AllFreeNovel
Share Us
While there was deliberately no one at present, Khaled had of course taken lovers. But those relationships had only ever been about mutual companionship and the sating of physical needs. Not long term and never sentimental. Messy, tangled emotions got in the way of the day job, and he wouldn’t allow that. Because nothing was more important to him than duty.
How else was he to make amends for the loss of his brother?
Khaled picked up his papers, remembering previous occupants of the seat opposite him. How at this point in a flight they’d be sitting demurely, most likely working. Not disturbing his concentration. And certainly not flouncing away, as soon as the pilot had announced it was safe to do so, to sit as far from him as possible.
His eyes lifted again in Lily’s direction, this time to see her chatting with Stella.
From beneath his lashes, Khaled studied her.
She wore a dress of dark green. A lucky choice. It disguised the grubby stains she’d acquired scrambling up the ivy outside his rooms. Yet the shade also complemented her ivory skin and set off the rich auburn tones of her upswept hair.
Khaled snorted. Unkempt, more like. The style was in disarray, and if more evidence of her misspent evening were needed, one cheek sported smudges of dirt.
Now Lily was flicking through a magazine and getting comfortable, lifting her legs to tuck her bare feet beneath her. There was a flash of grimy soles.
And with that simple image Khaled was assaulted with a rush of memories. Memories of a long-ago summer and a skinny girl, all red hair and freckles. Her feet black as a street urchin’s as she clambered up trees or ran laughing through the gardens of her stepfather’s estate. A girl with scraped knees, dirt on her face, and always grass stains on her clothes.
How long was it since he’d thought of her and how, for two weeks that summer, she’d brought him a measure of peace when he’d thought he’d never know peace again?
The summer they’d lost Faisal.
His bright, brilliant brother.
His reckless brother, they’d said.
Oh, if they but knew...
He closed his eyes and endured the familiar wave of guilt and loss. It never lessened, and why should it. After what he’d done.
He’d been sixteen. Lily seven.
And now...?
He did the maths.
Twenty-three.
Sixteen years older and little had changed. Still climbing, still barefoot, and still with scraped knees.
Khaled looked closer. A gash to her shin that he hadn’t noticed before was oozing blood.
He called Stella over, issued instructions, and then, abandoning his work, crossed the cabin to slide into the space opposite Lily.
Her mouth twisted. ‘If I’d wanted to talk to you I’d have stayed in my original seat.’
Her expression softened as Stella appeared at his shoulder, presenting him with a towel and placing a bowl of water and first aid provisions on the shelf beside them.
‘Your shin is bleeding,’ he explained, laying the towel over his lap and tipping disinfectant into the water. ‘There’s dirt in the wound, too. It’ll get infected if we don’t attend to it.’
He started rolling back his shirtsleeves.
‘I don’t need you to do it,’ she said crossly. ‘I can look after myself.’
She soaked the sponge Stella had left and bent forward to dab at the torn skin.
In that position, in that dress, it was hard for him to ignore the creamy swell of her breasts. He shouldn’t be looking. He should be focusing on Lily the burglar, not Lily the woman. Better yet, he should imagine she was still that skinny schoolgirl he’d once known.
But she was not.
