One Desert Night Read Free Page B

soon…
too soon?
    ‘I never expected…’
    Gina sucked in a breath, her lips visibly trembling, bringing home to Zahir how nervous she was. How to convey without the use of words—words that would surely be woefully inadequate—that he would never knowingly cause her hurt or bring her shame? Those same reasons had made him check to see if they were being observed just now in the garden. He would willingly shoulder all the blame if someone were to even
think
of judging her.
    ‘Neither did I,
rohi.
’ He laid the pad of his thumb across her plump lower lip and stroked it. ‘And if all we are destined to have together far a while is this one night…then I will make sure it is a night that our bodies and souls will never forget. That is a promise I make to you straight from my heart…’

    Three years later…

    ‘Dad, are you there? It’s only me,’ Gina called out after letting herself in with her key.
    She gathered up the stack of letters on the mat inside the door, frowned, and made her way along the rather gloomy hallway to the back of the three-storied Victorian house, where her father had this study. He was hunched over at his desk, staring at what looked to be an aged, yellowed document. Just then, with his mussed greying hair and his too-thin shoulders in a blue unironed shirt, he seemed not just preoccupied and isolated, but sad and neglected, too.
    In Gina’s heart a pang of guilt mingled with her sorrow. She’d been working hard at her new job at a prestigious auction house, had rung him nightly, but hadn’t called in for a week.
    ‘How are you?’ Leaning towards him, she brushed the side of his unshaven cheek lightly with her lips.
    He stared up at her with shock in his eyes…just as if he’d seen a ghost. Then he grimaced and forced a smile. ‘I thought you were Charlotte. You’re looking more and more like your mother every day, Gina.’
    ‘Am I?’ The comment surprised her, and made her heart skip a beat. It was the closest thing to a personal remark Jeremy Collins had made to her in weeks. He particularly avoided mentioning his wife, Gina’s mother, if he could help it. Her death three years ago had hit him much harder that she’d ever envisaged it would. Gina was disturbed that he should bring her up now.
    ‘Yes, you are.’ Shrugging his shoulders, Jeremy laid down the yellowed document and tried for a smile. ‘How’s the job going at the auction house?’
    ‘It’s really testing my mettle, if I’m honest. I mean, just when you think you’ve got a handle on something you discover there’s so much more to learn.’
    ‘You sound as if you’re learning some valuable wisdom along the way as well.’
    ‘I hope so. No matter how many diplomas I’ve succeeded in getting, I still feel very much a junior in this trade, Dad.’
    ‘I understand, dear. But don’t be in such a hurry to get somewhere. This “trade,” as you call it, is a lifetime’s passion for most who enter into it, and you never stop learning and discovering things you didn’t know before. You’re still so young… How old? Remind me?’
    ‘Twenty-nine.’
    ‘Good God!’
    His exclamation made Gina giggle. ‘How old did you think I was?’ she playfully challenged him. At least he wasn’t looking so down and distracted now, she noticed.
    The greying eyebrows made a concertina motion. ‘In my mind I always remember you at round about five years old…reaching a sticky exploring little hand towards the papers on my desk. Even then you had an interest in history, Gee-Gee.’
    Dumbfounded, Gina stared hard, ‘Gee-Gee?’
    ‘It was my pet name for you. Don’t you remember? Your mother thought it highly amusing that a distinguished professor of antiquities and ancient history should have the imagination to come up with something like that.’
    ‘Here.’ There was a lump in her throat the size of an egg as she handed him the letters she’d found on the mat.
    ‘What’s this?’
    ‘Your post…looks like