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She nodded, pleased for the distraction – pleased for anything that would help pass the time, pleased for the familiarity of someone else from England, someone just as ill-suited to this magical world of money and ancient royal ways.
The music was beautiful, and very traditional. The first time Millie heard Abu Qaran songs, she thought she’d died and gone to heaven. Full of flute and guitar, whimsical like the wind that blew across the desert, conjuring images of running and being truly free, free in a way she’d never known.
“How do you dance to this?” Gareth wrinkled his nose.
She smiled. “Easily,” she closed her eyes, so she missed the moment another’s gaze fell on her face, the intensity of Zafar’s inspection something that might have burned Millie had she been aware of it. But she wasn’t, and so when she opened her eyes and looked up at Gareth, she smiled in the most natural, comfortable way, lifted her hands behind his neck and moved her hips. “You simply feel the music,” she said, doing exactly that.
Gareth laughed. “Easy for you. You’re five and a half feet of pure grace. I have two left feet.”
She dropped her hands for a moment so she could step back and make a show of inspecting his shoes. “I see two excellent dancing feet there, so stop making excuses.”
“I’ll try to deserve your faith in me.”
They came together once more, the familiarity of old friends, having known one another now for almost four years – they’d been at the same charity even where Farrah met Arthur. Even on that night, Gareth had flirted with Millie, but she’d been way too hurt still, her heart shell-shocked and altered forever by the summary dismissal Zafar had laid at her feet. She’d been falling in love and he’d been ‘wasting time’ with her. He’d made it clear his first love was to his country; a woman could never compete. How would she ever trust a man again?
“Farrah said you were ill on the flight over,” Gareth murmured, his voice close to her ear.
Millie’s eyes flared wide. “Did she?” She angled her head away, pressing her cheek to Gareth’s chest but her eyes landed on Zafar and she startled, closing her eyes to blot him out.
“Travel sickness?” He prompted, and she cursed him for not letting it go.
“Something like that.” Nervousness made her heart race. She’d had no recourse to avoid this wedding. Farrah was her best friend in the whole world, there was nothing Millie could say to get out of being her Maid of Honour. It had been a monumental effort to conceal her pregnancy from her best friend – but how could she tell Zafar’s adoring half sister the news before she told Zafar himself?
“I hope you’re okay on the flight home.”
“I will be,” she said, with intense relief. The idea of going home was the balm that had gotten her through the last four days. Four days in proximity to Zafar, but never close enough to speak to him, barely close enough to hear his voice.
“It’s funny,” Gareth mused. “Farrah just seems like a normal woman, most of the time. It’s hard to believe she comes from all this,” he shook his head with bemusement, and echoing his thoughts, Millie pulled back to look around. At that exact moment, Zafar happened to look in Millie’s direction. Their eyes locked and the hairs on the back of Millie’s neck stood on end. He was staring at her with the same possessive heat that had always fired in his eyes when they were near each other, a possessive heat that was a blatant lie. He didn’t want her. He never had, really, and she’d finally learned her lesson. Men like Zafar al Habib were best avoided – like from half a world away, or more.
Except she couldn’t do that anymore.
She was going to have his baby. One way or another, they’d have to be in each other’s lives. Not often, if she could help it, but from time to time, as benefitted their baby. Panic rushed through her because it was a future neither of them wanted. Zafar had been clear about that, and Millie knew first-hand how hard it was to be a single mother. She knew the struggle her mother had faced to hold down a job and make ends meet while raising twins – one of whom had been sick from a young age and required multiple medical appointments. The idea of doing this on her own terrified Millie, but somehow, she’d manage. She had to.
Their baby deserved nothing less. But Zafar’s eyes were boring into her, his features locked in an autocratic mask – the look of a man used to getting his way with the snap of his fingers – and fear lashed her spine. Not fear of him, but the impossibility of this. How did one go about telling a man who was determined to be single and childless for life that he was, in fact, about to become a father? She wrenched her gaze away, panic flooding her veins, because she hated him for how he’d treated her, and yet they were to become parents. It was her worst nightmare.
“Would you like to get some fresh air?” She rushed the words out, desperate to escape.
Gareth lifted a teasing brow. “We’re outside.”
She waved a hand urgently. “You know what I mean. So many people.” And there were –hundreds on the dance floor, a crush of bodies dressed in the finest silks and couture threads, so Millie could barely breathe.
“Space, I would like,” he agreed diffidently.
“Great. I know the perfect place. Come on.” She linked her hand with his and pulled him off the dance floor, her skin tingling as though someone was watching her, even though she didn’t dare look back to see if he was.
The night dragged. Millie was glad to have had the escape with Gareth – they spent an hour chatting in the walled citrus garden, a place that had been very special to her at one time, a place that had made up many of her fantasies for many years, a place that she’d only ever shared with Zafar. She’d had to shake off the sense that she was betraying him in some way, as though bringing Gareth here would somehow have wounded Zafar. As though he’d care.
It was well after midnight when the evening ended, the guests disappearing into limousines or helicopters, a very select few being escorted to guest rooms within the palace. Millie was, naturally, one of these, and she hugged Farrah tight at the end of the night, then Arthur, her heart full of warmth for this couple – so perfectly suited in every way.
She tried not to focus on the differences between Farrah and Zafar – the older brother so willing to push aside love, the younger sister so open to it. Or maybe it had just been her love he hadn’t wanted? Maybe he’d just told her he wasn’t ever going to get married as a way to crush her childish hopes completely?
Millie ground her teeth together as she dressed for bed, but it was far too warm to sleep. She lay on top of the sheets, staring at the ceiling, a hand on the unfamiliar roundness of her belly, doubts and worries flooding her now.
During the summer she’d spent in Abu Qara, right here at the palace, she’d found the heat almost impossible to deal with. It had been Zafar who’d suggested her saviour: There is a private grotto here, in this courtyard. You may swim – anytime. No one will disturb you. He’d singled her out. She’d thought it was because she was special, but looking back, she wondered if he’d just been extending kindness to his half sister’s best friend, taking pity on the young woman who clearly didn’t belong in this desert Kingdom.
But she’d swum often, at his invitation, and the water had lapped around her, stirring feelings and wants to life, and as though it held magical properties, whenever she’d left it, her skin seemed to lift in goosebumps. She’d felt watched. She’d felt wanted. She’d felt bathed in a kind of euphoria.
Without realising her intent, sometime around three, Millie gave up on attempting to sleep and moved to the balcony. She stared out at the desert, seeking cool. When none came, she knew what she had to do. That same magic that had called to her as an innocent nineteen year old sung in her veins again now, beckoning her, so she had no choice but to listen.
