Red-Hot Desert Docs. Carol Marinelli

while she understood that he might not fancy her she loathed the sudden false niceness.

      ‘I’m going to call a friend to come and get me,’ Adele said.

      ‘No, you’re not,’ Zahir refuted. ‘We need to talk.’

      ‘About?’

      ‘We shall discuss things in the car.’

      He made no secret that he was taking her home. In fact, when Phillip asked Adele how she was getting home, Zahir responded that he would take her himself.

      And, really, no one gave it a thought.

      Janet had offered her a lift and so had Helene and a couple of other staff too.

      Of course her colleagues were concerned.

      The mood was sombre and assaults on staff were not good for morale.

      ‘Here.’ Janet had fetched Adele’s clothes from her locker and brought her a towel and the little overnight pack that Gladys and Phillip would be getting too.

      It contained a tiny bar of soap, a minute tube of toothpaste, a toothbrush and a little plastic comb.

      Adele freshened up and pulled on the tube skirt and top she had worn yesterday and slipped on shoes.

      Zahir was waiting for her at the desk and speaking with Janet.

      ‘I’m on my holidays!’ Adele smiled. ‘Do you think I’ll pull?’ And it made Janet laugh as she stood there with a huge black eye.

      ‘Have a wonderful break, Adele,’ Janet said, as Adele walked out in the clothes she had arrived in, trying not to be just a little more disillusioned with the world.

      ‘Send us a postcard...’

      They walked out and Adele winced at the bright morning sunlight.

      ‘You’re not very good at parking your car,’ Adele commented, because it was over the line and at an angle.

      He did not tell her the reason—that on hearing she had been injured he had hit the accelerator and when he had arrived he had practically run in to see how she was.

      Instead, he held open the door for her.

      Adele got in and a moment later he joined her.

      ‘We meet again,’ she said.

      As he drove past the bus stop Zahir thought of all the times he had driven on, pretending not to have noticed her there.

      And so did Adele.

      She didn’t understand why he briefly turned and smiled.

      She didn’t smile back.

      ‘Are you sulking?’ he asked.

      ‘Yes, I’m sulking.’

      ‘Are you warm enough?’ he asked, because he had the air conditioner on up high.

      ‘You can stop being nice now,’ she said. ‘I’m not your patient any more.’

      ‘No, you’re not. Adele, I have spoken with my mother. If you are still interested, she would love you to be her private nurse.’

      ‘I don’t need you feeling sorry for me, Zahir.’

      ‘I spoke to her last night, before the incident.’

      He had.

      Zahir had thought long and hard about it.

      He had been avoiding Adele for twelve months now and it had got him precisely nowhere.

      He wasn’t used to avoiding anything, yet his feelings for Adele could challenge a lifetime of thinking and centuries of tradition.

      Wasn’t he asking his father to do the same?

      It was time to face things.

      ‘On Monday she will fly home to Mamlakat Almas. A car would collect you at six in the morning and you would meet her at the airport...and you would return to England on a commercial flight two weeks later.’

      Adele frowned.

      ‘You don’t have to worry about a uniform or what to wear, everything will be provided.’

      She turned and looked at him and for the first time since last night she properly smiled. ‘What does that even mean?’

      ‘Just bring what you feel you want to. We are very used to having guests in the palace and accommodating them.’

      ‘Oh.’

      ‘And if you are worried about something, there will be someone who can advise you. It really will be relaxing and you need that. Especially after last night.’

      Excitement started to ooze in, like jam squeezing out a sandwich as you took a bite, but Adele did what she could to rein it in for now as the car pulled up at her flat.

      ‘I will do some studying up on hysterectomies...’

      ‘Adele.’ Zahir smiled. And in her direction too! ‘It’s a holiday. My mother will just need a little encouragement to walk, especially on the plane, and some reassurance, but we both know a private nurse is a touch unnecessary. She is, though, a queen. The second week would be yours to completely enjoy.’

      ‘I want to see the desert,’ Adele admitted.

      ‘I’m sure it will be arranged.’

      There was such energy between them, he knew that she felt it and how confused she must be by his cool treatment of her.

      ‘You should go in,’ he said, as still they sat outside her flat. ‘Get some rest. You didn’t sleep much last night.’

      ‘I had Gladys singing and Phillip snoring.’

      He said nothing, he was too deep in thought.

      It was Adele who broke the silence.

      ‘Thank you, Zahir. I know you didn’t want me there but I really will take care of her.’

      ‘I know you will. You will love my country. It really is magical.’

      ‘I don’t believe in magic,’ Adele said. She had stopped believing in magic and miracles a very long time ago.

      She had prayed so hard for her mother’s recovery, and had later downgraded that plea to just the tiniest sign that her mother knew she was near.

      Zahir looked at her bruise. ‘You need to ice your eye.’

      ‘I will.’

      ‘And use some arnica cream.’

      ‘Okay.’

      For a second there she felt as if he was going to examine it again but though he raised his hand, he changed his mind.

      And then, in that moment, she felt his resistance.

      He hadn’t been about to examine her.

      Experience counted for nothing in this equation, for Adele had none, but she was quite sure then that she had been about to be kissed.

      Maybe it was the knock to her head that was causing irrational thoughts.

      Lack of sleep.

      Too much want.

      She needed to go, she knew, because she wanted to reach over and kiss him, and if she was reading things wrong she would never get over the shame.

      She opened the car door and then, as she started to get out, she realised that she still had her seat belt on.

      There could be no dignified exit, though, when there was a pulse beating between your legs.

      She went to undo her belt.

      He went to do the same.

      For a year he had relied on self-control.

      It was dissolving.

      Zahir