tongue, as well as diverting Khaled’s knowing gaze.
After breakfast they all returned to their rooms to fetch swimming costumes. A few minutes after Lucy had changed into her modest one-piece and wrapped a sarong firmly around her waist, Khaled knocked on their door. Sam flung it open.
‘Ready?’ Khaled asked, smiling.
‘Ready!’
He led them down to the pool, which was every bit as spectacular as the view from above had promised. It had been built into the mountainside to resemble a natural lagoon, complete with waterfalls, rock slides and a little bridge.
Equipped with armbands, Sam was in heaven. He plunged in up to his waist, and then turned to Khaled.
‘Come in!’
‘All right.’ Khaled shrugged off his tee-shirt, and Lucy sucked in a breath.
She’d forgotten how beautiful he was.
Yet she hadn’t, not really; she’d tried to, and failed. For just one glimpse of the hard, sculpted muscle of his chest, golden skin and fuzz of dark hair made her remember with a rush how that chest had felt against her body, how his hair had tickled her lips. How his skin was hot and taut and so surprisingly smooth.
Khaled wore only a pair of swimming trunks, and Lucy saw the thick support brace wrapped around his knee, covering his leg from mid-thigh to nearly mid-calf.
Lucy watched Sam and Khaled swim together, content for the moment to spend some time stretched out on a lounger. Sam hadn’t had much experience with pools or swimming, but he caught on quickly, and within minutes he was launching himself at Khaled, who caught him before tossing him up into the air. Each time Sam landed with a splash and a giggle of glee, and bemusedly Lucy didn’t know which sound was louder.
It tugged at her heart to see them together, looking so natural, so happy, so right. It made her regret the years they’d all lost, when Khaled hadn’t been a part of Sam’s life.
She’d convinced herself that Sam didn’t need Khaled, that she didn’t.
Now she wondered whether they both did. The thought terrified her.
Sam hurled himself into Khaled’s arms yet again, and Lucy smiled wryly. Khaled couldn’t have created a better picture of familial bliss if he’d planned it. Maybe he had, she acknowledged, but he couldn’t have contrived Sam’s devotion to him. In fact, she wondered if Sam’s easy acceptance had taken Khaled by surprise, had made him determined to suggest this outrageous marriage.
A loveless, sensible marriage.
Is that obvious as well?
Stop it, Lucy told herself crossly. Stop thinking, wondering, hoping.
A marriage between them would never work.
Why not? a voice whispered insistently, and Lucy forced herself to answer with a cool mental logic.
Because she couldn’t live her life entirely in Biryal. Because she didn’t love Khaled, and he didn’t love her. Because getting married simply for the sake of a child wasn’t a good enough reason.
Because Khaled would get tired of her. Again. He would leave. Again.
You’re afraid.
She could almost hear Khaled saying the words, although the revelation had come from her own heart.
She was afraid of being hurt again, of loving Khaled and losing him one more time.
‘Mummy, come in and play with us!’ Sam held out his arms beseechingly, and with a smile Lucy rose from the lounger.
‘All right.’
She could feel Khaled watching her as she slid off her flip-flops and sarong and self-consciously adjusted the straps of her swimming costume, as if she could somehow make it cover more of her body.
And why should it matter? He’d seen her already, all of her, had touched and kissed every part.
Of course, that had been before Sam. She carried a few more pounds now—not too many, but enough for her to notice. She had several stretch-marks on her tummy that had faded to persistent silvery streaks. She looked different.
She found herself glancing at Khaled’s damaged knee, now submerged in the pool, and thought, We’re both different.
They both had battle scars, marks which showed that sometimes life was hard. It had changed them on the outside, as well as on the inside, and that, perhaps, wasn’t a completely bad thing.
They spent another hour in the pool, laughing and chasing each other, and even as she played with Sam Lucy couldn’t shake the feeling of awareness that prickled along her skin and warmed her body both inside and out. She was aware of Khaled, aware of his slick, bare, water-beaded skin so close to hers, aware of his golden eyes sweeping over her even when he wasn’t looking at her.
She knew he was aware too, that he felt the tension and expectancy build with the latent force of a volcano; that he felt the same pressure that mounted inside her when his arm or thigh brushed against her in the water. When Sam did a particularly daring jump his laughing eyes met hers—and held them.
She couldn’t look away. She didn’t even want to.
She felt the need and the desire—building inside her, threatening to overflow—and something else, something warm and hopeful and good—and she didn’t try to push it back down or pretend it wasn’t there. She should have; that would have been the sensible thing to do. But for a moment she didn’t feel sensible.
She felt wanted.
Wanting.
Finally Sam tired out, and Lucy towelled him off on her lap, loving the feel of his damp, sun-warmed little body.
Khaled slung a towel around his hips—had his navel always been so taut and flat?—and said, ‘I’ll have lunch brought to the terrace. And then, Sam, perhaps a rest before we see the spiders?’
It was a sign of how tired Sam was, as well as how much he’d come to listen to Khaled, that he only protested once, and even that was halfhearted.
They ate by the poolside and Lucy could see that Sam was already fading as he picked at the chicken nuggets—English food that Khaled must have arranged.
‘I’ll take him upstairs,’ Lucy said, and Sam curled around her, his head on her shoulder, as Khaled led her back through the palace to the bedroom.
‘I wonder if I’ll ever get used to the size of this place,’ Lucy said after she’d tucked Sam in his bed. Khaled was in the little shared sitting room, still clad in only his swimsuit and towel. ‘I might need a map.’
‘I hope you’ll get used to it,’ Khaled replied with a smile, but Lucy didn’t miss the intensity in his eyes. Her breath hitched and her heart began to thud.
‘Khaled…’
‘Don’t.’ She stared
