Healing The Sheikh's Heart. Annie O'Neil

as she squirmed beneath the imploring gazes of her colleagues.

      She was great with children and in surgery. Being the object of everyone’s undivided attention was—

      “Oops—easy there, Ryan!” She lurched out from underneath Dominic’s arm to steady the young boy as he tried out his new crutches along the hospital corridors. “Big step up from the wheelchair, eh?”

      Ryan beamed up at her, too focused on staying upright to answer back. The seven-year-old had come such a long way from when he’d first been brought in after the horrible primary school fire. He was one of dozens of children now recovering in leaps and bounds because of the help they received here at Paddington’s. Help they might not be able to get if she didn’t get over herself and board a plane to a place she’d barely heard of let alone was familiar with.

      She turned back to the cluster of colleagues awaiting her response. “Fine.” She shook her head with a sigh and a halfhearted smile. “You win. I’ll go.”

      A smattering of applause followed her as she grabbed another biscuit and offered Ryan gentle encouragement as he made his way back along the corridor to his room. If he could fight the odds, so could she.

      * * *

      Idris tapped his foot impatiently. Where was she? Kaisha, at his request, had rung the hospital to confirm Robyn was coming and had given her the times.

      “You said we’d be in the royal circle, didn’t you?”

      “Yes. I made it clear she was to tell security she was to be allowed through to our section.”

      As if she’d need it.

      “You said seven-thirty, didn’t you?”

      “Yes. Three times,” Kaisha replied neutrally, fingers skidding along her tablet to check the confirmation email that had accompanied the phone call.

      It was at moments like this that Idris was a little surprised Kaisha didn’t hand in her notice or tell him to put a sock in it. He was hardly a bundle of laughs at the best of times and this was about the tenth time today he’d been insufferable. Not that he was keeping track or anything; it was just...there’d been a shift today. A shift in the currents of his life, as if things were changing course. He had little doubt what shape the change had come in—blond hair, amber eyes...

      Change or no, Kaisha shouldn’t be the one to take his discord in the neck.

      He signaled for her to put her tablet away.

      “Stop. Don’t worry. The curtain goes up in a minute or two—just...”

      Just what? Go out into the whole of London and find her? Bring the production to a halt while they waited? One meeting and she’d already threaded herself into his psyche—a single gold thread in a tapestry of too much unhappiness.

      He cleared his throat and reenergized his tapping. Golden presence or otherwise, the woman was late. He wasn’t unaware the fault could be his own. It was very possible he’d been too harsh. Shaping his own fears into too acute a display of anger.

      He leaned across to Amira and dropped a kiss on top of her curtain of ebony hair as she diligently worked her way through the program, her index finger distractedly fiddling with a loose tooth. He fought the urge to tell her to leave it be. His parents had allowed him free rein to be a child and he owed it to his daughter to do the same. She would bear full responsibility for ruling Da’har one day. For now? She could worry about her loose tooth.

      Amira turned to him and pressed one of her small hands onto his knee, mouthing and signing, “Daddy! You’re jiggling the entire balcony!”

      “I’m sorry, darling. Just excited for the princesses. Aren’t you?”