The Sheikh and the Surrogate Mum Read Online Free Page A

drank it this way when he was away from home. At home, the coffee was already sweet and he’d drink three tiny cups of the thick brew in place of one of these…

CHAPTER TWO
    C OULD ten days really have flown so quickly?
    Of course, deciding on what clothes she should take had consumed a lot of Liz’s spare time. Khalifa…could she really call him that? So far she’d avoided using his name directly, but if she was going to be working with him she’d have to use it some time.
    Not that she didn’t use it in her head, sounding it out, but only in rare moments of weakness, for even saying it started the toe curling—and she had to stretch them as hard as she could to prevent it happening.
    Anyway, Khalifa had given her a pile of wonderful information brochures about his country, explaining that the capital, Al Jabaya, was in the north, and that his eldest brother, while he had been the leader, had, over twenty years, built a modern city there. The southern part of Al Tinine, however, was known as the Endless Desert, and the area, although well populated, had been neglected. It was in the south, in the oasis town of Najme, that Khalifa had built his hospital.
    For clothes Liz had settled on loose trousers and long shift-like shirts for work, and long loose dresses for casual occasions or lolling around at home, wherever home turned out to be. Wanting to respect the local customs, she’d made sure all the garments were modest, with sleeves and high necklines.
    Now here she was, in a long, shapeless black dress—black so it wouldn’t show the things she was sure to spill on herself on a flight—waiting outside her apartment block just as the sun was coming up. Gillian, who would house—and cat-sit, waited beside her.
    ‘Your coach approaches, Cinderella,’ Gillian said, as a sleek black limousine turned into the street.
    ‘Wrong fairy-tale, Gill,’ Liz retorted. ‘Mine’s the one with Scheherazade telling the Sultan story after story so she didn’t get her head chopped off next morning.’
    Had she sounded panicked that Gill looked at her with alarm?
    ‘You’re not worrying now about this trip, are you? Haven’t you left it a bit late? What’s happened? You’ve been so, well, not excited but alive again.’
    The vehicle pulled up in front of them before Liz could explain that sheer adrenalin had carried her this far, but now she was about to depart, she wasn’t having second thoughts but third and fourth and fifth right down to a thousandth.
    Better not to worry Gill with that!
    ‘I’m fine,’ she said, then felt her toes curl and, yes, he was there, stepping smoothly out of the rear of the monstrous car just as she tripped on the gutter and all but flung herself into his arms.
    He was quick, she had to give him that—catching her elbow first then looping an arm around her waist to steady her.
    She’d have been better off falling, she decided as her body went into some kind of riotous reaction that was very hard to put down to relief that she hadn’t fallen!
    ‘You must look where you are going,’ he said, but although the words came out as an order, his voice was gruff with what sounded like concern.
    For her?
    How could she know?
    And did it really matter?
    The driver, meanwhile, had picked up her small case and deposited it in the cavernous trunk so there was nothing else for Liz to do but give Gill a quick kiss goodbye and step into the vehicle.
    In the back.
    With Khalifa.
    ‘Wow, look at the space in here. I’ve never been in a limo!’ she said, while her head reminded her that it had been years since she’d talked like a very young teenager. Perhaps she was better saying nothing.
    ‘Would you like a drink? A cold soda of some kind?’
    Khalifa had opened a small cabinet, revealing an array of beverages. The sight of them, and the bottles of wine and champagne—this at six-thirty in the morning—delighted Liz so much she relaxed and even found a laugh.
    ‘You’re talking to a klutz,