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Because she’d spent a night making passionate love with Rashid.
Not sex. Love.
It was mad. She’d known Rashid for such a short time, but what she felt for him was special. Love? She didn’t know, but she felt the bloom of warmth every time she thought of it. It was a new discovery, shiny and pretty and wondrous, and she wanted to take it out and examine it and hold it close to her heart.
Beside her on a rug under a sun shade Atiyah practised her push-ups, gurgling happily, and all of a sudden flipped herself over. She lay there on her back, looking totally surprised at her different view of the world.
‘Oh, you clever girl,’ Tora said, clapping her hands at this early milestone, and Atiyah broke into a gummy grin, suddenly delighted with herself.
And Tora couldn’t wait to tell Rashid.
Surely this day could not get any more perfect?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE WEATHER HAD turned humid and oppressive, the kind of day that made your clothes stick to your skin and made you want to stay in the cool inside the thick palace walls, and it was late afternoon before the two remaining women had a chance to venture outside to sit and drink tea by the pool in the courtyard before Aisha had to depart.
They had bade goodbye to Marina and Amber and their families earlier in the day and now Tora and Aisha sat in the shade, baby Atiyah lying sleeping in a cradle that Tora set swaying with a gentle push every little while, while Aisha’s two-year-old twins ran around chasing each other. Jalil was bigger, and faster on his feet, but Kadija was more agile and would dart away at the last moment, shrieking in delight as her brother lunged for her and snatched only handfuls of air.
‘Your children are beautiful,’ Tora said, more than a little wistful that they would soon be gone. It had been hard for her to say goodbye to Marina and Amber, who had both hugged her and said they hoped to see her ‘next time’. She hoped to see them again, too, but she couldn’t afford to imagine herself a permanent place in Rashid’s future on the strength of one night and a mere request to stay longer. No matter what this new-found emotion centred at her heart wove into wanting. It was all too new and there were too many unknowns, and what Rashid felt and wanted was the biggest unknown of them all.
Aisha beamed suddenly beside her, unable to suppress a smile. ‘Thank you,’ she said, putting her hand low over her belly and looking up at Tora with bright shining eyes as she reached across and squeezed Tora’s hand with the other. ‘I’ve been waiting to share the news with Zoltan ever since I had it confirmed today, but he and Rashid have been so busy. I told Marina and Amber just before they left, and I know we haven’t known each other very long, but I’m bursting with the news and you feel like a friend already.’ She took a breather. ‘Jalil and Kadija are going to have a little brother or sister.’
‘That’s wonderful news,’ Tora said. ‘I’m so honoured that you’d tell me. Congratulations!’
‘Thank you.’ Aisha hugged her hands in her lap as she watched her twins. ‘Zoltan will be so pleased. He thought after me getting pregnant so quickly with the twins that it would happen again just as easily.’ Tora saw a glimmer of pain in her eyes and the words she hesitated over, the words she left unsaid. ‘Of course, it wasn’t that easy at all. But now...’ and Aisha smiled again and looked radiant with it ‘...now he will be so thrilled.’
‘You two are so much in love,’ Tora said on a sigh. ‘You deserve every happiness.’
Aisha nodded, adding a conspiratorial smile. ‘Thank you, but, I have to admit, it didn’t start out that way.’
‘Really? You’re both so perfect for each other, I imagined you two falling in love at first sight.’
Aisha laughed. ‘That’s very funny, given the first time we met I bit him on his hand, although, to be fair, he was wearing a mask so I couldn’t see how handsome he was.’ She seemed to think about that a second. ‘No, actually that would have made no difference, because the second time we met I clawed his face with my nails, though that was after he told me we were to be married. Against my will, as it happened.’
‘You were forced to marry Zoltan? That seriously happens?’
She nodded. ‘Yes. It happens and I had no choice. I wanted to marry for love but my father said I had to marry Zoltan, or both our kingdoms would be compromised.’
