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He ran to their master suite first, hoping against hope he’d find her. Although all the clothes he’d bought her were still neatly folded or hanging in their rightful place, the handbag and purse he’d had retrieved from the red sedan, and which he’d brought back here was nowhere to be found.
He sank onto the bed with his heart slowly withering inside him. She was gone.
Chapter Twenty
Holly ignored the tingling at the back of her neck and continued at a leisurely pace through the Baraz spice market. She’d already glanced back half-a-dozen times and had seen no one suspicious following her. She’d taken to wearing a plain gray hijab to conceal her hair and a modest abaya that covered her body.
She was just another woman browsing the Al Muwait markets early in the morning before the sun rose too high and made the experience too sweaty and unpleasant.
She drew in a steadying breath.You’re being paranoid. There is absolutely nothing to fear.Too bad her deep inhalation took in the scents of saffron, cloves, turmeric, nutmeg, cumin, pepper and so much more. The heady combination all but overwhelmed her senses, her stomach twisting oddly. Nausea swelled and her face heated until everything did a slow spin around her.
She pressed one end of her hijab to her nose and breathed slowly in and out, doing her best to avoid the most pungent of the smells.What the hell?She’d woken up this morning feeling off and had clearly yet to recover.
With the dizziness and nausea subsiding, she lifted her camera and took a few shots of the array of spices in baskets or placed in little piles on mats. But her shaky hands had her giving up on the idea, and she instead began to hurry back toward her hotel room.
She’d obviously picked up some kind of bug or virus and needed some rest. Since leaving Hamid she hadn’t stopped moving from one town and city to another, staying no more than a couple of days in any one place. That she’d been able to keep travelling and working was thanks to the demand for her photos that had flooded into her business email since the exhibition.
It tore her apart knowing the one man who’d broken her heart had also set her business soaring.
She stumbled on a backstreet’s uneven cobblestones and she slowed a little, more conscious now of her surrounds. A rug seller called out his wares from a little alcove jammed with colorful mats and rolls of carpets, someone’s washing flapping from a line in the desultory breeze above her head between ancient buildings.
A dingy little drugstore soon after caught her eye and she entered its cooler interior as thought compelled. A woman in a black hijab and white jacket approached and Holly rubbed her stomach and did her best to explain. “Do you have something to stop nausea? Ginger tea, perhaps?”
She really needed to learn Arabic.
The woman angled her head to the side, then smiled and nodded, speaking fluent Arabic as she spun around and headed toward one of the many shelves crammed with medicines, creams, potions, pills and more. She picked up a packet and nodded, handing it to Holly.
It took Holly a moment to realize it was a pregnancy test and she stared at it while coldness hit right at her core and a flush of adrenaline sent tingles through her body. Was it possible?
Hamid had always taken care of protection. But condoms weren’t foolproof. And they’d had an amazing sex life. Even now her whole body ached for him as memories played out through her mind. He’d been insatiable and generous with his loving. She’d never been more pleasured or more responsive to another man.
She’d been with him for almost a month—four days in the desert and three weeks at the palace—and it’d been a little over three weeks since she’d left. It meant it had been nearly seven weeks since she’d first been intimate with him, and that it was all too possible she was experiencing morning sickness.
Holly swallowed hard, then nodded thanks at the woman and followed her to the counter to pay for the test along with some teas that she guessed helped soothe the upset tummies of pregnant women.
She smiled and shook her head as she left the drugstore with her purchases in a bag. She wasn’t pregnant. She was being silly, even a little bit fanciful. Yes, her period was late. But she’d always been irregular.
Besides, the last thing she wanted was to be a mother to a sheikh’s baby. If he found out he’d take the baby from her and she’d have no way of fighting him. Not in this country, not with his wealth and power. Women’s rights might be growing, especially in places like Imbranak, but they still had a long way to go. Men wielded the majority of the power. And a sheikh was nothing short of a deity.
Her mouth dried, her thoughts whirling. If she did test positive she’d immediately return to Australia and use her savings to find a house, maybe even buy something affordable—it was possible now thanks to her photographs that were in such high demand. That she had thousands of photos stashed on both her cameras meant she had plenty of pictures to sell.
At least in her homeland she’d have rights. Of course Hamid would have the best legal team imaginable, but she’d have a fighting chance. And if by some stroke of luck he never found out about their child, she’d make sure her child would have a wonderful life.
There were beaches galore, rivers and parks and pools. Her child would go to a lovely school, perhaps one in the country or a small town. She’d make a great life there, settle down from her wanderings and perhaps find another income source with her photography.
She was deep in thought as she stepped out into the bright mid-morning sun and smacked straight into the unyielding wall of a man.Oomph.Her purchases fell to the ground and spilled out of their bag, and she jerked her head up from the stylish white thobe in front of her to stare in horror at the man she thought she’d never see again.
“Hamid,” she croaked.
Chapter Twenty-One
Hamid drank in the vision of the woman who’d haunted his dreams these last three weeks. He’d been out of his head with fear and yearning, and a thousand other dark emotions. That she was now in front of him, her vanilla and honeysuckle scent enveloping him, her glorious red hair shielded by a dull hijab and her curves hidden beneath a plain abaya, only intensified all those feelings a hundred fold.
This wasn’t the vibrant, flamboyant woman who’d fascinated and excited the hell out of him. He ground his teeth.Wrong.She was still there, hidden away, like the brightest jewel inside a metal safe. That she was clearly hiding her features, hiding from him, offended him all the more.
Her trembling set his jaw to stone. He’d shown her nothing but care and respect. But then perhaps she’d heard about his complete withdrawal from his duties while he focused on tracking her down? He’d been nothing short of obsessed, had never been so damn focused on a task in his life.
And here he was finally rewarded for his determination.
