Christmas Bride for the Sheikh

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.’

  ‘After Mum died I never thought I’d love Christmas again,’ Maggie admitted. ‘But now I want him to know the same magic that I had growing up. I haven’t even got him a present...’

  ‘I have,’ Flo said. ‘I got a few extra bits too and they’re all wrapped and waiting.’

  Christmas was back.

  At least, it was for Maggie.

  Flo was beyond tired and looking forward to crawling into bed and pulling the sheets over her head until the day was done.

  But that wasn’t an option yet.

  She didn’t want to leave Maggie until she was ready for a long sleep, but that wasn’t about to happen as Ilyas returned and informed her that his parents did indeed want to visit.

  It was both surprising and nice to see them make an effort. They didn’t stay for long, but the Queen even had a small hold of the little baby.

  ‘Congratulations,’ King Ahmed said. ‘Have you chosen a name?’

  Flo watched as Maggie went to respond but Ilyas cut in. ‘We are still deciding.’ For whatever reason, Ilyas didn’t want to share that particular piece of news just yet, Flo guessed. When the Queen looked over at her, Flo went over and took the baby as Ilyas spoke on. ‘I have asked the palace elder, later today, to announce the birth of a healthy son. That is news enough for now.’

  The King and Queen left, and with that visit over Maggie sank back on the pillows in relief.

  ‘I think he’s starting to get hungry,’ Flo said, and handed her back her son. But feeding time wasn’t going to happen just yet for there was another visitor.

  ‘Hi, Hazin,’ Maggie said, and Flo felt the colour drain from her cheeks.

  She simply wasn’t ready to face him now, not that she could show it. The last thing Maggie needed was to pick up on even a hint of the tension between them.

  It was hard not to show it, though.

  Terribly hard, to stand with a fixed smile and pretend that this man had not hurt her deeply.

  Hazin came over and gave Maggie a kiss on the cheek and then peered down at the baby.

  ‘He’s very cute,’ Hazin said, and Flo could hear his attempt to sound bright. He was as pale as he had been on the day he had given the speech. Beneath his eyes there were dark smudges and he looked as if he’d had just about as much sleep as she had.

  ‘Do you want to hold him?’ Maggie asked, but Hazin shook his head and politely declined.

  ‘No, thank you. I’m sure he needs his mother right now.’

  ‘Well, I think he’d like to meet his uncle,’ Maggie refuted, and held the little baby out.

  Hazin rather awkwardly took the baby.

  Flo didn’t want to look; she didn’t want Maggie to get even a hint of the hurt she carried today.

  Yet she couldn’t not look.

  Hazin gazed down at his nephew and watched as he struggled to focus in this very new world, but then Hazin lowered his head and their eyes met. ‘Hi, there,’ he said to the infant and did not take his eyes from him as he spoke to the proud parents. ‘Does he have a name?’

  There was no evasion as there had been with the parents. ‘Bassam,’ Maggie answered, then Ilyas explained why they had chosen that name.

  ‘It means the one that smiles. It is what we both want for him.’

  Hazin’s face crumpled a touch as he looked at the newborn and heard his new name.

  Hazin didn’t cry as such, but it was this moment where all could see the pain that he’d kept hidden for so long. Here, today, for a brief moment, it was on show for all to see. Yet for all the pain of the past, there was so much hope for his nephew, who lay so tiny and yet so content in his arms, as if he already knew he was wanted and loved.

  Flo went over, only because she was the midwife and could sense he was ready to hand the baby back. The less professional side of Flo could tell he was struggling to keep it together.

  ‘I’ll take him,’ she said, and as Hazin looked up she saw his eyes were glassy.

  ‘Thanks.’

  It was an awkward transition—Flo, who could easily juggle twins on her lap while speaking on the phone, was suddenly all fingers and thumbs as he handed her the little bundle, but of course she clicked into working mode and seamlessly handed him back to his mother.

  She could still feel the touch of Hazin’s hands on her skin and she had seen the despair in his eyes.

  ‘I’m going to go,’ Hazin said. He was a bit embarrassed by the brief slip of his mask so he again offered his congratulations and then left.

  As the door closed, Maggie spoke to Ilyas about Hazin and his reaction to the baby. ‘He must have been thinking about Petra.’

  Flo knew she was brilliant at her job then, because somehow she bit down on a very smart retort about Hazin thinking of Petra at inappropriate times!

  And then her anger towards him simply faded.

  There was just a hollow ache of sadness.

  It wasn’t a vague ache, for it gnawed inside her and it felt like hunger.

  But hunger she could rectify.

  What had happened earlier she could not.

  The baby was fed and settled and Maggie too, after a light meal, was ready to sleep. Flo was more exhausted than she had ever been.

  Not just physically, she was utterly drained.

  ‘Why don’t you go and get some sleep, Flo?’ Ilyas suggested.

  ‘I’m going to.’ Flo nodded. ‘Wake me up when Maggie wakes and if the baby—’

  ‘Rest now, Flo,’ Ilyas said. ‘We have the palace doctor and there are two nursery nurses. You have been up all night and you need to sleep too.’

  Flo nodded, because she knew he was right.

  Over the next few days she would be hands on, helping Maggie with little Bassam, but right now she wanted to curl up in bed and just cry.

  ‘Thank you for everything,’ Ilyas said, and saw her outside.

  She ached, and the walk through the Palace felt like a long one. The high of a successful delivery had faded and the rest of the world, her world, awaited—she just could not bear to face what had happened last night with Hazin.

  She would deal with her thoughts later, Flo decided, for right now she was too depleted to think straight.

  As she passed the portraits, very deliberately Flo kept her eyes fixed ahead and thought only of bed and sleep. Yet before that she had to ring her family and pretend, for the second year in a row, that everything was okay just so that she didn’t ruin their Christmas.

  This time, though, she hurt way more than last year.

  A married man had been awful.

  A grieving widower hurt like hell.

  And the sight of Hazin waiting for her as she turned the corner was not a sight she needed right now.

  ‘Not now.’ Flo was the one who said it this time and she put up her hands and attempted to just walk past.

  ‘Yes, now.’

  ‘No, because I’m too tired to be polite,’ Flo said. ‘And I don’t want to be mean...’

  ‘I don’t blame you if you are,’ Hazin said, ‘but, please, just hear me out.’

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  HE GUIDED HER into a room, a library, and she sat there, shivering with cold and tiredness and the hurt of it all.

  ‘I didn’t feel for Petra the way I feel about you,’ he said, and Flo let out a hollow laugh.

  ‘You’ve had all night to come up with something and that’s the best you can do?’

  Flo stood and went to brush past him but he halted her.

  ‘I knew that I was...’ He stopped. Hazin was certain he had messed up too much for the plans he had made. ‘Flo, I wasn’t thinking about Petra.’

  ‘You said her name when you came.’ />
  ‘After I came,’ Hazin said, and those seconds mattered. ‘Afterwards,’ he reiterated, ‘I just felt this terrible guilt because I’ve never felt like that before. I didn’t love Petra the way I love you.’

  But Flo was so wary and way too used to lies to simply believe him.

  She did sit down, though, while Hazin did his best to explain.

  ‘Just before she died, Petra told me that she knew I didn’t love her and I can’t stand it that she died never knowing love. Because I didn’t. Ilyas had again refused to marry and my father had asked me if I was prepared to step up. I said yes. For the first time I didn’t feel like a substitute. I did the right thing by my father and I married the bride they chose for me. I did my best and I treated her like the princess she was but—’

  ‘Hazin,’ Flo interrupted, ‘love doesn’t just happen, well, not most of the time...’ She had to qualify what she had just said because love had just happened to her on the night they had met. ‘You married a stranger...’ Flo was not a mean person by nature, so she was kind. ‘I’ve seen the way you treat others, I don’t doubt you were wonderful to your wife. Perhaps she was just trying to set you free...’

  Hazin was quiet as he thought back to those times because that was the type of thing Petra might have done, and then he swallowed as Flo spoke on.

  ‘Maybe love would have grown.’

  He nodded.

  For in many ways it had.

  ‘You were eighteen when you married, Hazin, and did your best at the time...’ Flo shook her head. ‘I can’t do this now. I need to sleep.’

  ‘Of course.’

  She walked away from him, and as she did so his words were playing in her head.

  Though the words that were playing on repeat in her head weren’t—Petra, Petra, Petra, Petra, Petra. Instead they were...

  I didn’t love Petra the way I love you.

  When Hazin had said love had he perhaps meant want?

  Or had Hazin just told her he loved her?

  And if he had, what on earth was she doing, walking away?

  Flo could feel his eyes on her as she entered her room. She wanted to get away from his gaze so she wouldn’t break down and cry and instead could clarify things to herself and think.

  But then Flo opened the door and she simply stopped thinking. In fact, she was stunned, because suddenly it had turned into Christmas.

  There was a gorgeous pine tree with twinkling lights and all the presents she had wrapped were under it, as well as some she hadn’t.

  It was bewildering.

  Flo stood and breathed in the scent of pine. She looked up at the gold streamers lacing the ceiling. Everywhere she looked it was Christmas—there was even fake snow on the balcony doors.

  ‘Happy Christmas,’ Hazin said, and he came up behind her and snaked his hand around her waist, and Flo just leant back on him.

  ‘You did this.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘The staff have been busy.’

  ‘You arranged it, though.’

  ‘With difficulty. When you declined to change rooms I had to think on my feet and somehow get you over to mine so the staff could decorate the room. I filled your stocking, though.’

  Flo looked over towards her bed and sure enough there was a red velvet stocking hanging there.

  ‘I believe you’re supposed to open your stocking first?’ Hazin prompted.

  ‘Absolutely.’

  Shaken, Flo walked over to the bed and undid a velvet bow and the stocking dropped into her hand.

  ‘I didn’t do the decorations, but I wrapped each gift myself,’ Hazin said. ‘Well, except for the fruit and nuts.’

  He really had! There was a lipstick and a nail varnish and... ‘False eyelashes?’

  ‘I had to look up gift suggestions,’ Hazin explained.

  ‘Oh, well, thank you very much.’

  ‘There’s more,’ Hazin said.

  Flo smiled as she weighed the stocking in her hand. But then tears filled her eyes because what he had done was beautiful, but the hours before had hurt so very much.

  He knew how much he had hurt her, so he took her in his arms and just held her as she tried to work out how it was possible to be so sad and so happy all at the very same time. How to swear never again in one moment, while knowing you were about to dive right back in the next.

  ‘I don’t understand what happened, Hazin.’

  ‘Flo, I messed up...’ he admitted. It had been the story of his life and Hazin was certain that no apology this time, however heartfelt, could fix it.

  ‘You, really, really did,’ Flo said.

  ‘I won’t do it again.’

  ‘You might.’ She giggled.

  For Hazin, it was the most magical sound on earth, so much so that he peeled himself from her embrace and held her as he gazed upon forgiveness.

  The right kind.

  He just looked at her—and marvelled that she could smile after what he had done. The hint that there would be more chances of getting things wrong helped too.

  ‘I am in love with you,’ he told her.

  It was so new to them both, such a naked honesty that neither really knew how to deal with a love so exposed.

  And so they attempted normality, on a Christmas Day in Zayrinia that had not existed until now.

  ‘The presents under the tree are from your family,’ he told her. ‘They were delivered last week.’

  ‘So Kumu was lying.’

  ‘On my orders.’

  And though usually Flo would be diving under the tree and tearing paper, in bliss to open presents from home, instead she just stood there, those words he’d said still on repeat.

  The I love you ones.

  It was time for Flo to be brave.

  She went to the tree and her hand hovered over the two gifts she had bought for him.

  ‘I got something for you too.’

  She went for the first, the safe option, yet as she handed it to him there was a flutter of hope in her heart.

  He looked at the little card with his name on and opened the parcel carefully.

  ‘Chocolate gingers?’ he frowned as he read the box and opened them up. ‘I’ve never heard of them.’

  ‘Dark chocolate gingers. They really are the best.’

  He bit into one and his smile grew wide. ‘They are amazing.’

  ‘I know, I know.’

  ‘They seriously are. Thank you.’

  ‘Once you know how good they are, it’s sort of a tradition to eat them every year.’

  ‘I think I can manage that.’

  Then she looked at the pile of presents. There was even one from his parents addressed to her. Had they listened to his speech? Had kindness been sown? She looked at the labels on the presents from her family.

  To Flo

  With Love

  Those words were such an unquestionable presence in her life, yet one Hazin had lived entirely without.

  It was time to be brave.

  And so she handed him another present—a slim package. Just an envelope dressed in silver and tied with a bow.

  But within it lay her heart.

  ‘This is for you,’ Flo said.

  He looked at the little card, again with his name upon it, and he undid the bow and then peeled open the silver envelope.

  Inside was a ticket to a West End show.

  ‘I’ve got the other ticket,’ Flo told him.

  ‘But it’s not until spring?’

  ‘It was the earliest I could get weekend tickets,’ Flo said, and then she took a breath. ‘And it would give you time to think. If by then you’d missed me...’ Then she said the hardest part. ‘When I first thought about what to buy you, I was in a depar
tment store and decided on some sexy underwear. Something fun and light that could be kept for me, but it wasn’t what I wanted...’ She looked at Hazin and admitted a truth she had recently learnt. ‘I don’t speak up enough. I do at work, but in my personal life I’m the queen of pretending that everything’s fine and not stating my wants. I’ve decided it’s time that stopped.’

  ‘I agree,’ Hazin said. ‘So what are your wants?’

  ‘That if we see each other again I want it to be about more than just sex.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘I want to go out on a date.’

  A first date.

  A proper one.

  ‘I would love to go out on a date with you,’ Hazin said, and he looked down at the ticket. It meant so much to be asked for a night out with Flo. ‘Perhaps I could take you to dinner beforehand?’

  ‘I’d like that,’ Flo said. ‘Very much.’ But then, at the mention of dinner, her stomach cramped. ‘I hate to ruin the romance but I’m so hungry, Hazin, I haven’t eaten since...’ Flo could honestly not remember when.

  It had been her own fault. There had been refreshments discreetly delivered throughout the night, but the knot in her stomach had been placated by endless tea.

  Well, no more.

  And so, as unsexy as they were, Flo stated her wants. ‘I need something to eat.’

  ‘Then I’ll call Kumu.’

  ‘But then she’ll know you’re in here.’

  ‘Flo,’ Hazin said, ‘I don’t care who knows about us. Now, if you are truly starving, open your stocking.’

  ‘It will take more than fruit and nuts...’

  ‘It’s not a mandarin,’ he said, and picked up the discarded stocking and handed it back.

  It felt like it was.

  Well, satsuma was her choice of fruit for Christmas Day, but to pick him up on his naming of citrus would be rather splitting hairs when he’d gone to so much effort.

  It felt like a heavy fruit for it was soft and round but when she pushed it up through the stocking, Flo found it was, in fact, a squishy, burnt orange velvet ball. Like a luxurious stress ball, it was a work of art, with tiny gold tacks all around and an intricate gold catch.

  It was a box of sorts.