have nothing to say to you.’
He was about to state that that was certainly not the case, but for now Alim chose to bide his time.
She was shocked, he accepted that, and angry too, so he offered her the chance to regroup.
‘Why don’t you go and get changed?’ Alim suggested, and gestured to a curtained area.
‘Changed?’
‘Have a bath and get changed and then we can speak.’
‘Alim, I’m stranded in the desert against my will and you expect me to go and slip into something more comfortable.’
‘I don’t like that suit.’ Alim shrugged. ‘And from memory neither do you.’
She just stood there.
The truth was, Gabi didn’t really have anything more comfortable to put on.
Well, some pyjamas and another awful black suit and a small tube skirt and top.
Her packing really had been done in haste.
‘My suits are all I’ve really got with me,’ she admitted.
‘I’m sure there will be alternatives in there.’
Again he gestured to the curtained area but still she did not move.
‘Gabi, you are not stranded. If you want me to arrange the helicopter I shall do so, you just have to say the word.’
Gabi didn’t, though.
She turned and walked to the area that Alim had gestured to and pulled aside heavy drapes.
It was like stepping inside a giant jewellery box.
The walls were lined with thick red velvet, which she ran her hand over, and jewelled lights dotted the ceiling.
It was a trove of exotic treasures with a huge, beautifully dressed bed in the centre.
She walked over and upon it lay a dark robe. It was too dark to make out the colour but the fabric when she held it was as soft as the velvet walls.
There was more—a dressing table adorned with stoppered bottles. Gabi picked up one and inhaled the musky fragrance then caught sight of herself in a large gilded mirror.
She looked terrible. Her hair was wild and filled with sand and the mascara she had put on in the bathroom of the plane was halfway down her cheeks.
Gabi looked over to a screened area and curiosity beckoned her to investigate.
The lighting was subtle and it was even darker behind the screen, but she could see a deep bath and it had been filled most of the way. Gabi put in her hand, assuming that the water would be cold.
Yet it was not.
Her fingers lingered, feeling the oily warmth for a moment, and she simply didn’t understand so she walked back out to Alim.
He was lying on some cushions, propped up on one elbow and completely unfazed by her rather angry approach.
‘You said that there was no one else here.’
‘There isn’t.’
‘So who filled my bath?’
He looked over to where she stood and smiled at the suspicion in her eyes and then the slight startle in them when he gave his response.
‘Me.’
‘You?’
‘The water comes directly from hot desert springs and I added some oils that are supposed to aid in relaxation.’
A slight shiver went through her, albeit a pleasurable one, as she thought of Alim here alone and readying the place for her arrival. But Gabi was in no mood to relax.
She wanted her wits about her, and knew that she needed to keep every one of them firing in his presence.
‘Did you select the robe?’ Gabi asked with a slight edge to her voice.
‘No,’ Alim responded. ‘That would be Violetta.’
‘So she lays out the clothes for your tarts?’
‘Violetta has worked hard to ensure we are both comfortable and alone. We shall dine when you are ready to.’
‘I ate on the plane.’
‘Then there’s no rush. Take your time.’
Gabi hadn’t heard those words in a very long time; there simply weren’t enough minutes in any day to get all she wanted to done.
Taking her time to get changed for dinner sounded like a reward on its own.
She wanted, for argument’s sake, to say something scathing, but there was nothing that came to mind. Gabi wanted to point out that she was here against her wishes.
Yet her wishes said otherwise, for the truth was that she wanted to be there.
‘Gabi.’ He tried to capture her gaze but she would not let him. ‘There is unfinished business between us.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Are you saying that you haven’t thought of me?’ Alim asked.
‘I’ve tried everything I can not to.’
‘Did it work?’
No.
Her silence said it for her, but then came the surprise when Alim spoke.
‘It didn’t work for me either.’
Her eyes flicked to his and she saw the burn of desire there, and while she was angry it was tempered with relief. Absolute relief, not just at seeing him but that clearly Alim had wanted to see her again too.
Gabi had ached not only because of the sudden end to their affair but its lack of closure.
There was so much unanswered.
She’d felt as if she had been slowly going out of her mind these past months.
Not just about the pregnancy but over and over she had relived their night together, and the morning after, like a perpetual film that restarted the moment it was over, pausing, analysing and trying to work out where it had all gone wrong.
And she wanted to know.
‘Go,’ Alim said.
He watched her turn and disappear and he was glad of it, for there was such dark temptation between them and that did not make for sensible conversation.
In their months apart he had told himself that possibly he looked back
