Her Desert Dream

‘Nothing. Take care.’

He disconnected, pushed the phone into his back pocket and, bearing in mind that it was his duty to keep her safe, he went to find Rose.

Lydia resisted the urge to fling herself into the nearest pool to cool herself down. Instead, she walked the winding paths, swiftly at first, outrunning feelings she could not control, until her breath was coming in short gasps and she almost collapsed into a seat that seemed to have been placed precisely for that purpose.

She sat there for an age while her breathing returned to normal and the heat gradually faded from her skin, attempting to make sense of what had happened.

She might as well try to catch mist in her hand.

There was no sense in it. Love-or just plain lust-as she knew to her cost, made fools of everyone.

‘Get a grip, Lydie,’ she said intently, startling a bird from the tree above her. ‘Rose is depending on you. This madness will go away.’ Then, after a long time, ‘It will go away.’

By the time she returned to the terrace her flush might easily have been put down to nothing more than a brisk walk on a sunny day.

Just as well, because one of the girls who’d taken care of her was sitting cross-legged in the shade, embroidering a piece of silk.

‘You will eat, sitti?’ she asked, rising gracefully to her feet.

Food was the last thing on her mind, but it had been a long time since the croissant that she’d barely tasted and eating was a proven distraction for heartache.

‘Thank you…I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.’

‘It is Yatimah, sitti.’

‘Yatimah,’ she repeated, rolling the word around her mouth, tasting the strangeness of it. ‘Thank you, Yatimah. Your English is very good.’

‘Princess Lucy has taught me. She speaks Arabic as if she was born here, but her mother comes sometimes. From New Zealand. And her friends from England.’

‘And they do not,’ Lydia said.

‘A few words,’ she said with a smile.

‘Will you teach me?’

‘Nam,’ she said. And giggled. ‘That means yes.’

‘Nam,’ she repeated. Then, remembering the word Kal had taught her, she said, ‘Shukran. Thank you.’ And received a delighted clap. Encouraged, she asked, ‘What is “good morning”?’

‘Good morning is sabah alkhair and the reply is sabah alnur.’

Lydia tried it and got the response from Yatimah who, an eager teacher, then said, ‘Good afternoon is masa alkhair and the reply masa alnur. And goodnight is-’

‘Leila sa’eeda.’

Startled by Kal’s voice from the doorway, Yatimah scuttled away, leaving Lydia alone with him.

The last time he’d kissed her, she’d managed to dismiss it as if it was nothing. They both knew that wasn’t going to happen this time and for a moment neither of them moved, spoke.

‘Lucy called,’ he said at last, stepping onto the terrace.

He’d showered and changed into a loose white collarless shirt that hung to his hips. Soft faded jeans. Strong, bare feet pushed into thong sandals. The clothes were unremarkable but with that thin high-bridged nose, polished olive skin, dark hair curling onto his neck, he looked very different from the man in the suit who’d met her at the airport. More like some desert lord surveying his world.

‘She wanted to be sure you’d arrived safely.’

‘Then why didn’t she call me?’ Lydia asked, brave in the knowledge that if she’d rung Rose, by the magic of the cellphone, she’d have got Rose, wherever she was. Except, of course, that Rose didn’t know anything about Kal. She’d need to send a message, she thought, her hand going to the phone in her pocket, warn her…

‘My own reaction,’ he replied, ‘but she seemed to be under the impression that you’d rather not talk to anyone from home. That you did not want to be disturbed.’

…or maybe not.

He turned to her in expectation of polite denial.

Being a lookalike was an acting role, stepping into the shoes of another person, copying the moves, the gestures, the facial expressions. Practising the voice until it became her own. But nothing that Rose had ever done had prepared her for this.

In a situation like this, all she had to fall back on was the supermarket checkout girl with the fast mouth.

And that girl wouldn’t let him off with a polite anything. That girl would look him in the eye, lift an eyebrow and say, ‘She should have thought about that before she invited you to my party.’

Just like that.

If she’d hoped to raise a smile, she would have been sadly disappointed.

Apart from the slightest contraction of a muscle at the corner of his mouth-as if she needed any encouragement to look at it-his expression didn’t alter for so long that, but for that tiny giveaway, she might have wondered if he’d actually heard her.

Then, with the merest movement of his head, he acknowledged the hit and said, ‘No doubt that’s why she asked me not to tell you she’d called.’

‘So why did you?’ she demanded, refusing to back down, play the lady. She might not know what Rose would do under these circumstances, but she jolly well knew what she should do after that very close encounter in the garden.

That had gone far beyond simple flirting. Far beyond what had happened in the helicopter, where his kiss had been simple enough. It had been her own reaction that had turned into something much more complex; fear, strangeness, the need to cling to something safe would do that and it was easy enough to dismiss as an aberration.

But what had happened in the garden was different.

He’d touched her mouth as if marking her as his, taken her lower lip into his mouth as intimately as a lover, certain of his welcome.

And she had welcomed him.

That moment had been an acknowledgement of the intense attraction that had been bubbling beneath the surface from the moment she had walked into the airport and found him waiting for her.

It was a dance where they circled one another, getting closer and closer. Touching briefly. Moving apart as they fought it but, like two moths being drawn closer and closer to a candle, totally unable to resist the fatal attraction, even though they both knew they would go down in flames.

Except that she had no choice. She had to withstand the temptation or tell him the truth, because she knew how it felt to be made love to by someone who was acting. Knew how betrayed she’d felt.

And she couldn’t tell him the truth. Couldn’t betray Rose for her own selfish desires. Not that he’d want her if she did. He was not a man to accept a fake. A copy. If he knew the truth he’d lose interest, turn away.

And if he didn’t…

‘Kal…’

‘You are hungry?’

Her life seemed to be happening in slow motion, Lydia thought. Neither of them moved or made a move to answer Dena’s query for what seemed like forever.

It did not matter. Apparently oblivious to the tension between them, she bustled across the terrace to a table set beneath the trees, issuing orders to the staff that trailed after her.

A cloth was laid, food was set out.

‘Come, eat,’ she said, waving them towards the table.

Kal moved first, held out a chair for her, and she managed to unstick her feet from the flagstones and join him