years old … reaching a sticky exploring little hand towards the papers on my desk. Even then you had an interest in history, Gee-Gee.’
Dumbfounded, Gina stared hard, ‘Gee-Gee?’
‘It was my pet name for you. Don’t you remember? Your mother thought it highly amusing that a distinguished professor of antiquities and ancient history should have the imagination to come up with something like that.’
‘Here.’ There was a lump in her throat the size of an egg as she handed him the letters she’d found on the mat.
‘What’s this?’
‘Your post … looks like it’s been accumulating for days. Why didn’t Mrs Babbage bring it in for you?’
‘What?’ The pale blue gaze was distracted again. ‘Mrs Babbage resigned last week, I’m afraid. Her husband had to go into hospital for a major operation and she wanted to be able to visit him as often as she could. Under the circumstances, she couldn’t keep her job here. Anyway, I shall need to interview for a new housekeeper.’
Reaching out her hand, Gina laid it briefly on his shoulder. She was shocked to feel how little flesh covered it beneath his shirt. ‘That’s the third housekeeper you’ve lost in a year,’ she commented worriedly.
‘I know. Must be my sparkling personality or something’
Ignoring the droll reply, Gina gazed at him, seriously concerned. ‘What have you been living on for a week? Not much, by the looks of it. Why didn’t you tell me about this when I rang you, Dad?’
For a moment the expression on her father’s long thin face reminded her of a small boy who had been reprimanded by a teacher and told to stand at the back of the class. The lump inside her throat seemed to swell.
‘Didn’t want to worry you, dear … You’re not responsible, you see. It’s my own stupid fault that I never took the time to learn how to cope with the domestics … Head always in some book or other, you see. Since your mother went I don’t seem to have the heart for much else. People thought I was a cold fish when I didn’t cry at her funeral. But I cried inside, Gina …’ His voice broke, and moisture glazed the pale, serious eyes, ‘I cried inside …’
She hardly knew what to say—how to respond. It was as though a stranger sat in front of her—not the remote, self-contained, preoccupied man who was her father. The man she would have been hard put to it to say had any feelings at all.
Patting his bony shoulder again, she gave it what she hoped was a reassuring squeeze. ‘Why don’t I make us both a nice cup of tea? We’ll have it in the living room, then I’ll nip out to the supermarket to get you some supplies for the fridge.’
‘Are you in a hurry tonight, Gina?’ The moisture beneath the pale eyes had been dashed away, and now his eyes glimmered with warmth … affection, even.
‘No, I’m not in a hurry. Why?’
‘Would you—I mean could you stay for a while? We could—we could talk. You could tell me a bit more about your work at the auction house.’
Was this some kind of breakthrough in their difficult and sometimes distant relationship? Why now, when it had been three years since she had lost her mother? Had it taken him that long to realise that he’d really loved Charlotte? That he loved his daughter?
Gina didn’t know right then whether she felt hopeful or angry. Shrugging off her raincoat, she folded it over her arm, then crossed to the still open study door. ‘I don’t have to rush off. I’ll go and put the kettle on. Why don’t you go into the living room and make up the fire? The house is chilly.’
In the kitchen, staring at the peeling paintwork and the cupboards that she guessed were as bare as Mother Hubbard’s, Gina filled the kettle at the sink and plugged it in. Before she realised it, her eyes were awash with tears. To find her father dejected, sad and reminiscing about her as a child was disturbing enough, but earlier on today her senses had received another jolt.
She’d been asked to work with a team of researchers on the provenance and history of a valuable jewel from Kabuyadir. Just the name of the place had the power to arouse the most potent of memories, and make her ache for a man whose skin was imbued with the scent of the desert, whose eyes burned with a passion that had consumed her from the very first glance—a man Gina had reluctantly had to say a premature goodbye to that magical, unforgettable night three years ago, because she’d been returning to the UK to see her mother in hospital.
When Charlotte Collins had passed unexpectedly away shortly afterwards, it had knocked Gina for six. It had also heightened her overwhelming sense of responsibility towards her father. So much so that when Zahir had rung her for the second time from Kabuyadir, in the days following the funeral, she had determinedly decided to put their night of wonderful passion and kismet behind her to focus instead on an academic career. Her father had told her that her mother would have wanted to see her make a resounding success of it.
With tears burning her eyes, and a lump in her throat the size of Gibraltar, Gina had declined Zahir’s heartfelt pleas to return to Kabuyadir soon and told him she was sorry—what had happened had been wonderful, but the idea that they could be together wasn’t remotely realistic. Now that she was back in the UK it was her career that had to be her focus, not some love affair she’d be completely foolish to trust in.
Even as she’d been speaking she’d felt as if a stranger had taken over her body and mind … a despondent stranger who certainly didn’t believe in love at first sight or happy-ever-after. When more time had passed, she’d continued quietly, he would see it that way, too, she was certain.
Zahir’s parting words had broken her heart. ‘How could you do this to me, Gina … to us?’
CHAPTER TWO
WALKING into the serene courtyard garden, where the air was heavily hypnotic with the perfume of drowsily alluring blossoms, Zahir saw his sister sitting on the long wooden bench beside the pretty ornamental pond. Her sad gaze was as far away as ever, in a land he couldn’t reach.
Beneath his black jalabiya, Zahir’s taut abdominal muscles clenched uneasily. They had always been close, but since Farida had lost her husband Azhar six months ago she had become withdrawn and uncommunicative, and all the joy had vanished from her almond-shaped dark eyes. Would he ever see it again? He hated to think he might not. There wasn’t anything he owned that he wouldn’t give to see her happy once more. With their parents gone all they had now was each other …
‘Farida?’
Her glance barely acknowledged him before returning to its dreamlike examination of the pond.
‘I am going into the city today on business, and I thought you might like to go with me? We could stay overnight at the apartment and have dinner at your favourite restaurant. What do you think?’
‘I would rather stay here, if you don’t mind, Zahir. I don’t feel like facing the city crowds today—even if it is only from behind the tinted windows of your car.’
Zahir’s responding sigh was heavy. Since he had lost his father and inherited rulership of Kabuyadir he was looked to—and indeed expected—to dispense wisdom, guidance and help to the people of his kingdom. But apparently not to his own sister. As far as that aspect of his rank and power was concerned he was
