The Sheikh's Last Gamble

by Trish Morey

  ‘It’s Hana,’ she said. ‘We can’t find her.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘NO!’ Ice ran through Marina’s veins as she bolted from the car and raced into their tent, needing to see for herself Hana’s empty bed. The sheets were cold to the touch when she rested the palm of her hand down on them.

  Oh God, she thought, feeling sick. She should never have gone. Why had she gone? Why had she stayed away so long? ‘How long has she been missing?’ she asked, taking Chakir from the distressed Catriona, needing to hug him, to prove one of her children was still there. ‘Where have they looked?’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Catriona said, distraught. ‘She must have slipped out while I was asleep. I don’t know how long she’s been gone.’

  ‘She can’t have gone far,’ Marina said, wishing for it to be so.

  ‘They’re looking through every tent again. Searchers have started fanning out into the desert in case she wandered off.’

  ‘No!’ She collapsed into a chair, clutching Chakir tightly to her chest, her hand cradling his head. He was too big now to be held that way and he squirmed under her hands, but she would not let him go. The thought of Hana wandering off into the dark desert night over shifting desert sands was too dreadful to contemplate.

  ‘I’ll find her,’ she heard Bahir say, but his voice sounded a long way away.

  ‘I wish I hadn’t gone,’ she said, rocking her son. ‘I should never have gone. I should never have left them.’

  He watched her while she rocked, her face bleached white with shock, her arms wound so tightly around their son that he could feel her pain. ‘I’ll find her,’ he repeated as much for his own benefit as for hers.

  After the mess he had made of tonight, he had to.

  The camp was alive with activity when he emerged from the tent, everyone aware of the seriousness of the situation; of a tiny child, wandering lost and alone in the desert. She couldn’t have gone far, he rationalised as he threw the brightly coloured Arabian saddle over his horse, not on her short legs. But, still, which way had she gone? If anything happened to her, she would never forgive herself for leaving the children and he would never forgive himself for taking her away from them.

  The sky was lightening now, the promise of a new day also a threat, bringing a scorching sun to the hunt, both a blessing and a curse.

  His mount snorted and hoofed the earth, as if sensing the urgency as he leapt onto its back and wheeled it around, preparing to set off. Where would a child go? he wondered, scanning the surrounding dunes now lit with half-light. Where would Hana go?

  He had already headed to the top of the nearest dune when he heard the goat bleating, an oddly discordant note to its sound. He turned his mount around and looked more closely at the flock of animals contained in a loose corral. It sounded almost as if something was wrong.

  And he wondered.

  Animals scattered as he came close, the black Bedouin goats and desert sheep waking in alarm, bleating protests at the stranger in their midst as they skittered out of his way. Then he saw the old mother goat lying at the back, blinking up at him with her sideways eyes, her twin kids nestled together on the ground, a tiny child curled in their midst.

  A motionless child.

  Hana!

  He must have said her name out loud because she woke with a start and burst into tears, confused and disoriented as he lifted her to his chest. And he was so relieved that she was all right, that she had only been asleep, that he just held her and cuddled her close and told her it was all right, even as she wailed against his chest and cried for her mother.

  ‘It’s okay, Hana. I’ll take you to your mother,’ he said, rubbing her back the way he’d seen Marina do, talking to the child in a low voice, hoping to calm her down. ‘She was worried about you, and so sorry she wasn’t there. That was my fault. I took her away. I should never have done that.’

  The child’s sobs slowed. She curled closer to him, recognising him, feeling safer. ‘And if anything had happened to you,’ he said, stroking her hair as her head rested on his shoulder, ‘I would never have forgiven myself. You have a special mother, you know, and she deserves better than anything I can give her. Much better. Just as you deserve a father who can keep you safe.’

  Hana sniffed against his shoulder and rubbed her eyes and he leaned his head down and kissed her black curls. ‘But I will miss you, Hana Banana, when you are gone. And it will be my own stupid fault, for not realising how precious your mother was from the very beginning. For never being able to tell her what I felt because I didn’t understand what I felt. For being jealous of shadows. For never realising all this time that I loved her. Only now it’s too late.’

  ‘Hana,’ she said, looking up at him solemnly as she focused on the important part of his conversation. ‘Hana ‘nana.’

  He smiled in spite of the dampness he felt rising in his eyes, knowing he had missed a chance at life and love. Knowing he was returning to a bleak and pointless future—the future of his own making, the future he deserved—and now all the more bleak for knowing what he would be missing. ‘You are,’ he said, touching a fingertip to the tip of her cute nose, ‘the best Hana ‘nana ever.’

  She giggled and he smiled with her, even as he felt his own world crumbling apart.

  The goats! Marina was sitting with Chakir on her lap when she wondered—had anyone checked the goats? She kissed her son and left him with Catriona, who promised a hundred times that she would not take her eyes from him. Marina hugged her and told her to stop blaming herself and ran from the tent.

  Hana was in love with those baby goats. Had anyone looked? Was there a chance?

  She heard her daughter’s screams before she got there and she almost bolted across the sands towards the sound in relief, until she saw Bahir with his back to her, cradling Hana against his shoulder, his soothing hand at her back; until she heard the words he uttered to her and she paused silent in the cool light of dawn to listen.

  ‘My fault,’ she heard him say amongst the snippets of his words she could catch. ‘She deserves better.’ So true, she thought, knowing she must remain resolute and equally determined not to have her intentions to return home watered down by the picture of him cradling Hana on his shoulder, a picture she had dreamed of happening one day—lots of one days. But why did it have to happen now?

  Why now, when everything was lost?

  She would have stepped from the shadows then—she almost did—except she heard him say, ‘And it will be my own stupid fault, for not realising how precious your mother was from the very beginning.’ She paused, and heard him go on to talk of jealousy and shadows, then of love—she held her breath—and of how it was now too late.

  Her lungs sucked in air. She must have made a sound, because Hana lifted her head from his shoulder and saw her. ‘Mama!’ she cried, holding out her arms.

  She ran to her child then, scooping her from his arms and hugged her close. ‘Oh, Hana, you gave me such a scare. What were you doing here with your goats?’

  ‘Goat,’ Hana said, pointing to the babies now drinking at their mother’s teats, and she looked up, saw Bahir standing there and smiled. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  He gave a slight bow of his head. Formally. Distantly. As if he had already withdrawn from her, knowing she was leaving. ‘I will make arrangements for your departure to Souza.’

  She knew she should still go home. She had made up her mind to go. But something about his softly spoken words made her hesitate. No, not something—his talk of love made her hesitate. Made her wonder …

  ‘There’s no rush,’ she said, and he looked back at her, confusion skating across the surface of his dark eyes. ‘Hana will need to rest. We all will.’

  As if on cue, Hana yawned and dropped her head onto her mother’s shoulder. He nodded and turned to go. ‘Of course. Whenever you are ready. I will go and call off the search.’

  ‘And Bahir?’

  He stopped but this time he didn’t turn around
. ‘Can we talk?’ she said. ‘Once Hana is asleep? I was going to tell you last night before … Well, I didn’t tell you, and I owe you an explanation at least.’

  He shook his head, looking down at his feet. ‘You owe me nothing. Not after what I have done to you. The things I have said …’

  The note of despair in his flat lifeless voice squeezed her heart. ‘Come to my tent once you have called off the search and I will tell you about my friend Sarah.’ She looked down at the drowsy child in her arms. ‘Hana’s birth mother.’

  Hana was sleeping when he lifted the flap into the children’s sleeping quarters a little while later, Marina sitting alongside and watching her as if she was afraid she might disappear again. Though she didn’t turn, she must have sensed it was him, because without looking his way she gestured him to enter and sit down on the end of the bed.

  ‘Sarah was a friend of mine,’ she started as he sat down softly. ‘I’d met her a few times at the casino and we’d say hello, but it was after our split that we grew closer.’ She looked over at him then, a sad smile on her face. ‘She helped me, you see, in the days and weeks following—Well, you know. She let me move in with her, and when she found out I was pregnant she mothered me a little. She had always wanted a baby, she said. She wanted nothing more in the world. But she had suffered from cancer as a teenager and wasn’t sure she even could conceive a child.

  ‘And then Chakir was born and she decided she wanted a baby more than ever, while there still might be a slim chance she might be a mother. She didn’t have a partner and so she found a nameless man—I never found out who, I never knew the details—and became pregnant.’

  She sniffed, and he could see the glow of moisture in her eyes. ‘It was while they were doing the pregnancy tests that they found out the cancer was back, and this time more aggressive than ever. They told her she would have to have an abortion, because the treatment she needed to save her would kill her baby.’

  She pressed her lips together. ‘She refused treatment. She wanted this baby so much, even though she knew the risk to herself. Even though she knew it might well cost her own life, she knew she would never get another chance. And when Hana was born she said it was the happiest day of her life, even though her body was wasted and she was already dying and there was nothing the doctors could do …’

  Her voice trailed away as the tears rolled down her cheeks and he ached to kiss them away, but he knew he had no right to touch her or to soothe her pain when he had caused so much of it himself, pain he now knew was so wrongfully inflicted. He had no right to comfort her.

  ‘She loved Hana so much,’ she continued, her hands clenched tightly in her lap. ‘And she asked me if I would adopt her, because she wanted Hana and Chakir to grow up together.’

  ‘She had no family of her own?’

  ‘Sarah was estranged from her parents—they were very strict and they cut her off when they learned she was working in a casino. I don’t know what they thought she did there, but they said they preferred to think that she’d died of her cancer rather than live with the eternal shame of knowing she worked in such a “den of iniquity”. Only her grandmother kept in touch. It hurt Sarah terribly, but it made her stronger too, and more determined to experience everything that she could.

  ‘And then her grandmother died and left her enough money to buy the house in Tuscany. A refuge, she called it, her sanctuary. And when her parents argued the money should be theirs, she told them it was already gone and they assumed she’d gambled it away.’

  She sighed and looked down at the hands in her lap.

  ‘She left it to Hana. She wanted her to always have a home, for us all to have a home. And nobody blinked when I emerged from the Tuscan mountainside with another baby to my name. Nobody questioned that the party-girl princess had been irresponsible again.’

  Guilt consumed him. He hung his head in shame and horror at the assumptions he had made—at the sheer injustice of them.

  ‘I promised Sarah I would tell nobody our secret. Only Catriona and the lawyers knew and that’s how it would stay.’ She shook her head. ‘She never told me who Hana’s father was and I never asked, but Sarah was more afraid of her parents and what they might do if they discovered the truth. So I promised Sarah I would look after Hana as my own. I promised I would keep her safe and never betray her trust.’

  He should have seen it coming. He should have guessed. Because hadn’t he noticed? Hadn’t he remarked on it himself? Hadn’t he infused her answer with yet more damnation? ‘You have no idea if she looks like her father, do you?’

  This time Marina smiled, her liquid eyes glowing with the memories of her friend. ‘She’s the image of Sarah. She’s beautiful.’

  ‘I was so wrong,’ he said, knowing his words to be painfully inadequate. Knowing they were nowhere near enough. Knowing he could never make up for all the wrongs he’d committed against this warm, wonderful woman who had taken another woman’s child and nurtured it as her own. ‘I am so sorry, Marina.’

  She shrugged and gave a wan smile. ‘That day you saw me, in the casino, in your red dress—there were four of us that night. It was Sarah’s birthday and she convinced me to go out and wear that dress while I still could, while it still fit.’

  The lamp on the tent wall flickered as she sighed. ‘I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to party, I didn’t want any chance of seeing you. But you’d said something about going to Macau, and besides, it was Sarah’s birthday and I wanted to be happy for her. She deserved to be happy. But I don’t even remember who that man was. I’d never met him before. I never met him again. I went home early that night …’

  God. He dropped his head into his hands. ‘You must hate me,’ he said. ‘I don’t blame you for hating me. I hate myself for the things I have said to you. For my toxic thoughts and words.’

  ‘I wanted to. I still want to.’ She swung her head his way then, a tiny frown between her dark brows. ‘Why were you there that night, when you had said you were leaving Europe? Why did you come back?’

  He snorted out a laugh. ‘I came looking for you. I wanted …’ He thought back to that night, to the torture of a month of regret and self-damnation. ‘I wanted to tell you I was sorry.’ And this time he did manage to laugh, a derisive, self-deprecating laugh. ‘The pattern of my life, it seems—apologising to you for treating you so appallingly.’

  ‘You came back to find me?’

  ‘I’d had a month to think about the things I’d said to you in anger. I’d tried to put it out of my mind, but I could not forgive myself. I thought, if I found you and explained, that you might understand and maybe even forgive me yourself.

  ‘Except my anger rose anew when I saw you smiling and laughing, like I had never existed. I told myself I was a fool for thinking you would want me back. I told myself I was a fool for thinking that I wanted your love—that I loved you too.

  ‘God, what a mess.’ He rose, raking his fingers through his hair. ‘I’m sorry, Marina. I know it’s no consolation, but I will never stop being sorry for the way I have treated you.’

  ‘You came back to find me? To tell me you were sorry?’ She couldn’t get her head around it. The fact he had come back. The fact he had wanted her back. And it was suddenly too much bear—the thought of all these wasted years, all the pointless grief. She dropped her head into her hands as fresh tears flooded her eyes. All that futile, pointless grief.

  She felt his strong arms go around her, wrapping her into his embrace. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he whispered hoarsely, rocking her as she had seen him do with Hana such a short time ago.

  ‘I want to hate you,’ she said. ‘Because I was prepared to walk away.’ She sniffed, sobbing. ‘And now you tell me you loved me. Now, when it’s too late.’

  He drew her to her feet, smoothing the tears from her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs. ‘You are better off without me. You are better off going home and forgetting you ever met me. You are better off hating me.’

  ‘But
I can’t.’ She sniffed, grinding the words through her teeth, curling her hands into fists and jamming them in between them, pounding at the solid wall of his chest to stress her words. ‘I tried and I tried. But, damn you, I can’t!’

  ‘Then try harder. Remember all the things I did and said. Because I am a bad bet, Marina. I will never be good enough for you. You deserve better.’ He turned to go, was already out of Hana’s room when she caught him, and clamped her hands around his before he could walk out of her life for the second time.

  ‘I don’t want better,’ she protested. ‘I want you, Bahir. I love you. I can’t stop loving you. And you told Hana. I heard you. You told her that you loved me.’

  He stilled. ‘You heard me say that?’

  ‘You told her, I heard you. And now I want you to tell me. Surely I deserve to hear it?’

  He looked into her eyes, searching them, almost hopeful, until he blinked and the despair returned to colour their depths. ‘What good can it possibly do? There is no point to this, Marina. I have done enough harm. I will not hurt you any more. I will not risk it.’

  ‘I want to hear the words, Bahir. If you are truly sorry, then tell me what I have longed to hear for so long. You owe it to me.’

  And this time he hesitated only a moment before he wrapped her in his arms and crushed her to his chest. ‘Oh, my love, my sweet, sweet love. I do love you, Marina, and I hate myself for causing you so much pain. I will never forgive myself.’

  She sagged against him, relief and hope washing through her. At last the words she’d longed to hear. ‘I forgive you. If that helps.’

  He took her face in his hands, his eyes looking down at her with a mix of helplessness and hope. ‘How can you ever forgive me?’

  ‘Because I love you, Bahir. I have always loved you. Don’t you understand? There was never going to be anyone else. There couldn’t be.’

  ‘But you are too good for me. You deserve better.’