She had flashes of being held in Zafir’s arms as he strode through the crowd, saying angrily, ‘Where the hell were you, Noor? Those people were all over her...’
Kat tried desperately to speak, to say something, but her tongue wouldn’t work and then everything faded out.
CHAPTER TEN
A COUPLE OF HOURS later Zafir was still experiencing waves of relief reverberating through his system. Kat had apparently not suffered any major injury apart from a bump to her head when she’d tumbled down those steps that of course she wouldn’t have seen with that thick crowd of people pressing around her.
His hands instinctively clenched tighter when he recalled seeing her lying there, so pale and unmoving, the crowd just gaping at her ineffectually.
She’d come round soon after arriving at the hospital, and her first concern had been to tell him that it hadn’t been the security team’s fault—she’d slipped away from them. Her instinct to protect their incompetence had only increased his ire at them. And made him realise how much he’d underestimated Kat’s innate loyalty.
Zafir was standing on the other side of a door with a window in it, looking at Kat, who was sitting on a bed dressed in a hospital gown. She’d had an MRI scan and they were just waiting to hear the results. Even in an unflattering hospital gown she took his breath away.
She wasn’t wearing her prosthesis and there was a wheelchair nearby. But she wasn’t alone—there was a little girl sitting beside her aged about nine or ten. The little girl was also a below-the-knee amputee.
He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the little girl was looking at Kat with wide eyes. And then suddenly a hesitant smile bloomed across her pretty face. She’d had tear-stained cheeks when a doctor had brought her to see Kat a short while before.
The little girl’s doctor came alongside Zafir now, and said in a low, awestruck voice, ‘Thank you for agreeing to let Amira visit with Miss Winters.’
Zafir desisted from saying that as soon as he’d told Kat about the young girl she’d insisted on him letting her come to visit.
The doctor continued, ‘Amira lost her leg due to meningitis. She hasn’t spoken a word in months to anyone—not even her family. But now look at her...’ The doctor shook his head. ‘Miss Winters is a remarkable woman.’
Zafir curbed his irritation that the doctor felt the need to point out to him what he already knew. He was on edge and unsettled.
The doctor pushed open the door and went in to get Amira. She hopped off the bed and got into her wheelchair and waved goodbye to Kat.
Zafir got down on his haunches as she was being wheeled out of the room and her eyes grew as round as they’d been when she’d seen and recognised him the first time.
He held out his hand and she put her much smaller one into his. Something completely alien inside him shifted and expanded.
‘Hello, Amira. I believe you’ve been a very brave young lady?’
She nodded soberly, her huge brown eyes wide with an awe that Zafir was sure wasn’t solely for him. Then she said something to him in their own language with an endearing lisp and that alien sensation inside him expanded even more, stopping his breath for a second.
He had to stand to let the doctor wheel her out, and he heard Kat ask, ‘What is it? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost. What did she say to you?’
He turned to Kat, and for the first time in his life he knew that he was being a coward when he said, ‘Nothing important.’ He went over to her. ‘How are you feeling?’
Kat grimaced and put her hand up to where she’d hit her head. ‘I think I’ll have a headache for about a week, but other than that I’m fine.’ She looked at him. ‘I didn’t mean to disrupt the evening so dramatically.’
Zafir shook his head, feeling anger rise again. ‘Those people were practically pushing you through the wall.’
Kat tried not to let herself read anything into Zafir’s concern—the way he’d stayed by her side from the moment he’d brought her to the hospital. She tried again, saying, ‘You really don’t have to stay...’
He shook his head and folded his arms. ‘I’m not moving.’
Just then the kind doctor arrived, smiling. He closed the door behind him and came over, saying, ‘Good news—nothing untoward appeared on the scan. I’m afraid you’ll just have a nasty bump for a couple of weeks, but it should go down in time.’
Zafir looked at the doctor. ‘You’re sure she’s okay?’
‘Yes. I can let her go home as long as someone keeps an eye on her overnight for signs of concussion.’
Zafir said immediately, ‘I’ll make sure she’s watched tonight.’
Jasmine arrived then, with some clothes for Kat, and helped her to put on her prosthetic limb and get dressed once the men had stepped outside.
The diamond had been dispatched shortly after Kat had arrived at the hospital—taken by a very meek-looking security guard.