From One Night To Desert Queen by Pippa Roscoe

CHAPTER EIGHT

THEFIRSTTIMEthat Star had made a list of things she needed and left it in her room for the invisible staff to collect, she’d been surprised to find that it actually worked... That within twenty-four hours, forty-eight at the absolute most, her exact wishes were fulfilled. Out in the middle of the desert.

She tried to stay awake one night to see if she could hear the sounds of Jeeps or even helicopters bringing the materials she needed, but nothing. They just appeared as if by Christmas magic when she needed them. Which wasn’t helping Star’s determination not to live in her dream world any more. They were human staff, not fairy godmothers, and she was sure that the spontaneously appearing materials had more to do with Khalif being a prince than the staff having any magical powers.

The fact that Khalif was royalty still didn’t feel real. Yes, he behaved like a prince and there were as many glimpses of spoilt stubbornness as there were of grief and loss, but in the last few days she’d felt as if they’d been talking. Really talking. Building something, so that perhaps if she was pregnant it might not be so terrible. That perhaps having a child with Khalif could be her own happy-ever-after?

After her morning shower, Star crossed to the living area, hoping to find the bronze gold paint she wanted to use for the finishing touches across the girls’ bathroom ceiling, so when she first saw the note that had been thrust under the door she assumed it was from the staff, apologising for not being able to track it down.

She was already thinking of other ways to achieve the look she was hoping for when she caught sight of the scrawled K at the bottom and her heart leapt.

It was only because she was distracted, she told herself later, that the thought that it might be a love letter crept into her mind. That was where her mind had been so that when she opened the thick cartridge paper she had to read it over three times before she could make out the message.

Which essentially boiled down to a quick apology for having to return to Burami. He’d be back as soon as he could.

Unconsciously she rubbed at the ache in her chest, telling herself that she was silly to have got her hopes up. To be thankful for the reminder that although he was a prince he was made of flesh and blood, not ink and paper and imagination. This wasn’t a fairy tale romance. He was important and had been called away, and it wasn’t reasonable to expect that he could have woken her up to let her know.

She arrived in Nadya and Nayla’s suite to assess what still needed to be done. The bathroom was beautiful. Star knew it was a silly thing to get excited over, but it really was. This was where she had seen the touches Samira had planned most, the bronze gold taps and the antique glass panels. It was a faded beauty, but regal. There was an enormous roll top bath, only marginally outmatched by a shower unit dotted with pale pink tiles that matched the soft natural plaster that ran through the entire palace. But it was the midnight-blue that called to her. The depth and richness of the paint that had been chosen by Samira seemed as endless as the night sky. And when the bronze gold paint arrived she would cover the ceiling in stars. Large, small and everything in between. She sighed, hoping that it would come soon.

Star left the bathroom and walked back into the central living area to the project she had enjoyed almost as much, knowing that she could work on this until the gold paint arrived. She had kept Khalif away from this part of the room, wanting it to be a surprise. Wanting to see the look on his face when he saw the tree. When the girls saw...

She swallowed. It was quite likely that she wouldn’t be there when the girls saw all this. Her throat thickened and she blinked back the damp sheen in her eyes.

No matter. It wasn’t about her. It was about them. And they would know and see how much love had gone into this. And knowing that their uncle had helped would make it even more special for them.

She ducked under the sheet protecting the special project from view and picked up her paintbrush, trying to lose herself in the rich browns sweeping up the wall. Despite Khalif’s instruction, she definitely needed a ladder for this, but she had been very careful.

She only had this to finish, and the stars in the bathroom, which was a good thing because in four days they would be returning to Burami for the memorial and to find out if she were pregnant. After one test, she would know whether her life would irrevocably change or go back to how it had been before. For as close as she and Khalif had become in the last few days, she couldn’t deny that he had not spoken of what would happen if she wasn’t pregnant. And she couldn’t shake the feeling that the answer was...nothing. Nothing would happen. She would return to Norfolk as if they had never met.

But, even if that were the case, she knew instinctively that her life would never be the same again. She felt changed. Not just by Khalif, but by Catherine, by Duratra, all of it. It was as if the desert had seeped into her skin and bones and was part of her now.

But, like Catherine, she also knew her duty waited for her back home. She would return to Norfolk with the necklace, they would find the Soames diamonds, sell the estate, her mother would get the treatment she needed and... And then...

For the first time in her life, the thought of returning to the flat she shared with her sisters, and the job she loved so much with the children...it just didn’t seem as exciting as travelling through the desert, or seeing what else was out there in the wide world. Meeting so many different people, all with their own stories.

It struck her then that she hadn’t spoken to either of her sisters for nearly a week. She knew she was avoiding them because she didn’t want to lie to them about the necklace, or about where she was. But she missed them so much. She retrieved her phone and hit the call button, holding it to her ear with one hand while she painted a rich vein of muddy red upwards towards the ceiling.

But as the phone rang and rang she was transported back to a bus stop nearly ten years before. Cold, wet, she shivered even now. An automated voice announced that she had reached Summer’s answering service and the tremor that tripped over her body had her hanging up without leaving a message.

Minutes had turned into hours at that bus stop. She’d sat unseeing, facing the road as it rained, stopped and then rained again. Her mother and sisters hadn’t come for her. And the entire time her grandparents’ voices ran on a loop in her mind.

We want nothing to do with your mother or you. Do not ever come back here.

And that was when Star had realised that reality was a much harder, darker place than stories ever could be.

Khalif hadn’t meant to stay overnight, not that he’d slept for more than three hours, or let his staff sleep much more. But he was anything but exhausted.

Star had been right. He should have spoken to Nadya and Nayla months ago. If his mother had been surprised when he’d asked to see his nieces, she didn’t show it. And neither did they. They’d run to him as if he hadn’t stood them up only days before, they’d run to him as if he hadn’t retreated from them emotionally and physically in the last three years.

He’d spent hours playing with them, building forts from cushions and sheets draped over tables and chairs. He’d smuggled in ma’amoul, the semolina cookies that had been a favourite of Samira’s, and ghraybeh, the shortbread that his brother had preferred. And as dusk had fallen and their bellies had filled with the sweet treats, he’d talked to Nadya and Nayla about their parents. He’d always imagined that they would find it sad and difficult but the moment he’d said their names the twins chatted away happily. And while it had taken a little while to get used to, time for his heart to get over the initial jolt of shock and unfamiliarity, the girls had launched into a list of the things they remembered about their parents as if they recited it every day.

Nadya had wanted birds, Nayla had wanted flowers, and Khalif had managed to sidestep World War Three by promising that the memorial would have both. He couldn’t believe he’d forgotten how much Samira had loved birds. He had, in the way only adults could, assured himself that the twins couldn’t make a contribution that he hadn’t already thought of. He felt as if he were see-sawing between a sense of sadness, happiness, relief and regret for so much wasted time.

He’d gathered his team together and informed them of the changes—the big changes—he wanted them to implement. He was done trying to please everyone else. There was no way that could be done. Trying to second-guess what his parents, Samira’s father and the people of Duratra wanted had only served to dilute all previous ideas and he would not risk that again. And despite the concerned looks that crossed the table from one side to the other about the timeline they had to accomplish those plans, Khalif was finally completely happy with the memorial.

By the time he’d finished the briefing it had been too late, or rather too early in the morning to track down his mother, so he’d returned to his suite, crashed out on his bed fully clothed and woke a few hours later with a thumping headache. He’d showered, dressed in fresh clothes and was a second mouthful of espresso down when he’d watched his father’s cavalcade leave the palace from his balcony. Khalif couldn’t say for sure that he’d purposely missed connecting with his father, but it had made the visit easier. Because he knew instinctively that he could not stand before his father—his King—and keep Star’s possible pregnancy from him. Only when he knew for sure...

Unbidden, the image of himself holding a child—his child—left him winded. Because in all the scenarios that had run through his mind—the practicalities of what would need to happen were Star pregnant—he’d not allowed himself to think of what it would be like to hold his baby in his arms. A baby with Star’s blue eyes and his dark skin. Someone who trusted and loved him implicitly, without question. The weight of that responsibility heavier than a crown or a country.

In that moment, Star’s possible pregnancy morphed from something to be feared to something that he might actually want, might look forward to. And in his mind he saw Star, staring at him with the same trust and love and his heart turned.

His mother had sensed it when he’d sought her out. She’d asked if something had happened and he’d forced his thoughts away from Star herself and instead to the reason she had come to Duratra. When he’d finished explaining what he needed, his mother had seemed surprised and curious, but had done as he’d asked without question.

Now that he turned the last corner on the road to Alhafa, he wondered how Star had been in his absence.

Still not pregnant, he imagined her saying and couldn’t help the smile that formed on his lips.

Entering the palace, he went straight to Nadya and Nayla’s suite. A quick scan told him that she wasn’t there. She wasn’t in her rooms either and the tendril of concern that he’d been away too long began to root in his stomach. The palace felt empty. He quickened his pace and went straight to the staff area, hoping that they would know.

He knocked on Masoud’s office door, surprised to find the man glaring up at him from behind his desk.

‘Your Highness.’

Khalif frowned, the shortness of Masoud’s tone unusually censorious.

‘Have you seen Star?’

‘I might have,’ he said, looking down at the paperwork on his desk.

‘Masoud.’ His tone rich with warning, Khalif glared down at one of his most loyal employees, wondering when Star had enticed him over to her side.

‘Sir, with all due respect—’

‘Masoud, I’m noticing a distinct lack of that due respect,’ Khalif prodded.

‘You should never have left her alone like that, with no company and no word.’

‘Where is she?’

‘Have you looked for her?’

‘Of course.’

‘Have you seen the incredible things she’s done in the Princesses’ suite?’

‘Of course,’ he said, even though it was a lie. He hadn’t had the chance to see it properly as he’d wanted to see her.

‘Well, then. She is quite likely to be by the stables.’

Unused to being told off by his staff—other than Amin—he made his way towards the stables, hating the fact that Masoud was right. He turned the corner and immediately stepped back into the shadows. Star was with Mavia, stroking the animal’s long neck even as the mare nudged for more.

Mavia never did that. Not for anyone other than himself. Not even for Samira. What kind of spell had Star cast over the palace, making everyone fall in...

His thoughts were cut short as Star looked up and straight at him and he felt a punch to his gut.

Although she’d hidden it behind a quick blink of her eyes, he’d seen it. The pain, the loneliness. The hurt. And in an instant he remembered. What it was like to be left behind. To be sidelined. And he’d done it to her without even a second thought. He’d been so lost in his own needs—his own desperate need to plan the memorial properly, to impress his father, the country—that he’d left her behind.

He emerged from the shadows, an apology already on his lips. ‘I’m—’

‘Did you find what you needed?’ Star interrupted. She had chosen those words carefully. Because she didn’t want the other words to rush out. Words that would make her sound needy, desperate...lonely. As if she couldn’t be left by herself.

Only she couldn’t. Not really. Every single minute he’d been away had felt like torture. Her mind had delved into things that hurt, things she hadn’t thought of for years and had no desire to think of now.

Perhaps her sisters had been right. She wasn’t ready to do this on her own. Either of them would have had the necklace by now, returned to Norfolk, and they quite likely would have found the jewels. She should have stayed behind.

Would she have been as lonely in the estate in Norfolk? No. It was the pain of knowing that there were people she couldn’t talk to. People she couldn’t be seen by. People who, as kind and amazing as they had been to fulfil her requests each day, could deny they’d ever met her.

Shame. She’d felt shame.

Again.

‘Ye—’

‘I’m glad,’ she said, spinning away before he could either finish the word or stop her.

Tears formed, blinding her to her path, and she dashed them from her eyes. Why couldn’t she have cried before he’d returned? she asked herself. Why not at two in the morning when she’d not been able to sleep? Why not when the horrifying realisation had swept over her that she had filled her life with people and distractions to escape from the feeling of loneliness and shame that had scarred her when she’d visited her father’s family.

‘Star...’

Khalif’s hand was heavy on her shoulder and he spun her round to face him.

‘Who hurt you?’ he asked, staring deep into her eyes.

‘You did!’

He flinched, but as if he’d been braced for it. ‘I know. And for that I’m sorry. But I meant...who hurt you first?’

She almost collapsed under the sudden ache in her stomach and heart—as if the years of pushing it down, desperately ignoring it had given the pain even more power over her.

She tried to pull out of his arms, but he wouldn’t let go of her. He searched her eyes, and she let him see. She opened herself up to the hurt so that he would know and was overwhelmed by it too. He cursed and, just as her legs shook, he swept her up in his arms and she felt...protected.

She knew she should tell him to put her down, ask him where he was taking her. Instead she just let go, ignoring the tears seeping into his shirt, the way her throat ached as if she had been screaming. Perhaps she had been, just silently and for far too long.

She closed her eyes as he took her up stairs and down corridors, almost afraid to look. She didn’t want to go back to her room. Didn’t want him to just leave her there. A hysterical woman out of sight of his staff.

As she felt him push through a door, she inhaled the rich scent of sandalwood and lime that she associated with him and curled more tightly into his body, not embarrassed enough by her neediness to stop.

He bent beneath her and sat, and she couldn’t help but tense as she expected to be offloaded, but it never happened. He continued to hold her to his chest, until her tears and breathing slowed. At some point she registered his chin resting on her head, neither heavy nor intrusive. She was encompassed by his arms, as if he’d wrapped himself around her completely, and in that moment she knew that he’d make the perfect father. Just holding her, allowing her to feel what she needed to feel. No questions—not yet anyway—no impatience or sense of frustration or distraction. As if his only purpose here was her. It was almost enough to start her tears again.

‘My mum didn’t hide my dad from me,’ she began, for some reason not wanting him to have the wrong impression of her mother. ‘She spoke about him. There were photos of him in the house and always stories—stories of how they’d met, fallen in love so quickly... She would show me the things he’d made from wood, tell me what he’d hoped for his future...for my future. So I always felt that he was a part of my life.’

She shrugged against his chest, her eyes unseeing of the room around her. Instead she had been transported back in time, to the little council house they’d lived in when she was younger.

‘I thought that’s what families were. Just children and parents. Skye didn’t see much of her father after he remarried, and Summer’s wasn’t a part of our lives so... I didn’t know to ask about grandparents, about my father’s life outside of us, until school, really. That’s when I became aware of grandparents. The older I got, the more I would wonder about my father’s parents. What they could tell me about him. Who they were. Were they curious about me? Had they been looking for me? Mum was fairly tight-lipped about them. There had been an argument...but she wouldn’t go into the details. She just shut the conversation down whenever it came to them.’

Star sniffed a little, pulling her shawl around her and tucking herself against his side as if to ward off what came next.

‘By the time I was thirteen, I had convinced myself that there had been a tragic misunderstanding between my mum and his parents. I thought if I just went to see them then somehow they’d just...’

She let out a painful breath, expelling the hope she’d once felt into the room. She shook her head in wonder at her own naivety.

‘That they’d just know, and we’d all hug each other, and my kind, grey-haired, soft grandparents would welcome my whole family with open arms. I imagined Christmases with stockings—because that’s what I thought grandparents did—and perhaps even Sundays at a house with a garden. I’d decided that they had a tiny dachshund. It was called Bobbi and it was half blind and would constantly knock into things, but we would take care of it, me and my sisters, while my grandparents cooked in the kitchen with my mother.’

She huffed out a laugh then. ‘I should really have known it was a fantasy, partly because Skye always did the cooking.’

Khalif felt his stomach tighten, instinctively knowing that this story did not end well.

‘I’d found their address from some letters my father had written to my mother when he’d still been living with them. There wasn’t a telephone number and maybe I didn’t want one. It would spoil my plan. I’d saved up enough pocket money for the train ticket, worked out that if I ditched school, I could get the bus to the station and the train from there. I copied out the map from the computer at school. I even took some flowers. Who doesn’t like flowers?’

The thought of thirteen-year-old Star with a bunch of flowers travelling to see these people he already didn’t like did something to him.

‘I was so surprised it worked. No one stopped me, or wanted to know what I was doing out of school. I thought I had been so clever. Then I was standing in front of the red-painted door of number thirty-four College Road. I’d imagined blue, but I quite liked the red. It looked cheery,’ she said.

Her voice was laced with a sarcasm he’d never heard from her before.

‘I knocked, and the woman who answered looked almost like what I’d imagined. There were still traces of the marmalade colour hair she’d given to her son, but faded with streaks of white. Just like the way her eyes faded from an open, pleasant welcome to something almost like disdain. She called for her husband without taking her eyes off me. “I’m your granddaughter,” I said. You see, I thought they hadn’t realised. But she had. They did. They knew who I was.’

She took a deep breath. ‘They said that they didn’t have a granddaughter. They said that I was unchristian and unlawful because my parents had never married and they told me never to return.’

Khalif cursed under his breath, not that Star noticed. She seemed to be lost in her memories. ‘What did you do?’ He was half afraid to ask.

‘I found a payphone and called home, but of course my sisters were in school and Mum was away. I left a message asking Mum to come and get me and then I waited by the bus stop.’ She shook her head again, the silken strands of her hair brushing against his shirt. ‘I felt like I’d let her down,’ she said, running her fingers across her lips.

‘Who?’ Khalif asked, trying to keep the consternation from his voice.

‘My mum. I knew why my parents hadn’t married. It wasn’t because they didn’t love each other, but because they did, and they didn’t need a piece of paper to prove it. I felt like I’d betrayed that somehow by visiting these people.

‘I didn’t realise how long I’d been sat there but when a policeman found me it was dark. He explained a bus driver had seen me on his route and been worried. They finally managed to track Mum down and they drove me home.’

It was only when she’d seen her mum and sisters, rushing from the door of their little house and sweeping her up in their arms, that Star had let the tears fall. They’d surrounded her completely with hugs and love and held her while she sobbed, the force of it shaking each and every one of them.

‘The only way I was able to stop crying was when Skye began to read me my favourite story. From that day on, almost every night for an entire year, after dinner we would all sit down in the sitting room and take it in turns to read stories of love, hope, happy ever afters.’ Until the memories of that awful day at her grandparents’ home were buried beneath Pride and Prejudice, Little Women, Romeo and Juliet, North and South, Sense and Sensibility, Gone with the Wind...

‘Did it make things better?’ he asked, the vibrations from his voice rumbling gently into the side of her body pressed against his.

She wanted to turn her lips to his chest, but instead was content with her cheek resting there.

‘It did. Losing myself in romance and happy endings was a much better thing than to lose myself in sadness, hurt and shame.’

She yawned, utterly spent and exhausted. Both the emotions of the last couple of days and the work she’d put in on the suite had drained her completely.

‘Thank you,’ she said, looking up at him, still encircled in his arms. ‘Thank you for just listening.’

‘Of course.’

He’d been about to say Any time, but he couldn’t say it and know it might not be true. ‘Shall I take you back to your room?’

She looked almost on the verge of asking a question before she seemed to think better of it, smiled, and said that she knew the way.

Long after she left, he sat in the room with her memories vivid in his imagination. To be so rejected by family was completely alien to him. He might have had a difficult relationship with his parents, but they would never cut him from their lives. They hadn’t when he’d run wild through Europe and they wouldn’t even if they discovered Star was carrying his child and that he would be marrying her.

He stalked the halls of the palace, returning to the suite that Star had been so consumed by. He knew that it would affect him, being in what had once been his brother’s quarters, and he marched towards them, braced and ready for a fight—albeit an emotional one.

First, he opened the door to the bathroom. It had been days since he’d seen it and the breath left his lungs in surprise. All over the ceiling and down the parts of the walls that weren’t covered in antique mirrored glass or the shower was an incredible night sky. A deep blue paint was interspersed with thousands of stars, ranging from the smallest dot to an intricate eight-pointed star the size of his palm. It gave the room an infinite depth and he felt as if he were standing in the middle of the cosmos. He knew that it had nothing to do with ego and everything to do with fully realising Samira’s dream, and in that moment he knew he’d never forget Star’s kindness as long as he lived.

He was reluctant to leave the space, but he was equally curious about what lay beneath the drop cloth covering a large area of the living space wall. His hand shook a little as he pulled it away, as if he sensed that whatever it was would be profound, but as the cloth fell away he had to cover his mouth with his hand to stop his shock from escaping into the room.

A tree wound its way up from the floor to the ceiling. Branches covered the length of the wall, the texture and detail of the bark making him want to reach out and touch it. It was only as he got closer that he saw little hand and foot holds drilled into the walls.

The girls would be able to climb it, just like Samira had climbed the tree in the palace garden. Stepping up to the wall, he felt the floor beneath his feet change to a soft mat that would protect them if they fell. Star had thought of everything. He shook his head in wonder.

‘I hope you can see this, brother,’ he whispered out loud. ‘Samira, I know how much this would mean to you.’

Now it was up to Khalif to try and repair some of the hurt he’d caused and it came to him instantly, knowing the rightness of it by how his chest filled with excitement and his pulse pounded.

He knew just the way.