From One Night To Desert Queen by Pippa Roscoe
CHAPTER SEVEN
KHALIFWOKEFROMa nightmare, heart pounding, skin sweat-soaked, his body tangled in the sheets. The bands of a tension headache pressed against his temple before he’d even opened his eyes, and the cords of his neck ached as if he’d roared his way through the night.
The phone by his bed lit up as it vibrated and he didn’t need to check it to see that he had about thirty unread emails and probably at least eight missed calls from his father about the memorial.
He looked at the clock, guessing that it was early as the sun was yet to rise. Five thirty a.m. felt brutal after last night, but there was no way he was going back to bed. The conversations he’d had with Star had felt oppressive and he still hadn’t shaken the weight of the past from his shoulders.
He got dressed, choosing loose trousers and shirt, and placed the kufi on his head before wrapping the keffiyeh into a turban, pressing his palms against the secure familiar material that felt as if it were keeping the pounding in his head contained.
He made his way down dark corridors, not quite ready to let go of his grief, of the images and memories of his brother...of Samira. Of the way she had looked at him just before she’d married his brother.
His heart flared as he stalked towards the stables, looking for his favourite horse. Mavia, a true queen like her namesake was regal, strong, proud and determined, and by far the best in his stable.
She greeted him like a jilted lover and he would have expected nothing less. He really shouldn’t have been away from Alhafa for so long. But within moments she was nudging him with her head and demanding the affection he was always willing to give her.
He made short work of her saddle, itching to ride, and he launched himself into the desert just as the sun began to rise and the moon and stars to set. He raced them up a dune and out into the far reaches of the desert—his back to both the oasis, Alhafa and Burami.
He wanted nothing but sand and sky, no past, present or future, just the way his pulse beat to the rhythm set by Mavia. He ignored the sweat on his brow, the fire in his thighs and the ache in his soul as they crested the dune and soared down the other side.
But his mind refused to let up. Doubts, fears, shadows and ghosts rose up around him like a wave of sand before the storm. For three years he’d rode the pain, the grief, the guilt and anger at both Faizan and Samira for their choices, bearing it in silence and in secret. He’d tried to bend and shape himself away from the wanton playboy he’d been and into even half of the leader his brother would have been, and the one time he’d slipped, the one weakness he’d given into...
Star.
Her name was like a prayer and a curse.
Only she was the one who would fall fowl of it. That her freedom was the price of his selfishness was nothing short of a tragedy. Everything about her, the bright, effervescent positivity, the gentle soothing babble of words, her enthusiasm, her hope-filled romantic belief...he would have to watch all of those things be dimmed by royal duty and etiquette. He would have to see her denied the freedoms she so clearly took for granted. He would have to see her caged.
How would he ever bear the guilt of doing to her what had been done to him?
As he came to the top of the last dune before returning to the palace he twitched the reins, bringing Mavia to a halt.
He couldn’t.
And in that moment, as the sun crested the horizon, he swore an oath that if Star wasn’t pregnant he would let her go. No matter what, he would let her go for ever.
Star peered out of her door, holding her breath. Not seeing anyone, she stepped into the corridor and stopped to laugh at herself quietly. She felt like a naughty schoolgirl being caught sneaking out of school grounds. But the hour she’d been asked to stay in her room had come and gone, and she couldn’t stay locked up in there any longer.
As she trailed a finger gently across the chalky feel of the corridor wall, she marvelled at how light she felt, knowing that soon she might have the necklace in her hands. Her heart felt as if it had swooped upwards last night and was still soaring high. She’d desperately wanted to call her sisters to let them know all that she had discovered. But the memory of how low she had felt when she’d thought she’d never find it...that shocking disappointment had rocked the ground beneath her feet and she couldn’t do that to her sisters. She would wait until she had the necklace in her hands, rather than getting their hopes up.
Star turned right, unable to shake the feeling that she was alone, as if she could sense that Khalif wasn’t in the palace.
The silence was rare for her. There was always noise at the school; even outside the classroom children ran down hallways and played in the grounds. There was noise from the busy road she lived on, in the flat she shared with her two sisters. And even when Summer was away at university, Skye was always there, keeping her on track and running like clockwork. Star wondered whether Skye had realised that she’d kept her company almost constantly since the day that Star had met her grandparents.
She wanted to shake that thought off, the low ache she often felt when reminded of them, but there was something in the silence...something about it...that reminded her of Khalif. Not the Kal she had met, though there had been a reservation within him even then. But Khalif the Prince? The man she might have to marry? Unease swirled in her chest and she rubbed her sternum, trying to ease it. She didn’t feel as if she knew Khalif as well as Kal who’d she’d spent one magical night with. Because there was hurt and anger that Khalif was holding onto and she couldn’t shake the feeling that if she didn’t confront it—him—then she might never know him completely.
Room after room showed furniture protected by large white sheets, window shutters closed against the damaging rays of the sun. There was not a speck of dust anywhere—unlike the estate in Norfolk. But, despite that, there was the same impenetrable sense of isolation and mourning.
The loss of Faizan and Samira was palpable; it felt as if it were forbidden to utter their names. But that kind of grief could be dangerous. Locked up tight, stoppered, it festered, it wounded, it spread like a poison... And that poison could do very real hurt and damage. She thought of the twin girls, wondered if they were allowed to express their grief, to talk about their parents as her mother had encouraged her to do. Throughout her childhood and into her teens, Star had opened up her feelings, so that difficult became easier and painful became loving. And while there was still an ache, low and constant, deep within her, it was not to be overcome but accepted as evidence of that connection, that love, between her and her father.
Star found her way to the corridor Khalif had specifically declared off-limits and, despite that, she turned down it anyway. There had been nothing particularly different about it yesterday, just a sense she’d had...until she’d seen his reaction.
Passing through a partially opened door, she came to a stop.
Unlike the others, this room looked as if it had only just been left. Drop cloths on the floor, half-painted walls, rollers stuck to trays with dried, cracked paint next to large tins with the same colours spoke of a half-finished decorating project. Moving further into the room, object by object she saw signs of a home, of life she’d not found elsewhere in the palace. A jumper had been thrown across the end of a sofa in the larger living space. Some nail polish on the side table. Toys scattered on the floor, waiting to be put away.
They were signs of a family.
Faizan and Samira’s family. She turned back to the room where she’d seen the most decorating equipment and realised that it must have been the twins’ room and an overwhelming cascade of sadness drenched her where she stood.
There was something so incredibly tragic about the half-finished rooms—as if Faizan and Samira’s hopes for their children were only half fulfilled. It looked as if the decorators had stopped suddenly, midway through the day. Perhaps to the news of the shocking accident.
She looked at the two tiny beds, now far too small for the twin Princesses, and turned back into the living area, drawn to the warmth and the everydayness of the family photos on the tables and the book lying open at a page.
Star could understand why it had been left, but still...it was such a shame to keep Nadya and Nayla from what was supposed to have been their home, from what their parents had wanted for them. She frowned, looking at the colours chosen for the room, the sweet style of shelving, and she could almost make out how beautiful it would have looked, had it been finished.
She was about to turn back into the corridor when she felt the hairs on her neck lift.
‘What are you doing in here?’
She turned to find him full of thunder, heavy dark curls of sweat-soaked hair slicked to his head, his chest heaving as if he’d run here from the desert. His white thobe open at the collar, as if he’d been interrupted in the midst of changing it. He looked like an Arabian Darcy having caught her trespassing, but there was no eager welcome in his gaze, no tentative hope in his demeanour. Instead he stood, refusing to cross the threshold, staring at her as if she’d committed a truly heinous crime.
‘How dare you?’
Khalif was shaking with rage, grief and shock. He hadn’t thought for a minute that Star would betray him in such a way. So when Masoud, awaiting his return in the stables, had informed him where Star was he hadn’t believed him.
He tried desperately to keep his eyes only on Star but, not having been in these rooms for three years, his gaze devoured everything. It showed him things he wanted to see and things he didn’t. Pictures of his brother and his daughters, himself and his nieces...of Samira. Memories hit him thick and fast and he would have sworn he could smell the perfume Samira used to wear drawing him, against his will, across the threshold.
‘I was wondering why the memorial was so difficult for you. And then... I think I understand now,’ Star said, her eyes watching his every move.
‘You understand nothing,’ he bit out angrily. Raw, exposed and vulnerable, he did not want to be here.
‘I understand loss,’ she said, not once breaking that serene stare of hers. ‘Loss that has happened...loss that is yet to happen,’ she said.
He hated that. He didn’t want that for her.
‘Whether it is in the past or the future, they are the same emotions, Kal. Grief, anger, resentment, devastation, helplessness. But this?’ She looked about the room. ‘It’s as if you all stopped breathing the moment they died. Do you even talk about them?’
‘Of course we do,’ he said, spinning away from her, hoping that she’d just stop.
‘When was the last time you said their names out loud?’
‘With you,’ he growled.
‘That’s not what I mean, and you know it.’
‘It’s not important,’ he said, unable to stop himself from peering through the doorway to the room that would have been for Nadya and Nayla.
I want the two beds facing each other, and the mosquito netting to be pink, and the nightlight to have stars so that it covers the ceiling with the night sky. It’s going to be beautiful, Kal.
Samira had been the only other person to call him that.
‘It might not be important to you. Or your parents, who must have many memories of Faizan and Samira’s life—’
‘Don’t!’
In that instant he genuinely wasn’t sure if it was because Star used her name, or because of what she was saying, but he really didn’t want her to continue.
‘It’s important to Nadya and Nayla. It will be, if it’s not already.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ he said, turning, her words ringing in his heart.
‘It means that I know what it’s like to grow up in the shadow of grief. I know what it’s like to want to know who your parent was before they died. You want to know everything about them. Where they came from, what they were like at every birthday you reach. Whether you’re like them, whether they would have liked who you are becoming, whether...whether they would have loved you.’
Everything hurt. For Nadya, Nayla, for Star...for himself.
‘And if no one talks about them, it’s like a denial. A denial that the person existed. And that makes it feel as if the ache in your heart has no real anchor, cutting you adrift in your grief.’
He opened his mouth to ask, but she pressed on before he could.
‘And this?’ she said, sweeping her arms out wide and spinning in a circle. ‘This suite? This palace? It was going to be their home. It meant so much to Faizan and Samira that they wanted to live here, they wanted to decorate this suite and make it perfect for their children. It’s clear from the photos, the memories, the plans...this was where their heart was and their children haven’t been back, their family hasn’t been back to it and it’s just so sad.’
It was an accusation that cut him to the bone.
‘We were trying to do what was best for them,’ he defended.
‘No. You were trying to do what was easiest.’
‘Don’t push me on this,’ he warned, half growl, half plea.
‘Why? Someone has to. You can’t stay like this,’ she warned. ‘You’re unhappy with the memorial plans—’
‘But they’re done!’ he yelled, no longer caring what effect it caused. ‘Three years on from the accident and at least it’s done.’
‘Really? Then why are you so dissatisfied with them? You keep changing things to fix it, but it’s never going to work if you know in your heart it’s wrong.’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said, slicing his hand through the air, trying to terminate the conversation.
‘At least I’m talking. Really, Kal, is everyone around you so afraid of you that they refuse to tell you what they think?’
‘Okay, Star, you tell me. What do you really think?’
‘I think you’re so afraid of whatever you feel guilty over that it’s stopping you from feeling anything real about Faizan and Samira. And because of that you’ve somehow allowed the memorial to be something not even half worthy of their memory.’
He felt the blood drain from his face. He wanted to fight, to rage, to shout against what she was saying, but he couldn’t.
Not even half worthy.
He felt sick. ‘It’s a disaster,’ he admitted through the acidic taste of bile at the back of his throat. ‘Everyone knows it. No one wants to admit it. But trying to find something that Samira’s father wants, something that my parents would be happy with, not to mention my nieces...’
He felt the weight of her gaze on him, could almost hear the words.
That’s not what I mean, and you know it.
He bit the inside of his cheek, torn between wanting to explain everything and wanting to bury it all for ever.
‘Samira was six when her family first visited, I was seven and Faizan was eight. We were inseparable, terrorising the palace staff, climbing trees, wreaking havoc...until Faizan had to start taking lessons to prepare for becoming ruler. Then it was just the two of us. It’s lonely being royal. Even attending a central city school, it’s not that easy to make friends who understand the presence of adult guards, or who don’t want to take advantage of who you are or your position. Samira understood it. She understood the constraints of royal life. But where I found it difficult, she seemed to thrive on it. She wanted to use her position to do great things. She would tease me about shirking my responsibilities and I would tease her about taking on too much.’
He missed the sound of her laughter. The way that it had lightened his heart and soothed the ache he felt there. He’d never found it easy being royal, but Samira had borne it with grace and beauty.
‘I’d always thought, hoped...’ He’d hoped so much. ‘Faizan was due to marry the daughter of an ambassador but she ran out just before the announcement, unable to take the weight of public scrutiny. The palace was in an uproar and Abbad... Abbad offered Samira as a replacement. And everyone agreed.’
Without telling him, they had all agreed. Even Samira. Khalif would never forget the moment he’d been told. The sheer incomprehension he’d felt until he’d seen it in her eyes. The sympathy, the silent apology. Even now he felt the wound deep in his heart throb and ache.
‘Had you never told them how you felt about her?’
‘What do you mean?’ he asked.
‘That you loved her.’ Star’s simple words left vibrations in the room that could have cracked the walls.
He could lie and tell her that he hadn’t, but it would break something within him, and he wouldn’t dishonour either Samira or Star like that.
‘I didn’t have to tell them,’ he replied, like he’d not had to tell Star. ‘I did love her—’ the words were both bitter and sweet on his tongue ‘—but the moment she became engaged to Faizan—’
He shook his head, struggling to find the words to describe just how much he’d fought, he’d wrestled and cursed his feelings. ‘After she had Nadya and Nayla, my feelings changed completely. Everything changed. She was different...a mother. She had two beautiful babies who were her sole purpose for being and...’ Everything really had changed.
‘It must have been incredibly difficult to watch Faizan and Samira marry,’ Star observed.
‘She wanted to marry Faizan,’ he said, knowing the truth of it. ‘She could see how much our parents wanted it. She knew him, liked him. He was...better—’ Khalif breathed ‘—he was the better man.’
‘He was a different man,’ Star stated.
‘You should have met him,’ Khalif replied wryly.
She watched him walk further into the suite, as if somehow dredging up the memories had released the ties holding him back and she was glad. Glad that he’d spoken about Samira. Love should never be something that caused shame or hurt, even if deep down she forced herself to acknowledge a pinprick of jealousy. But it wasn’t as much pain as it was sadness for him.
Because he must have felt so incredibly betrayed. His family couldn’t have missed his feelings for Samira—if she could see them still now. She believed him when he said that his feelings had changed towards her when she had Nadya and Nayla. But even so...her heart ached for him and felt now more than ever that he needed this as much as the girls did. They all needed to come home. To where their hearts had once been.
She took a deep breath and crossed her fingers. ‘I want to finish what they started.’
He stilled, as if he’d been instantly turned to stone.
‘I want to help make this a home for Nadya and Nayla.’
‘I’m really not sure about that,’ he said, turning to face her. She could see the warring in his eyes.
‘I think it would be good for them.’
He nodded reluctantly. ‘I’m not sure what you’re planning to do,’ he said, looking around him as if he wouldn’t have a clue where to start.
‘That’s okay. I have some ideas. Would you like to—?’
‘No. Ask for whatever you need from the staff. Just leave the list in your room.’
When Star didn’t appear for breakfast the next morning, he had his suspicions. When he reached his brother’s suite she was finishing the white undercoat in the hallway that someone had started over three years ago. Her back was to him and every time she reached upward above her head the sleeveless vest she was wearing lifted and he could see a slash of pale skin between the top and the loose linen trousers she wore. And he turned away.
He found an excuse to be at that end of the corridor a few hours later and was surprised by the extent of work she’d achieved. This time he nearly crossed the threshold, but he didn’t.
By the time dinner came around, Star looked happy but about to fall asleep in her food. She had tried to keep up with his questions.
‘How are you today?’had been met with, ‘I still don’t feel pregnant,’ which had been delivered with a tired smile. He wondered whether he should just hire a decorator for Star to direct. Even Faizan and Samira had done that. His thoughts flowed with a little more ease than he was used to and he realised then—that had been the first time that he’d thought about them naturally, without that sense of creeping guilt and ache that often accompanied such moments.
The next day he found Masoud hiding in the suite’s corridor, looking as if he were about to have a heart attack, periodically peering around the door frame and spinning back to look to the heavens as if in prayer. Khalif was surprised. So far, the staff and Star had managed to stay out of each other’s way.
Stepping as quietly as possible up to the man he’d known never to break a sweat under any circumstances, Khalif peered over Masoud’s shoulder to see what had made him behave in such a way and nearly choked on his own shock.
He clamped his jaw shut firmly.
For there was Star, without a care in the world, humming away as she painted large brushstrokes of admittedly very expensive undercoat over a nine-hundred-year-old fresco. Masoud was actually fanning himself and looked almost on the verge of tears.
‘We have more, Masoud,’ he whispered, reassuring himself as much as the older man.
‘I know,’ he replied mournfully. ‘It’s just that this one was particularly beautiful. I just didn’t have the heart to tell her...’ He trailed off. ‘She’s doing such a wonderful thing.’
Khalif could only nod, marvelling at the way the head of the palace staff was willing to sacrifice the ancient fresco for Nadya and Nayla, and even for Star.
‘I am a little worried about the drill bits, though.’
‘Drill bits?’ Khalif whispered harshly.
‘She’s asked for a drill and several sizes of masonry drill bits.’ At this, Khalif could completely understand Masoud’s concern. He winced himself at the thought of what she might do.
‘We can fix whatever needs fixing...if it needs fixing,’ he promised, hoping that he was right.
The next day, once again, Star had failed to appear for breakfast and this time Khalif took a small collection of pastries with him when he went to the suite he was beginning to think of as Nadya and Nayla’s.
Through the door to what had once been the girls’ room, he could see that Star was already painting and yet again her hair was worked up into a large woven cloth turban high on her head. She had finished the hallway and had worked her way around the first corner of the suite and if he wanted to see how she was getting on he would have to cross the threshold.
As if she had been waiting for him to do so, she turned and greeted him with such a beautiful smile that his heart missed a beat.
What would it be like to wake to her each morning?
Not to the blare of an alarm, the flick of the coffee machine or the imperious visage of his brother’s acerbic assistant.
‘Perfect timing,’ she said, looking at him with a gleam in her eye.
‘No. Nope,’ he said, shaking his head and holding up the pastries.
She looked at the food he was carrying and her eyes rounded with pleasure. ‘Thank you! I’m starving. And there’s just this little spot...’
He looked over her shoulder to see the stepladder.
‘Tell me you weren’t just on that,’ he demanded, the fury in his tone catching them both by surprise and he bit back a curse.
‘Of course. How else was I supposed to—’
‘Khalas! No. No more,’ he said, slashing the air with his hand. ‘I’m worried about the paint fumes, I can’t trust you not to go up ladders, I’m sure that you’ll be trying to move those beds soon enough—’
When her eyes grew wide, he clenched his jaw. ‘What did you do?’ he bit through clenched teeth.
‘I dismantled them before I moved them,’ she said, as if that would make it any better.
‘How did you—?’
‘Well, they’re not exactly Ikea, but the principle was the same, and the Allen keys were here, so...’
‘Why were Alan’s keys here and what does he have to do with...?’
He trailed off because suddenly Star descended into musical peals of laughter. She was almost bent double and sweeping moisture from her eyes.
‘I don’t understand what is so funny,’ he said, trying hard to keep hold of his anger. She made it too easy to breathe sometimes. Too hard not to laugh with her. And for the first time in three years he questioned why that was a bad thing.
‘Just take the roller and get into that spot,’ she ordered like a military general. He looked down at his clothes. ‘Afraid of getting dirty?’ she taunted.
‘Well, you’re clearly not.’
‘No,’ she said, smiling as she looked down at the splashes of paint across her trousers and forearms. ‘They’re just clothes that prove how much I’m enjoying myself.’
She had a spatter of paint on her cheek and he itched to smooth it from her skin, but didn’t. Instead, he agreed to do the area she indicated, despite the fact that he was already late for a video conference with his staff.
Colour started to appear on the walls over the next few days and Star now had him completely bent to her will. When he’d asked how she knew about dismantling furniture or checking walls for electrics, let alone the mind-boggling range of fillers, sealants, sandpaper sheets and blocks, she’d said something about a man from her sister’s job showing them how to fix certain issues in the flat. And when he’d drilled through the wall and taken out a chunk of plaster he’d been half terrified—not that he would have admitted it on pain of death. But she’d only laughed at him and told him that fixing mistakes was the best and only way to learn.
That evening, Star finally managed to get him to open up about the memorial, but instead of questioning his plans, she asked him more about Faizan and Samira. What they were like, what made them laugh, what made them angry. He was recounting a time when Samira had smoothed over ruffled feathers at an embassy ball, when he remembered the nickname they’d given her that night: jisr. Because she’d bridged the gap between ideas, people, countries.
‘And what do Nadya and Nayla think?’
He looked at her. ‘Think of what?’
‘The memorial.’
‘They’re six years old.’
‘Yes. Six—not three, not one. Six-year-olds can even generally feed themselves.’
He glared at her teasing, feeling angry and awkward.
She paused, the teasing tone melting away. ‘No one asked them?’
He shook his head, not quite sure why he felt so ashamed.
What do Nadya and Nayla think?
It was now almost midnight and he couldn’t get those words to stop spinning in his mind. He hated to think that he might have contributed to a sense that his nieces’ grief was something to be denied, or ignored. As if his own, his parents’ or the nation’s grief was somehow more important than theirs. Unable to shake that sense of overwhelming guilt and shame, he knew that he had to return to Burami. He needed to see his nieces. And at the same time he just might be able to retrieve the necklace for Star. The need became so overwhelming, he felt as if demons were chasing at his heels. He had to leave—now.