‘So you’re a qualified child-care worker?’
‘That’s my primary qualification, yes, though I have diplomas in school-aged education and childhood health care along with some language skills as well.’
‘You are forgetting about your other skills,’ he growled, his lip curling as he looked out of the window, still resentful at a world going on about its business while his life didn’t resemble a train that had merely changed direction, his life was on a train that had jumped tracks, and he wasn’t sure he liked where it was headed.
‘They’re hardly relevant,’ she said behind him, and around and between her words he could hear the sounds of the baby, staccato bursts of cackles and cries, and then a zipper being undone.
He spun around, angry that she seemed oblivious to the impossibility of the situation, to see her sitting down, the baby in her lap as she dripped milk from a small bottle onto her upturned wrist before putting the bottle to the baby’s mouth, looking every part the quintessential mother with child.
That was a laugh. She was no Madonna. It didn’t matter what she was wearing or what she was doing, he could still see her naked. He could still remember the way she’d bucked beneath him as she’d come apart in his arms.
‘Impossible!’ he said, and even the baby was startled, her big eyes open wide, her little hands jerking upwards, fingers splayed. ‘This cannot work.’
‘Hold it down,’ she said, rocking the child in her arms. ‘Do you think I like the situation any more than you do?’
‘I want another carer.’
‘Why?’
Because I don’t trust myself with you. ‘Because a woman like you is not fit to look after an innocent child.’
She laughed. ‘A woman like me? What kind of woman is that, exactly?’
‘A woman who goes whoring in the night—picking up men in bars and sleeping with them.’
She smiled up at him and he felt his ire rise. ‘But a man who goes whoring in the night—picking up women and inviting them back to his hotel room—he is perfectly qualified to be that child’s guardian. Is that what you are saying?’
‘This is not about me.’
‘Clearly not, or there might be a double standard at work, don’t you think?’
Frustration tangled in his gut. He hated that she had seen through his arguments but he could hardly tell her the real reason—that he needed more than ever right now to be able to think clearly, without his brain being distracted with replays of last night every time he looked at her. Why couldn’t she see that he didn’t want her—that this would not work? ‘I want somebody else to care for Atiyah!’
‘There is nobody else. All Flight Nanny’s employees are busy on other assignments.’
‘I don’t want you coming with us.’
‘Do you think for a moment that I want to come? As soon as I realised it was you, I wanted to sink through a hole in the floor. So don’t worry, I’m not looking for a repeat of last night’s little adventure. I’m not here because of you. I’m here to take care of the baby, nothing more.’
A brief knock on the door interrupted his words, and Kareem entered with a bow, and there was no way their visitor couldn’t have heard her words or misinterpreted the tone in which they were delivered. ‘A thousand pardons for the interruption, but the plane will be ready to leave in two hours.’
And Tora looked up at Rashid. ‘So, do you want to tell everyone why you’d prefer to find another carer, or shall I?’
Kareem looked to him expectantly, his placid features betraying only the barest hint of surprise, and Rashid cursed the woman under his breath. But he was out of time and out of options, and, besides, what was the worst that could happen? She’d accompany them to Qajaran and then her role would be complete and she would be on the next flight home and he would be rid of the constant reminders of their night of passion together, rid of the distraction of a woman who had turned an already upside-down world spinning through another three hundred and sixty degrees in the course of one night. He could hardly wait. ‘I expected someone older,’ he muttered, ‘but I suppose this one will just have to do.’
BLUFF WAS A beautiful thing, when it came off.
Tora got the baby capsule secured and sank into the buttery leather of the limousine and took a deep, calming breath. Because she’d done it, she’d saved the assignment. Sally would have been devastated if she’d lost this contract—and Tora would have found it next to impossible to explain how she’d let it happen. How did one go about explaining that you’d inadvertently slept with the client after meeting them in a bar the night before your assignment? It didn’t bear thinking about.
But Rashid had given himself away when he’d asked to speak to her in private. Clearly he wasn’t too keen on sharing the details of exactly why he deemed her unsuitable to care for his sister. So sure, she wasn’t about to go advertising the way she’d behaved last night, but it seemed she wasn’t the only one with a secret to keep.
Was he married? Was that his problem? She hadn’t thought to ask last night. One night he’d offered and she’d taken it, no questions asked. And maybe it didn’t reflect well on her, but last night had been just about perfect as far as she was concerned, at least until she’d entered that lawyer’s office today and found him lying in wait and in judgement.
He’d been a different man last night. Bold. Decisive. He’d been angry, as she had been—and she’d felt it with his every move, his every thrust. Whereas today he seemed to be on the defensive.
What was that about?
Kareem climbed into the front seat beside the driver and turned to her. ‘Do you have everything you need, Ms Burgess?’
She nodded. ‘Thank you,’ she said as she checked the sleeping infant, a tiny milky bubble swirling in the corner of her mouth. ‘We’re both very comfortable.’
Kareem nodded. ‘Then we shall go.’
Tora looked around. ‘Where is Rashi—? Where is Atiyah’s guardian?’
‘His Excellency is travelling separately. He will meet us at the airport.’
She nodded dumbly and settled back into her seat as the car cruised away. His Excellency?
Exactly who had she spent last night with?
* * *
He was stuck with her now. At least for the next however many hours it took to fly to Qajaran.
Only a few hours, Rashid reasoned as the driver made his way towards the coast, and then she would be on her way home again. It should be easy, given he’d only known her a few hours, but the way they’d spent them, and the way she’d left so abruptly, was it any wonder that he was still aching for more?
