the desert, a wound one of the women of the family had stitched with sewing thread. Then, for good measure, he told her of the infection that had set in and how his father had told him he’d lose his arm if he didn’t take some medicine. This last part wasn’t quite true, and he read disbelief in Gemma’s eyes, but she seemed to understand his motive and went along with it.

But having Gemma so close to him was accelerating all the physical impulses his body was experiencing, and adding to his belief that taking this woman to his country might not be the best of ideas.

Except that she was so exactly what he needed! What the service he hoped to set up needed.

‘I bet there’s no infection scar,’ she muttered to him, as they left Jackie, wound stitched and dressed, on the table and went to wash their hands.

‘You’re right, although the sewing thread part was true. In point of fact, my father was in the city at the time, but when he heard, he sent a helicopter and had me flown out, flying in a surgeon from Singapore of all places to ensure the wound would heal as cleanly as possible.’

Gemma shook her head. The man must inhabit a world so different from her own it seemed like another planet. But other planet or not, he had been extremely helpful, and still could be.

‘If you could help Jackie off the table, maybe offer her a cup of tea and something to eat, I’ll talk to Bristow.’

He looked startled, as if no one had ever asked him to make tea for a street-person before, but then he smiled and crossed to Jackie’s side, talking again—more stories?

Gemma found Bristow still huddled in the chair in the foyer. She squatted beside her.

‘Talk to me,’ she said, her voice quietly persuasive. ‘Tell me what happened.’

Bristow’s head inched out of the coat.

‘Medicine, she tried to take my medicine. She take that and she die. I tell her she die.’

Tears began rolling down Bristow’s cheeks, her rheumy eyes reddened by her anguish.

‘You’re right,’ Gemma told her, patting the bundle of rags. ‘It’s okay. I understand and Jackie’s going to be okay. Now, seeing you’re here, let’s go into my office and I’ll check you out.’

‘I need my knife.’

Gemma hesitated, then pulled the knife from behind the umbrella stand.

‘I can’t give it back to you,’ she said gently, touching Bristow on the cheek. ‘You must know that.’

Bristow’s head dropped deeper into the bundle of coats and rags and Gemma felt so guilty she added, ‘You don’t really need it, Bristow. Jackie won’t touch your things again.’

‘My things outside. Must get my things.’ Bristow had hopped off the chair and was bouncing up and down, her agitation increasing every second.

Gemma ushered her out, knowing the elderly woman wouldn’t be settled until she had her old pram full of plastic bags of treasure with her again. They retrieved the pram, then she led Bristow into a consulting room and talked quietly to her, although she’d have loved to have been a fly on the wall in the kitchen. All she could hear was the faint murmur of the man’s voice, but his presence in the old house unsettled Gemma as she talked Bristow out of her agitation, checked her blood sugar and assured her she’d done the right thing in not letting Jackie touch her insulin but gently chiding her for using the knife.

‘She had to understand,’ Bristow said, and Gemma shrugged, not wanting to agitate the woman again. Bristow was right, and even if her methods were a little extreme, Gemma was reasonably sure that Jackie would never touch the insulin again.

‘So maybe now we can talk.’

Gemma shut the door on the ill-assorted pair and turned to find her visitor right behind her. He’d taken off the happy, hopping bunny wrap but hadn’t put on his jacket, which he’d hung on the knob at the bottom of the stair banister. He’d also removed his tie and draped it over his coat, so, with his shirtsleeves rolled up and his collar unbuttoned, he looked a very different man from the one she’d met earlier that morning.

An even more attractive man!

And given the attraction, she should be seeing him off the premises as quickly as possible, but politeness—and his promise of even more donations—prevailed.

‘I’m sorry we keep being interrupted, but it’s lunchtime and Beth’s just arrived to relieve me. Can I offer you some lunch? We can go up to my flat where we won’t be disturbed, or do you have to be somewhere?’

Yusef thought of all the business he’d hoped to get done after his morning meeting at the centre, and all the reasons he shouldn’t be spending more time in this woman’s company, but so far he’d achieved nothing of his main purpose. He had to spend more time with her.

‘Lunch sounds good but can’t I take you somewhere?’

‘Tempting though that sounds, I think we should get down to business and we can hardly do that in a restaurant. Besides, I’m sure you’re already way beyond the time you scheduled for this meeting, so it will be quicker and easier to eat next door.’

She ducked into one of the consulting rooms to speak to someone, then returned, a bundle of keys dangling from her fingers.

‘Beth’s another of the doctors on staff. She’s done the O and G short course and hopes to go back to study next year to do a full specialty course. We’ve been lucky to get so many good quality staff, especially as the pay isn’t nearly as much as they’d earn in private practice.’

She led the way outside, Yusef pausing to grab his jacket and tie, then down the steps and up the steps of the adjacent house, unlocking the bright red front door.

‘The steps are a nuisance but we’ve a ramp at the side entrance next door, which makes it easier for mothers with prams and strollers.’

Was she nervous that her conversation sounded like anxious chatter? Yusef found himself wishing he knew her better so he could judge this reaction.

‘The house is a twin of the one next door?’ He was looking around a black and white tiled foyer, a wooden staircase curving up on the right, doors opening off the passageway on the left. He hung his discarded clothing on the banister again.

‘Exactly the same, except that I’ve only one consulting and treatment room downstairs, and upstairs I’ve converted all the space into a small flat. Come on up.’

Gemma felt a shiver start at the top of her spine and travel down to her toes as she uttered the invitation. But why? She’d been attracted to men before, not often, admittedly, but it had happened. And there’d been handsome men, and wealthy men, and very ordinary men that had stirred something in her—but attraction had never felt like this. Never so instant, so physical, so—hot?

She unlocked the door into her flat, mentally chiding herself for not accepting the man’s invitation to go out somewhere for lunch. Once he’d been into the flat, his image, she guessed, would haunt it.

Shaking her head at such fanciful thoughts, she waved him into the big room that was divided into functions by its furniture—living room, dining room and at the far end a small kitchen.

‘Compact and functional,’ he said, looking around but not taking an armchair in the living area, moving instead to the kitchen bench where he pulled out a stool and settled on it. ‘And a coffee machine! Thank heavens. Do you do a strong espresso?’

Gemma turned the machine on and programmed it, setting a small cup under the spout. She felt uncomfortable now that she had such a luxury in her own home yet the kitchen-cum-tearoom in the centre was so poorly furnished. Embarrassment curled her toes.

‘It was a present from a cousin,’ she said. ‘I could hardly give it away to the centre.’

Sheikh Yusef Akkedi, the highness, smiled at her.

‘So defensive,’ he teased, making the toe-curl far worse than it had been. ‘Believe me, in my tent in Mogadishu, I treasured little comforts myself. Not a coffee machine but a small coffee pot I could put over a flame, and coffee grounds I hoarded like a miser.’

Gemma turned from where she was digging lettuce and tomatoes out of her refrigerator and stared at him.

‘You mentioned Africa before, and I know of the wonderful work medical organisations do in such places, but—’

‘But me?’ he said, smiling again, although this time the sadness was back in his eyes. ‘You hear Sahra use the “highness” word and wonder what such a person is doing working with refugees?’

‘Well, yes,’ Gemma admitted, taking the little cup of espresso from the machine and passing it to him, being careful to set it down in front of him so their fingers didn’t touch. It was bad enough having him close, but touching him? ‘Even being a doctor,’ she added, pulling herself together.

‘The “highness” part is very recent,’ her visitor replied, unaware of the confusion he was causing in her body. ‘And totally unexpected. My oldest brother inherited the title from my father, but there are no strict guidelines of succession in my country. The current ruler chooses his successor, choosing someone he believes will follow in the way he has ruled. He might choose a brother or a cousin, although my father chose his eldest son. Unfortunately my brother didn’t want the task. He is an aesthete and prefers to spend his life in spiritual learning and contemplation. He could not tell our father this for it would have disappointed him, but when my father died my brother relinquished the crown.’

‘Passing it to you,’ Gemma put in, wondering if there was an actual crown or if it was a figure of speech. She wondered about the country her visitor now ruled. There’d been no mention of it, but she knew it would be a long way off—way beyond her hope of ever reaching.

And that couldn’t possibly be regret she was feeling…

Yusef moved his head, just slightly, indicating she’d guessed incorrectly. Was she interested or just making conversation? With women he could never tell, a gap in his education he put down to not having known his mother, although there’d been women aplenty in his life. Transient women, he considered them, there for a while but moving on, perhaps being forced to move on by his lack of commitment to them—his detachment—

‘My brother intended passing the title to his next brother, the one above me, because that is how it would most easily have been done,’ Yusef explained. ‘But even before my father died that brother was working with foreign companies, bringing them in to search for oil, making treaties that would allow them access to whatever they discovered in return for favours for the country.’

The woman frowned at him.

‘You sound as if you disapprove, but isn’t that how the countries around yours have been able to go ahead? And hasn’t oil made the people of those lands wealthy?’

‘Of course it has, and what my business brother does is good—essential—and that is his life—his love,’ Yusef told her, a little curtly, though why her pointing out the obvious about their wealth should worry him he didn’t know. Maybe it was because her frown had disturbed him. ‘But you must know that wealth is not everything. Wealth, as I said earlier, attracts more people to the country. My brother sees this as a good thing. He does not see the overcrowded schools and hospitals and clinics, the sick children and mothers who have suffered in childbirth.’

‘But with money surely all of this can be altered,’ Gemma pointed out. ‘More hospitals built, more medical care, more schools.’

‘More schools so more diseases can spread,’ he muttered, and heard the bitterness in his voice. ‘Physically things can be fixed in time,’ he admitted, ‘but the values of my people from the early tribal days have been sharing and caring—looking after each other. I want to find a way to keep these values while at the same time bringing my country into the twenty-first century.’

Now the woman smiled at him, and her smile caused more disturbance than her frown.

‘I think I can see why your oldest brother chose you, not the one above you to be the highness,’ she said, and he realised she was teasing him—gently, but still teasing.

‘You keep mentioning the highness word, but that is all it is, a word.’

‘A word with power,’ she said, still smiling slightly. ‘So, what about your profession? Will you still have time to practise? What hospital facilities do you have? And universities? Do you train your own doctors?’

She sounded genuinely interested so he set aside his strange reaction to the teasing to respond.

‘We have a beautiful new hospital with accommodation for staff beside it, and a university that is still in its infancy, although our first locally trained doctors will graduate this year.’

‘Men and women?’

‘Of course, although it is harder to persuade women to continue their studies to university. That is one of the tasks ahead of me, the—I suppose you would say emancipation of the women of my country, so women can find a place and are represented in all areas of life. This is very difficult when traditionally business and professions were considered the domain of men.’

‘In the Western world as well,’ Gemma assured him. ‘We just got started on the emancipation thing a little earlier than some other places. But you talk of your country—’ Gemma sliced tomatoes and cucumber as she spoke ‘—and I don’t even know its name. Is it an African country that you were working there?’

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 happening 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…