shake her hand and she saw him do that thing with his eyes that everyone did when they noticed her face—noticed that she’d been burned, somehow, despite her corrective surgery and skin grafts. Noticed that she’d had work done.
His gaze flittered across her features and then there was that pause.
‘Hi, I’m George,’ he introduced himself. ‘I’m just here to do what I’m told.’
Freya smiled. ‘Mum’s the boss in this room.’
She glanced over at the belt placement on Andrea’s abdomen and checked the trace on the machine. The trace looked good. No decelerations and the occasional contraction, currently seven or eight minutes apart. Still a way to go for Andrea.
‘I want you to stay on this for ten more minutes, then I’ll take it off—is that all right?’
Andrea nodded, reaching for a bottle of water and taking a short drink.
‘Do you have a birth plan?’
‘Just to have as much pain relief as I can get.’
‘Okay. And what sort of pain relief are you thinking of?’
‘I want to start with gas and air, see how I go with that, and then maybe get pethidine. But I’m open to whatever you suggest at the time.’
Freya smiled. ‘So am I. This is your birth, your body. I’ll be guided by you as long as it’s safe. Okay?’
‘Yes...’
Freya could see that Andrea had questions. ‘Nervous?’
Andrea giggled. ‘A bit. This is all so new!’
Tell me about it.
Freya had seen hundreds of babies come into the world. She never tired of it. Each birth was different and special, and now she knew that if all went well and she didn’t miscarry she’d be doing this herself in a few months. Lying on a bed...labouring. It was actually going to happen.
‘You’ll do fine.’
She laid a reassuring hand on her patient’s and wondered who’d be there to hold her hand during labour? Her mum?
Her mind treacherously placed Jamie beside her bed and she felt goosebumps shiver down her skin.
No. It can’t be him.
It can’t be.
But isn’t that what you always wanted? A cosy, happy family unit?
It had been. Once.
* * *
It was her. He’d have known those blue eyes anywhere. The eyes that had been haunting his dreams for weeks now.
He’d been invited to that charity ball after he’d attended a small event in Brighton that was meant to have been low-key. But word must have reached the ears of the hospital that the heir to the throne of Majidar, Prince Jameel Al Bakhari, was around and an invitation had got through to his people.
It had been for such a good cause he hadn’t been able to refuse it. A children’s burns unit. He’d seen the damage burns could cause, from a simple firework accident right through to injuries sustained in a war zone, and it was shocking for anyone. A painful, arduous road to recovery. But for it to happen to a child was doubly devastating.
So he’d attended, dressed as a pirate, complete with a large hoop earring and a curved plastic scimitar that had hung from his waist by a sash.
He’d not intended to stay for very long. He’d made them keep his presence there quiet, as he didn’t enjoy people bowing and scraping around him. He hated that whole sycophantic thing that happened around members of his royal family. It was part of why he’d left Majidar. To be a normal person.
It was why he tried to live his life following his passion. And his passion was to deliver babies. Something that was not considered ‘suitable’ for a prince back in his own country.
But what could you do when it was your calling? Delivering babies was what he had always yearned to do, and he’d never been destined for the throne. His elder brother had been the heir and was now ruler. So surely, he’d reasoned, it was better to spend his life doing something worthwhile and selfless instead of parading around crowds of people, smiling and waving, a spare heir that no one needed?
He’d faced some considerable opposition. Mostly from his father, who’d been appalled that his second son wanted to do what he viewed as ‘women’s work’. His father had forbidden him ever to speak of it again and, respecting his father, he had kept that promise. Until his father had passed away. Then his brother Ilias had taken the throne, and Jamie had approached his new King and told him of his vocation.
Ilias had proudly granted his younger brother the freedom to pursue it.
So he’d gone to the ball, telling the organisers that he didn’t want to draw attention to himself, and asking that they did not make any special announcement that he was there, just let him join in as any other person would.
Jamie had mingled, smiled, shaken people’s hands—and found himself losing the will to live and wondering when would be a polite time to leave... And then he’d spotted her in a corner of the room.
Almost as tall as he, she’d been dressed from top to toe in black, accented in dark purple, with some weird cogs and a strange pair of pilot goggles attached to her hat. Her face had been covered by a Bedouin-style gauze veil that had reminded him of home.
Her honey-blonde hair had tumbled down her back, almost to her waist, and above that veil had sparkled the most gorgeous blue eyes he had ever seen. Blue like the ocean and the sky, and just as wild and free.
‘I’m Freya. Pleased to meet you.’
‘Jamie.’
‘I saw you eyeing up the exit. Getting ready to make a break for it?’
He had been. But not any more.
So he’d stayed. And they’d talked. And laughed.
Freya had been delightful, charming and intelligent, and so easy to be with. She’d told him a story about the last time she’d attempted to flee a party. She’d been eleven years old and it had been the first time her parents hadn’t stayed with her. She’d been frightened by all the noise and all the people and had scurried away when no one was looking and run home to hide in her dad’s garden shed.
She’d grimaced as she’d recalled how she’d stayed there, terrified out of her wits not only about being found out, but also because there had been a massive spider in the corner, watching her. He’d laughed when she’d told him she’d almost peed her pants because her bladder had been killing her from drinking too much pop. But she hadn’t been able to go home too early, or her parents would have known that she’d run away.
‘No spiders here,’ he’d said.
‘No.’
‘Nothing to be afraid of. I’ll protect you.’
‘Now,
