The Sheikh's Shock Child. Susan Stephens
iced water dispensers, both in the front and the back of the vehicle. ‘He’s fine,’ he explained in the same confiding tone. ‘Give him your address and he’ll see you home safely.’
‘And my mother?’ she said, staring back at the ship.
‘I’ll do what I can.’ He ground his jaw with disgust at the prospect of returning on board. ‘Never put yourself in such danger again,’ he added in his sternest tone.
She didn’t flinch as she retorted fiercely, ‘I never will.’
He watched the vehicle pull away with its lonely figure seated upright in the back. With her school satchel at her side, and her hands folded neatly on her lap, Millie stared straight ahead. It was impossible to imagine a greater contrast to her mother, and his last thought before turning to the ship was that Millie was a good girl who deserved better than this.
Eight years later...
‘OKAY, IT’S WORKING AGAIN.’ Satisfied with her handiwork, Millie stepped away from the boiler she’d just repaired.
‘You’re a gem,’ Miss Francine, the octogenarian who had worked at the laundry since she was a girl, and who now owned the business, beamed at Millie as she enveloped her favourite worker in a hug. ‘I don’t know anyone else who has the patience to coax these old machines back to life. What would I do without you?’
‘We’d go down to the stream and beat the yachties’ sheets clean with stones,’ a girl called Lucy suggested dryly.
With a grin for her friend, Millie plucked a pencil from her bundled-up hair to make notes on how to start up the ancient boiler should it fail when she had returned to her apprenticeship as a marine engineer.
‘You’d better not beat the Sheikh of Khalifa’s golden sheets clean,’ Lucy observed, matching Millie’s grin. ‘He might keel-haul you, or... What?’ she demanded when both Millie and Miss Francine froze in horror.
‘Nothing,’ Millie said quietly, forcing her face to relax as she flashed a warning look at Miss Francine to say nothing. ‘I didn’t know the Sheikh’s yacht had berthed, that’s all.’
Lucy flung her arms wide like a proud fisherman demonstrating the improbable size of his latest catch. ‘It’s enormous! You couldn’t miss it, if you hadn’t had your head stuck in the boiler cupboard.’
Then, thank goodness she had, Millie thought.
‘When did those sheets come in?’ Miss Francine asked, obviously trying to distract from a topic she knew Millie would not want to discuss.
Lucy held out the yards of gold fabric overflowing her arms. ‘The housekeeper from the Sapphire brought them, saying they needed special handling.’
‘Ripping up?’ Millie suggested beneath her breath. The golden sheets reminded her of one particular night and all its heartwrenching associations.
Miss Francine stepped in to her rescue again. ‘If a yacht the size of the Sapphire has berthed, we must get back to work. We’ll have laundry coming out of our ears,’ she enthused, with an anxious look at Millie. ‘And it might be the pressing machine that goes next.’
‘Well, I’m here if it does break down,’ Millie soothed, appreciating the change of subject.
‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ Miss Francine asked discreetly as soon as everyone else was distracted by work.
‘I’m fine,’ Millie confirmed, ‘and happy to take responsibility for those sheets. I’ll supervise their care every step of the way,’ she assured her elderly friend grimly, ‘and I’ll take them back on board to make sure they’re fitted properly.’
‘There’s no need for that,’ Miss Francine said, flashing Millie a concerned look. ‘I’ll take them.’
‘I want to,’ Millie insisted. ‘It’s a matter of pride.’ She had to prove to herself that she could do this, and after eight years of hunting for clues into her mother’s death, this was the best lead she’d had.
‘Well, if you’re happy to do it, I won’t argue with you,’ Miss Francine confirmed. ‘We’ll have more than enough work to go round.’
Something about the way her elderly friend had capitulated so quickly rang alarm bells in Millie’s head. Which she dismissed as overreaction. Discovering the Sapphire was back was a shock.
‘What do you think of the golden sheets?’ Lucy asked later as they worked side by side.
‘Magnificent, I suppose,’ Millie admitted, ‘but too gaudy for my taste.’ Though typical of the Sapphire, she thought, grinding her jaw as pictures of gemstones falling from a hand that might have pushed her mother to her death swam into her mind.
‘Too gaudy for mine too,’ Lucy agreed.
‘Try not to think about it,’ Miss Francine whispered as she drew Millie to one side. ‘Take a few deep breaths,’ she advised.
If only breathing steadily could be enough to shut out the past. ‘I gave birth at sixteen, you know,’ her mother had told the Sheikh.
Why must Millie always remember the bad things?
But that wasn’t the worst, was it?
Ignoring her mother’s comment with a derisive eye-roll, the Sheikh had remarked, ‘Of course you did,’ as he selected a ripe fig with his fat, bejewelled fingers.
‘I was never meant to have a child,’ her mother had added with a scowl for Millie.
Millie still felt the pain of that comment and remembered how her mother had snuggled even deeper into the Sheikh’s reptilian embrace as she’d said it, shutting out Millie completely—
‘Millie?’
‘Yes?’ She forced a bright note into her voice as Miss Francine came around to double-check she was okay. ‘So, he’s back,’ Millie remarked, trying to sound upbeat.
Her old friend wasn’t convinced by her act. ‘It seems so,’ Miss Francine agreed briskly as she helped Millie to tuck the fabulous sheets into a fine cotton sack they used for the most delicate fabrics before washing them.
‘He’s been gone a long time,’ Millie added in a lame attempt to keep the conversation alive. ‘I guess Sheikh Saif had to stay out of the country after the accident.’
‘Millie,’ Miss Francine interrupted in a concerned tone.
Millie had never seen her elderly friend looking so worried. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ she asked.
‘I should have told you right away,’ Miss Francine explained with a regretful shake of her head. ‘It isn’t Sheikh Saif on board the Sapphire. He died some years ago—of overeating, the press said,’ she added with a grimace for Millie, who was too shocked to speak. ‘You were away on that oil rig as part of your work experience when he died.’
‘Who then?’ Millie managed to force out. ‘Who’s on the Sapphire?’
‘His brother, Sheikh Khalid,’ Miss Francine revealed in a businesslike manner Millie had no doubt was gauged to cause her the least distress.
Nothing helped. Millie felt as if all the air had been sucked out of her lungs as Miss Francine continued, ‘Sheikh Saif’s death only made a few column inches in the press, and you were so upbeat when you came home that I couldn’t bear to dampen your enthusiasm by bringing up the past.’
‘Thank you,’ Millie said numbly.
‘You don’t have to thank me for anything,’ Miss Francine insisted as she rested a reassuring hand on Millie’s shoulder.