Page 3 of From One Night To Desert Queen
She felt as if she could get lost staring into the deep penetrating eyes of her great-great-great-grandmother’s second love, until the security guard she’d met when she first entered the exhibition that morning cleared his throat. She turned and saw him gesture slightly to the clock on the wall.
‘Wahed, I’m so sorry. I had no idea that so much time had passed!’ She was shocked and annoyed with herself for being such an imposition. The exhibition should have closed fifteen minutes ago and Wahed had been so helpful showing her around earlier. She smiled her brightest and most sincere smile, leaving the room just before she could catch the blush that rose to his cheeks, and drifted towards the exit.
Her first day hadn’t been a failureexactly, she thought as she made her way towards the exit.Yes, they were short on time, Star admitted to herself, but the ache in her heart from a sadly now familiar panic would help absolutely no one, certainly not her mother.
The day after Skye had flown to Costa Rica, Summer had decoded the second part of the hidden messages Catherine had left in her private journals to reveal a description of a special key that could be found in Duratra. The key would unlock the room where Catherine had hidden the Soames diamonds.
With Skye tracking down the map of the hidden passageways, Star felt with every ounce of her being that finding the key was the final step in finding the jewels. When they did that they would have met the terms of their grandfather’s will and they could finally sell the estate and be able to pay for the treatment that would save their mother’s life.
On the plane to Duratra, Star had read and reread the stories of Catherine’s adventures in the Middle East while travelling with her uncle and his wife. Catherine’s father had been convinced that being a companion to her aunt by marriage would keep her out of harm’s way until she was ready to marry someone suitable.
Even now, Star smiled at the thought of what Catherine had managed to get up to under the lazy eye of her aunt, of the poignant relationship that had developed between Catherine and Hatem. A smile that slowly fell as she remembered reading of the heartache of the two lovers as they had been forced apart by duty.
But, despite that, after she had returned to England, when Catherine had reached out to Hatem to ask him to make a key of special design, he had created something marvellous: a key that could be separated into two sections that mirrored each other. When joined, they would open a special lock, but when separate they could each be worn on a necklace. He had sent Catherine one half of the key and the lock, and he—as Catherine had requested—had kept the other. To Star, the fact that Hatem would always have a piece of Catherine with him was, as her sisters mocked her constantly for saying,so romantic.
Her fingers went to the chain around her neck, patting the thick twist beneath the thin material of her dress, reassuring herself it was still there. Tomorrow, she would leave it in the safe of her hotel room. But for this first day she’d wanted it with her, as if perhaps somehow it would draw out its other half. She’d had no idea of its significance when she’d first picked up the necklace from amongst the journals in the hidden recess in the library. Only that she was drawn to it. And now she couldn’t help but feel a little as if it had been fate.
As Star made her way down the brightly lit corridors of the exhibition halls, weaving around obstacles with unseeing eyes, even she had to concede that she might have become a little carried away by the romance of another star-crossed love affair involving her ancestor, but she would never regret coming to Duratra, no matter what.
She had already fallen half in love with the bustling, incredible, beautiful city. In the fifteen-minute walk between her hotel and the palace that morning she had been surrounded by impossibly tall apartment buildings and office complexes and passed sprawling open-air markets before reaching the ancient stone structure of the palace in Duratra’s capital, Burami. It was a clash of modern and ancient, as sleek electric cars glided silently down tiny cobbled streets and animals carried food, silks and spices to stalls that also sold the latest mobile phones and music players.
Star marvelled at the feeling that she was walking in both the past and the present—that her steps filled the footprints left behind by Catherine herself. And whether that worked to add a layer of magic and mysticism to the mundane, Star wasn’t sure that she minded because of how complete and whole that sense of interconnectivity made her feel. Not that she’d say so out loud, and certainly not to her sisters, who would laugh at her when they didn’t think she could hear.
So, despite the fact that she hadn’t managed to find any reference to Catherine’s necklace, Star wasn’t discouraged. Instead, she was looking forward to seeing Burami at night and was even more eager to return tomorrow for the next section of the exhibition.
She was so lost in her train of thought that she walked straight into something tall, broad, not very soft but most definitely clothed. And breathing.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry. Really, so—’ She started apologising before she looked up, which was probably a good thing because her words were cut short by just one glimpse of the impossibly handsome man staring down at her as if he was more surprised than she was.
Star immediately pulled her eyes from his as if somehow that could stop the searing heat flashing over her skin. She blinked a few times, hoping that would clear whatever had come over her. If she’d been asked in that moment what he looked like, she’d not have been able to answer for all the world. But something instinctual told her that she would have known if he’d been within one hundred feet of her. Even now she felt it, the waves of something more...physical than sight. More visceral.
Still unwilling to meet his gaze, and genuinely concerned about the power he seemed to have over her body, she tried to extract herself from the situation. ‘I really am sorry. I genuinely didn’t see you there, which does seem a little implausible given...’ at this point her hand entered the fray and gestured to the rather large entirety of him ‘...all that. You see, I get a little lost in my thoughts sometimes,’ she tried to explain, finally daring to lift her eyes. ‘I’m Star and...’ she resisted the need to look away and ignored the burning in her cheeks ‘...I’m clearly assuming that you speak English, which suddenly feels quite conceited.’
The almost minuscule twitch at the corner of his lips made her think that he might be smiling at her rambling and Star sighed in relief at the indication that he at least seemed to understand what she was saying. ‘I hadn’t meant to be this late, or get this lost. I was in the exhibition,’ she said, looking behind her and frowning, unable to recognise the corridor she was in, ‘and time just...’ She bit her lip, shrugging, wondering why he hadn’t interrupted her yet. Her sisters would have. The teachers she worked with would have smiled vaguely and just pressed on past her. But he was still there. She knew this because she was now staring fixedly at his chest, debating whether Dickens had been onto something with the whole spontaneous combustion thing.
But the longer he stood there, not saying anything, the more aware she became of...him. This was silly. Maybe she was overreacting.
‘Star...’
Her name on his lips drew her eyes upward like a magnet and she was immediately struck by the sheer force of his gaze.
Nope.
She hadnotbeen overreacting. He was looking at her as if she had the answer to an unspoken question. She felt as if he were searching for something within her.
She shook her head, severing the strange connection, and slapped him gently on the arm. ‘Youdospeak English,’ she chided, peering over his shoulder for the exit and missing the look of absolute and complete shock that had entered the man’s eyes, which he’d managed to mask by the time she returned her attention to him. ‘You had me going there for a moment.’
‘Sir—’
Star turned in time to see Wahed, his eyes bright and his cheeks red, rushing towards them, making Star think that she really had overstayed her welcome.
‘Wahed, I’m sorry. I took a wrong turn and bumped into...’ She turned back towards the man she had bumped into, deciding it was safer to look somewhere around the area of his left shoulder. And then became slightly distracted by the way his suit jacket fitted perfectly to the—
‘Kal.’
She jerked her eyes to his briefly, before turning back to Wahed. ‘Kal. Yes. Right. As I was saying, I got a bit turned around and couldn’t find the exit, but I can see it now,’ she said, spotting a green sign with white writing and an arrow that she could only presume to be a sign pointing to the exit.
Looping her arm through the arm of the man mountain she had crashed into, she determinedly dragged him with her as she made her way to the exit. She couldnotafford to get herself barred from the exhibition and, to avoid any more trouble, she was removing herself and this other tourist from the premises ASAP.