The Palazzo Versace was the first six-star hotel built on the Gold Coast, her grandfather’s apartment one of a few privately owned condominiums included in the ritzy complex. As residents, they were free to make use of all the hotel facilities, the beautiful pools, the restaurants and the day spa, so she’d often played with the children of hotel guests as she had been growing up.
But one called Ghazi?
She had no memory of it at all, even when Pop returned with a box of photos showing her as a very small child with a boy who stood much taller. the photos told her they’d had fun together, two children at play while slender, black-robed figures sat in the shade by the pool.
‘This is the one,’ Pop, who’d been sifting through the photos, declared.
He handed it to her.
It was a more formal shot showing a tidily dressed little girl, blonde hair in pigtails, pale blue eyes looking up at the boy sitting on the arm of one of the big lounge chairs in the hotel’s foyer—a white-robed boy, who was holding her hand and smiling down at her.
Even then you could tell he was going to be good looking, although the miniature white headdress he was wearing in the photo concealed all but his profile. Strong nose and jaw, a high forehead, shapely lips widened in a slight smile—
‘Hey, I was looking at that,’ Marni protested as Pop turned the photo over.
He ignored her, pointing at the writing on the back. The top line was in his handwriting and, sure enough, there was this nonsense about the two of them being betrothed, Pop’s signature at the end of the statement.
Beneath that was a line of beautiful, flowing, Arabic script, and presumably another signature.
‘Honestly, Pop, you can’t read Arabic so for all you know the man’s written something like, “This nonsense should make the man happy!”’
Marni regretted her words the moment they’d popped out of her mouth and she caught the hurt in her grandfather’s eyes, hurt that prompted a quick hug and a totally impulsive promise to go right now and apply for the job in a country called Ablezia.
‘And I’ll do my best to see this guy but only if you agree to have the operation,’ Marni added. ‘Deal?’
‘Deal!’ Pop agreed, and they shook on it, the slight tremble in her grandfather’s hand reminding her just how frail he had become.
WAS IT THE subtle scent that perfumed the warm air—salt, spices, a fruit she couldn’t identify—or the air itself that wrapped around her like the finest, softest, mohair blanket? Or was it the mind-boggling beauty of a landscape of red desert dunes alongside brilliant cobalt seas, the dense green of a palm grove in an oasis at the edge of the desert, or the tall skyscrapers that rose from the sand like sculpted, alien life forms?
Or perhaps the people themselves, the shy but welcoming smile of a headscarfed woman, the cheeky grin of tousle-haired boy, pointing at her fair skin and hair?
Marni had no idea. She couldn’t give an answer to the question of why she’d fallen in love with this strange, exotic land within hours of stepping off the plane, but in love she was—flushed with excitement as she explored the narrow market lanes that sneaked off the city highways, trembling with delight the first time she dived into the crystal-clear waters, and shyly happy when a group of local women, fellow nurses, asked her to join them for lunch in the hospital canteen.
This was her first day at the hospital, her schedule having allowed her four free days to explore her new home before starting work, and today was more an orientation day, finding her way around the corridors, feeling at home with the unfamiliar layout and the more familiar hospital buzz. Now her new friends were telling her about the theatres where they all worked, which surgeons were quick to anger, which ones talked a lot, which ones liked music as they worked, and which ones flirted.
Hmm! So there were some flirts!
Would they flirt with her?
Seriously?
The young women giggled and tittered behind their hands as they discussed this last category and Marni wanted to ask if they flirted back, but felt she was too new to the country and understood too little of the local ways. So she listened to the chat, enjoying it, feeling more and more at home as she realised the women’s words could be talk among theatre nurses anywhere in the world, except that it was never personal—no mention of family or relationships—usually the main topics of conversation among nurses back home.
But for all the ease she felt with her fellow nurses, nerves tightened her sinews, and butterflies danced polkas in her stomach when she reported for duty the next day.
‘Welcome,’ Jawa, one of the nurses she’d met the previous day, said as Marni pushed through the door into the theatre dressing room. ‘This morning you will enjoy for Gaz is operating. He’s not only a good surgeon, but he takes time to tell us what he is doing so we can learn.’
Aware that many of the staff at the hospital were imports like herself, she wondered if Gaz might be an Australian, the name a shortened Aussie version of Gary or Gareth. Not that she had time to dwell on the thought, for Jawa was handing her pale lavender—lavender?—theatre pyjamas, a cap and mask, talking all the time in her liltingly accented English.
‘So we must hurry for he is not one of those surgeons who keep patients or staff waiting. He is always on time.’
Jawa led the way through to the theatre where they scrubbed and gloved up, ready for what lay ahead. The bundle of instruments on the tray at Marni’s station—she would be replenishing Jawa’s tray as Jawa passed instruments to the surgeon—looked exactly the same as the bundles at home, and relieved by the familiarity of that and her surroundings she relaxed.
Until the gowned, capped, gloved and half-masked figure of the surgeon strode into the room, when every nerve in her body tightened and the hairs on her arms and back of her neck stood to attention.
He’s just a man! she told herself, but that didn’t stop a tremble in the pit of her stomach as he looked around the room, dark eyes taking in the newcomer, his head nodding in acknowledgement, the eyes holding hers—a second or two, no more—yet causing heat to sear downwards through her body.
‘So, we have a stranger in our midst,’ the man who was causing the problems said, his voice reverberating through her like the echoes of carillon bells. ‘And you are?’
‘Marni Graham, sir,’ she said, hoping she sounded more in control than she felt.
‘In here I’m Gaz, just Gaz, Marni Graham,’ he said. ‘Welcome to the team.’
She really should say something—respond in some way—but her voice was lost somewhere in the general muddle of the new and unbelievably vital sensations she was experiencing right now.
Lust at first sight?
It can’t be, Marni argued with herself, but silently and very weakly.
The man in question had pulled his mask up to cover his nose and mouth, and seemed about to turn away, but before he
