Date with a Surgeon Prince. Meredith Webber
unfamiliar ways she knew she’d never been properly kissed before—or maybe had never responded properly—which might explain—
It sent heat spearing downwards, more heat shimmering along her nerves, tightening her stomach but melting her bones.
Her head spun and her senses came alive to the smoothness of his lips, the taste of spice on his tongue, the faint perfume that might be aftershave—even the texture of his shirt, a nubby cotton, pressed against the light cotton tunic top she wore, was sending flaring awareness through her nipples.
A kiss could do all this…
Gaz eased away, shaken that he’d been so lost to propriety as to be kissing this woman, even more shaken by the way she’d reacted to the kiss and the effect it had had on him. Heat, desire, a hardening, thickening, burning need….
For one crazy moment he considered taking things further, dallying with the nurse called Marni, seeing where it went.
Certainly beyond dallying, he knew that much.
Al’ana! Where is your brain? his head demanded. Yes, I thought so! it added as if he’d answered.
He looked at the flushed face in front of him, glimpsed the nipples peaked beneath the fine cotton tunic, the glow of desire in her eyes.
Yes, it would definitely have gone further than dalliance…
‘I had no right to do that. I have no time. None! No time at all!’ He spoke abruptly—too abruptly—the words harshly urgent because he was denying his desires and angry with himself for—
For kissing her?
No, he couldn’t regret that.
Angry at the impossible situation.
This time when he turned to lead her back inside, he didn’t touch her elbow and guide her steps but stayed resolutely apart from the seductive siren who’d appeared, not from the sky but in full theatre garb, then jumped like a kangaroo right inside his skin…
Obviously married, Marni told herself. Serves you right, kissing on what wasn’t even a first date.
But she was too shaken by the kiss to care what the sensible part of her brain was telling her. Too shaken to think, let alone speak.
Standing silently beside Gaz in the lift, the foot of space between them was more like a million miles.
Back in the foyer, he spoke to one of the young porters who seemed to abound in the place.
‘Aziz will see you back to the residence,’ Gaz told her, then he nodded once and was gone, seeming to disappear like the wraith he’d called her.
Aziz was beckoning her towards the door so she followed, deciding she must be right about his marital status if the man she’d kissed didn’t want to be seen walking her through the gardens.
So she was well rid of him.
Wasn’t she?
Of course she was!
The gardens were as beautiful as ever, the scent of lemon blossom heavy in the air, but the magic was dimmed by her memory of the kiss, and now that embarrassment over her reaction was creeping in, she was beginning to worry about the future.
She was a professional. Of course she could work in Theatre with Gaz without revealing how he affected her. Not that he didn’t know, given her response, but at least she didn’t have to be revealing just how hard and fast she’d fallen for the man.
Lust, her head reminded her, and sadly she agreed.
For all the good it was going to do her when he’d made it obvious he wasn’t available!
She sighed into the night air. It was all too complicated!
HIDING HER REACTIONS to Gaz in Theatre proved unnecessary, because although she worked for five straight days, he was never rostered on in the same theatre as her.
She didn’t kid herself that he’d had his schedule changed to avoid her, doubting she was important enough to cause such a change, and caution told her not to mention him to Jawa, not to ask where he was operating or seek answers to any personal questions about the man, in case she unwittingly revealed how she felt.
Besides, they just didn’t do personal conversations, these Ablezians.
But her reaction to Gaz had certainly put a damper on her virginity quest, other male colleagues seeming pale and uninteresting by comparison, although she did accept an invitation to the movies from a young doctor on Safi’s ward.
She’d even accepted a goodnight kiss but she had felt nothing, not a tingle, not a sign of a spark—and the poor man had known it and had avoided her ever since.
So she worked, visited Safi, and worked again until finally she had time off—three days.
Nelson had emailed to say Pop was talking to the surgeon but was still undecided about the operation, although now he could walk barely a hundred metres without tiring.
She had to forget about Gaz and find a way to see this prince! Once she’d kept her part of the bargain, Pop would have to have the operation. He wasn’t one to renege on a deal.
And at least sorting out how you’re going to approach him should get your mind off Gaz, she told herself.
And it did, the whole matter seeming impossible until she read in the English-language newspaper that the new prince had reintroduced his father’s custom of meeting with the people once a week. Each Thursday he held court in a courtyard—was that where courtyards got their name?—at the palace, hearing grievances or problems, any subject allowed to approach and speak to him privately for a few minutes.
Reading further, Marni discovered the custom had stopped while his uncle had been the ruler but had been reinstated some weeks previously and was a great success.
She wasn’t actually a subject, but that couldn’t be helped. If she tied a black headscarf tightly over her hair and borrowed an all-concealing black abaya from Jawa and kept her head down—maybe with part of the scarf tied across the lower part of her face—she could slip in with the locals, have a minute to introduce herself and show the photo, perhaps even have a laugh with the man who’d been kind to her as a child.
The planets must have been aligned in her favour—though they’d definitely been against her last week—for the next meeting was the following day.
She emailed Nelson to tell him she was keeping her part of the bargain and to warn Pop she expected him to keep his, then went to collect the clothing she’d need.
Which was all very well in theory!
In practice, once dressed and sitting in the back of a cab on her way to the palace, a building she’d glimpsed from afar in her explorations, she realised just how stupid this was, how ridiculous the whole thing—making a deal with Pop so he’d have a lifesaving operation—fronting up to the prince of a foreign land to show him a photo of himself as a child.
The enormity of it made her shake her head in disbelief.
Yet here she was!
Huge arched gates in a high, sand-coloured wall opened into a courtyard big enough to hold a thousand people. It was an oasis of green—she remembered Gaz telling her how important green was—with beds of flowering roses, tinkling fountains, fruit trees and date palms. The garden had been designed and planted to provide shade but also to form little spaces like outdoor rooms where one could sit and read, or think, or just do nothing.
In the centre, facing the immense, low-set building, was an open grassed area and here the supplicants were gathering, seating themselves cross-legged on the ground in neat rows. Thankfully, there were not as many as Marni had expected, although, contrarily, part of her had hoped there