‘I’d like to make a donation to the Maraban Orphans’ Fund,’ she said.
The receptionist put his pen down and his look of surprise quickly became a smile of pleasure. ‘How very kind,’ he murmured. ‘I will ask one of our attachés to come down and speak with you.’
‘Can’t I just leave the money, and go?’
He glanced down at the cheque, narrowed his eyes in shock and shook his head. ‘I’m afraid that will not be possible. You are extremely generous, Miss…’ he glanced down at the cheque again ‘…Thomas.’
Twenty minutes later, Rose was shaking hands with a courteous if somewhat bland attaché, who kept thanking her over and over for her generosity.
‘You would like to sign the book of condolence before you leave?’ he asked.
Rose hesitated. ‘Yes, please,’ she said quietly.
They left her alone in a room where a black-draped photograph of Khalim’s father hung above a simple arrangement of lilies, alongside which a single candle burned. It was a photo which must have been taken when he was in his prime. How like his son he looked with those stern, handsome features and those fathomless black eyes, she thought.
Hot tears stung her eyes as she lifted the pen and stared at it as if seeking inspiration. What to write?
And then the words seemed to come pouring out all by themselves.
‘You were a fine ruler,’ she wrote, ‘whose people loved and respected you. May you rest in peace, in the knowledge that your only son has inherited your strength and your wisdom to take Maraban into the future.’
Somehow she got out of there without bursting into tears, but at least there was a sense of a burden having been lifted. She’d cut her ties with Khalim, she realised—and, in so doing, had shown her own strength and wisdom. Now she must get on with rebuilding her life.
But this was easier said than done.
A job which had once enthralled her now became a number of hours in the day to be endured. I must snap out of it, she told herself fiercely—or I won’t have a job as well as my man.
Yet, try as she might, she found herself gazing sightlessly out of the window time after time.
In the weeks which followed Khalim’s departure, images came back to b
urn themselves in her mind’s eye—and to haunt her with their poignant perfection.
She remembered the first time she had shared a bathtub with him, and after the inevitable love-making they had washed each other’s backs, giggling as bubbles frothed up and slid over the side and onto the floor.
He had looked at her with an expression of mock-horror. ‘Now who is going to clean that up?’
‘You are! You’re the one who insisted on joining me in the bath!’
In that split-second of a moment Khalim had looked carefree—his rare and beautiful smile making her heart race. ‘You’ll have to make me, Rose!’
‘I have my methods,’ she had purred boastfully, her hands sliding underneath the water to capture him, and he had closed his eyes in helpless pleasure.
So what was she doing remembering that? Trying to torture herself? To remind herself of how unexpectedly easy it had been to adjust to a man like Khalim? And it had.
She hadn’t expected to be able to sit enjoying such simple companionship with him in the evenings as they’d played backgammon or cooked a meal together. Oh, why had it been so easy? she asked herself in despair.
And then, two nights later, she had a visitor when she arrived back at the flat after work.
Philip Caprice was sitting in a long, dark limousine outside the flat and Rose’s heart leapt when she saw the car, her eyes screwing up in an attempt to scan the smoky glass, in futile search for the one person she really wanted to see.
Philip must have seen her approaching, because by the time she came alongside the car he had got out and was standing waiting, a polite but slightly wary smile on his face.
‘Hello, Rose,’ he said.
She nodded in greeting. His eyes looked very green against his lightly tanned skin. Tanned by the glorious heat of the Maraban sun, she observed with a pang. ‘Philip,’ she gulped.
‘May I come inside and talk to you?’