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‘Blood pressure’s fine…’ Felicity smiled at the chatty woman beside her. Jessica Hammel was forty-two, had four sons in high school, and was about to welcome baby number five.
‘It doesn’t feel as if my blood pressure’s fine!’ Jessica rolled her eyes. ‘I can’t believe I’m going to be looking after a tiny baby again.’
She blinked at the enormity of it all.
‘I had a tummy tuck two years ago. Fat waste of time that was!’
Felicity smiled and waited for Jessica to speak further if she wished.
‘I’m okay with it. A bit stunned, I suppose. Everybody thinks I want a girl.’
‘Have you found out?’ Felicity asked, checking her patient’s scan report.
‘Nope!’ Jessica said firmly. ‘Because, as I’ve told everyone, all I want is for it to be healthy. Though…’ she caught Felicity’s eye ‘…after four boys a girl would be rather nice. I think I’ve earned a bit of pink!’ Her voice was a little anxious now. ‘Dr Habib said that if nothing happened by this visit, then I was to be admitted and induced.’
She looked over to Felicity, who was eyeing the CTG reading and almost willing it to change. But this baby looked very comfortable where it was for now. If Felicity had her say, it would stay put for a little while longer. Still, she didn’t have a say, and, as she had told Karim, she wasn’t here to change the world. She took her patient off the monitor and chatted away to her, trying, as she always seemed to be these days, not to let her mind wander to Karim.
Felicity took a pipette and did a routine pregnancy test on her next patient—one of the lecturers from the university who had been undergoing IVF. She happily ticked the little box on the chart as the pink cross came up and signed her initials, before throwing the card in the bin. She turned to go, then changed her mind and opened up the cupboard that held the pregnancy tests, worried about taking one. Where she’d used to work nurses did it all the time—it was for that reason the tests were generally locked up. But she was here in Zaraq and she simply had to know!
She pulled out the little jar, seeing her hands were shaking, and performed the simple test. She jumped guiltily when Helen breezed in, pulling out trays and looking for some batteries for the Doppler machine. Felicity joined her in the search, as she was still trying to get acquainted with where everything was kept.
‘You’re doing really well. The clinic is running smoothly.’ Helen smiled. ‘Tonight there are a few of us going out for dinner—you should come along…’
‘I might ring home tonight,’ Felicity said. ‘But thanks for the invite.’
‘There’ll be plenty more.’ Helen shrugged. ‘We’re a friendly lot, all in the same boat…or the same desert. Who’s that for?’ she asked casually as she found the batteries and walked out, glancing over her shoulder at the test card.
For Felicity there was the most appalling moment—because a negative test would cause confusion, given they were in the antenatal ward. But Helen didn’t notice the silence, just glanced at the patient file and answered her own question.
‘She’s a nice lady, isn’t she? Dr Habib will probably send her straight for an ultrasound, just to put her mind at rest.’
‘Sorry?’ Felicity croaked.
‘IVF patients,’ Helen answered patiently, as she had all Felicity’s questions through the week. ‘They can’t believe they’re pregnant till they see it for themselves on screen.’
Despite the cool air-conditioning Felicity felt as if she were standing in the heat outside, as if the sun was beating on the back of her head. She was drenched with nausea and fear, and tried to walk casually across to the bench to comprehend why Helen was talking as if the card indicated positive.
‘Let me know if you change your mind about tonight,’ Helen said, walking out of the room, utterly oblivious to the chaos she’d left behind. The heavy door softly closed behind her.
Picking up the card, Felicity stared at the pink cross, telling herself she must have mixed the specimens up. But that argument failed in a trice—she was meticulous at that type of thing. Jessica’s specimen had been thrown away before she’d even retrieved her own.
The card was wrong. Felicity’s heart lurched in hope. Maybe it was a faulty batch. And then her heart sank again—because that would mean every test she had performed this morning had been on a non-pregnant woman—which, given they were in an antenatal ward…
Her mind just staggered from hope to hope, like a lost child running frantically in the supermarket for his mother, tugging every familiar coat and then recoiling when it wasn’t her.
She couldn’t be pregnant!
She couldn’t be trapped in this country with no ticket home and not enough money for one either.
She couldn’t be having Karim’s baby.
A baby!
There was no comfort in that thought, no sweet feeling of peace or surge of maternal protection—her only feeling was unadulterated fear.
Two weeks ago she’d never even met him.
Two weeks ago she’d been a virgin.
Now she was in a strange country, where they didn’t tolerate pregnancy out of wedlock, and if that wasn’t bad enough she was pregnant by one of the family who made the rules.
She stared down at the card and the unpalatable truth hit her.
Yes, she was pregnant.
Pregnant by Sheikh Prince Karim of Zaraq.
CHAPTER NINE (#ulink_03995984-30cb-55e4-a00f-7443151e8dbe)
IT WAS the longest, loneliest night of her life.
She rang her mother, trying to sound upbeat and happy, trying not to think about telling her.
Or Georgie.
She’d have to ask a friend to loan her some money for a ticket home. Or work for a few weeks and then break her contract and fly back.
To what?
She was already in debt up to her eyeballs. Lying on her bed, Felicity was shell-shocked, completely overwhelmed by it all. She stared over at the palace and thought how it mocked her tiny flat.
Single motherhood versus his kingdom.
He was responsible for this too, Felicity breathed.
She wouldn’t make a fuss—would disappear with her baby from his life if that was what he wanted—but he had every right to know, and he was in every position to help. Slowly, slowly she calmed down…
For about eighteen seconds.
* * *
Someone else, Felicity realised as she was given handover on her early shift the next morning, hadn’t had a very good night either.
Jessica Hammel had been given gel to ripen her cervix the previous evening and had spent an uncomfortable night. She had just started to complain about her contractions and had vomited, but there were no regular strong contractions to speak of, and Dr Habib was on his way to see her.
‘Just keep an eye,’ Martha the charge nurse said.
It was obviously nice for Jessica to see Felicity’s familiar face when she walked in to greet her and her husband, Garth.
‘How are you doing?’ Felicity asked, but Jessica didn’t answer. She closed her eyes and clutched her stomach as a wave of pain hit.
‘They’re coming more regularly now,’ Garth said to Felicity, rubbing his wife’s back, as he had done on four occasions before.
Instinctively Felicity’s hand moved to the patient’s stomach, to feel the strength of the contraction.
‘She doesn’t look well,’ Garth said, and privately Felicity agreed with him. Helen was standing by the bed, assessing her new midwife, and Garth was concerned for his wife and trying to tell himself he was imagining things. ‘Mind you, it’s been a while…’
Felicity nodded, worried that there was no tightening. She looked over to the CTG to confirm her findings. Jessica wasn’t having a contraction, although clearly she was in pain.
‘Helen?’ She gave that wide-eyed smile that was familiar to nurses the world over, which meant help was required, and then smiled back to her patient, who was opening her eyes now that the pain had passed, two hands on her stomach now, both Felicity and Helen, assessing the odd situation.
‘I’m paging Dr Habib now…’ Helen said—not that Jessica noticed. She was vomiting again, and her blood pressure was low as Felicity checked it. Far from being supernumerary now, she laid Jessica down and applied oxygen. She tried to comfort Garth too as she inserted an IV, and Helen urgently typed in the message to be sent directly to the doctor’s pager.
‘What’s going on?’ Garth was taking deep breaths, trying to stay calm, and all Felicity could do at this stage was answer him honestly. ‘I’m not sure, but Dr Habib is on his way.’
‘Is it the baby?’
Felicity’s eyes flicked to the foetal monitor, to the strong, regular heartbeat, and swallowing a fraction she shook her head. ‘The baby seems fine. Dr Habib will be here soon.’
In moments in fact, and Dr Habib was instantly concerned. He examined his patient and it was clear his excellent reputation was well earned. He didn’t dither. Instead he told Helen to summon the on-call surgeon, and Felicity’s heart tightened several times as she heard the word Karim.
He must have rolled out of the on-call bed instead of his undoubtedly more luxurious one at the palace, because he was there in a matter of moments, dressed in navy theatre scrubs. Instantly he commanded the room. And yet in an unexpected but very kind touch he nodded to Garth and very briefly shook his hand, explaining who he was, before he palpated Jessica’s abdomen.
‘I’m Karim Zaraq—the surgical consultant on call.’
Whether Garth knew of his title was irrelevant to him and irrelevant to Karim at this hour. Felicity watched as a very calm surgeon assessed a very ill patient and came to a rapid decision.
‘Your wife has to go straight to Theatre. Till I get her there I cannot be sure, and there is no time to confirm my diagnosis with ultrasound, but I believe your wife has an intestinal obstruction. I need to operate—along with Dr Habib.
‘Ring Theatre and alert them.’ Karim nodded to Helen, who was already on it as Felicity prepared a trolley for the urgent run to Theatre. ‘I need you to sign a consent form,’ Karim said to Jessica’s stunned husband, scribbling on paperwork as he spoke. Calm but concerned, he explained that though he had a provisional diagnosis until he operated he could not know exactly what was wrong—and that it was better in this case to act rather than wait and investigate. He held the man’s eyes as he offered the pen, and added that he would do everything he could to save Garth’s wife and his baby. Garth didn’t hesitate.
Felicity and Helen both dashed with the patient to Theatre. Jessica bypassed Reception and was moved straight through to the operating room. Felicity and Helen pulled on shoe-covers and caps, and helped the porters and theatre staff to move the patient to the operating table as the rest of the theatre staff methodically and rapidly set up. The anaesthetist was lovely—Felicity caught a waft of an American accent as she chatted to her semi-conscious patient—and then it was all under control. Jessica was Theatre’s patient now. An anaesthetic was about to be administered; her stomach was being prepped. Felicity and Helen were politely thanked, which meant they must leave, because—as the theatre charge nurse said—‘We’ll take it from here.’
Felicity wasn’t looking for him, but her eyes found him. She saw him scrubbing up at the sink, washing each nail in detail. He glanced up and for a second held her eyes. With her eyes she wished him all the best for the operation, told him that she missed him, that she needed to talk to him, and his eyes told her the same.
And then he was back to his nails, back to doing what surgeons did—saving lives.
Jessica got the little girl she was hoping for. She was a gorgeous baby too, bonny and pink and covered in vernix. The baby was soon returned to the labour ward, where Garth met his daughter and spoke to Dr Habib, and then came the arduous task of waiting for news on his wife.
She had had an intestinal obstruction, Dr Habib explained, and considerable adhesions which had been caused by the tummy tuck. It would be a complicated procedure but, Dr Habib added, ‘Her surgeon asked me to pass on that he is quietly confident that your wife will be fine.’
Felicity watched as Garth blew out his breath and she did the same. She was so grateful, as she popped in regularly on father and daughter, that Karim hadn’t kept this man waiting. He had been aware of the agony of waiting and had offered some much needed hope.
It took a couple of hours for hope to be formally delivered.
Karim, tired but elated, smiled as he walked into the nursery, where Felicity was checking the baby’s temperature as Garth watched anxiously on.
‘Your wife is fine.’ He got straight to the point. ‘It was a difficult operation because there were a lot of adhesions. I had to remove some bowel, but I achieved a healthy anatomises—’ He frowned and checked himself. ‘A good union. There is no colostomy.’ He carried on with the good news as Garth stood, tears streaming down his face, and then Karim moved onto the not so good—which, after all Jessica had been through, sounded like a walk in the park. ‘She will stay in Recovery for a couple more hours and then she will be looked after on my surgical ward by my team. Of course she is postnatal, and has had a Caesarean section, but I would prefer that my team watch her. They know my ways, know the things I like to be called for…’
Helen was here now, telling Felicity to go on her break, and Karim didn’t hang around—as Felicity moved off, so did he. Her respiration rate increased as she walked towards the staffroom, her heart pounding as she felt his eyes on her, heard footsteps behind her. She paused as he called her name.
‘Felicity…’
She went to turn round, and it was at that point it all caught up with her: yesterday’s shocking news, her sleepless night, the warmth of the theatre and Karim’s black eyes waiting to meet hers. She was drenched in cold sweat, could feel it running between her breasts, breaking out on her forehead. Leaning against the wall, she was glad to see Helen over his shoulder, hear the question in her voice as she took in Felicity’s grey face. But Karim was already on it, seizing her arm before she fell, breaking her fall as the floor slammed up to meet her.
He somehow guided her to a side room with only the minimum of fuss. Not that Felicity cared by then. She was completely out of it. She came to at the horrible plastic smell of an oxygen mask, and saw Helen’s kind, worried face as she let down a blood pressure cuff.
‘Low!’ She smiled at her colleague. ‘My fault for not sending you for your break earlier.’
‘I’m fine.’ Felicity tried to sit up, but Helen pushed her down.
‘It happens to all of us—the food, jet lag. Rest there…’ She stopped talking then. Chatty, effusive Helen was suddenly silent. Karim had come back from wherever he had been.
‘I have spoken with the nurse co-ordinator—you are to be moved to a side ward. Staff health—’
‘I’m fine.’ Embarrassed now, Felicity sat up, but Helen pushed her down, her eyes warning Felicity to be quiet. ‘It was a simple faint. I really don’t need—’
‘I have said what will happen,’ Karim broke in. ‘You are to be admitted.’
‘I don’t want to be admitted,’ Felicity argued. Helen’s eyes widened in horror, but she didn’t care if she was arguing with a surgeon—or a prince, come to that. All Felicity cared about was not being admitted. Because there were many reasons for her to faint, but she knew the real one. ‘I just want to…’
‘Excuse us, please.’
She saw the dart of confusion in Helen’s eyes at his request to be alone with Felicity, but Helen took her own advice and didn’t argue. She slipped out of the area and they were alone. Felicity wanted him to scoop her into his arms, wanted him to hold her, to say that he had missed her, to say anything at all. All he did was stand there.
He gave nothing away—could not smile, could not hold her. Couldn’t because if he did he would surely snap. He had operated throughout the night on what was meant to be his last ‘on call’. The operation had been long and intense, yet he had loved it. He had stood under the lights and performed in his theatre as only a surgeon could. His choice of music playing, his team—the team that he had individually chosen. They had worked together for the very last time and then he had walked out to Recovery to speak with his patient—a halal butcher from the main street of Zaraqua, a man who had held his hand and thanked him not as a royal prince but as a doctor.
Unusually for a consultant, he had stayed at the hospital, had lain on the bed where he had slept as an intern, deciding he would hold onto his pager till nine—because he just couldn’t stand to let it go.
At seven fifty-five he had been summoned.
He had run through the hospital with adrenaline chasing his heels, had walked into crisis and felt calm, had seen Felicity there, reassuring husband and patient. If there was one day in surgery he could capture this would be it…
This was it.
And now he had to walk away. He stared at her pale face on the pillow, knew he could drag her in deeper—or let her walk away.
He chose to give her no option.
‘Tell me now why you do not want to be admitted.’
‘I don’t want any tests.’ Her eyes were blinking rapidly.
‘Because?’ His mouth that had been wet was suddenly dry. He wished that she would answer, wished that she would prove his mind wrong.
‘Because I’m pregnant.’
He heard the prison doors slide closed, heard the turn of the key not imprisoning him but her, his child. And he couldn’t stand it. His mind flashed to Kaliq—to the frail babe he had held in his hand, the tiny babe who should have lived to be King. How proud Karim had been of his nephew as he had slipped from this life to the next.
