Amalie Berlin - Challenging The Doctor Sheikh

“Congratulations.” There it was, the right response, even if he had to strain to get it out.

Zahir let the pause extend for a moment, no doubt searching for the right thing to say to Dakan. “It’s only forty weeks. Less now, since it’s been a few weeks already.”

“Right.” The filler word squeaked past his lips, just because he needed something to say.

Plans dashed. Would anything be able to shorten his stay now?

“Father and Mother will be back before then. A couple more weeks,” the voice said down the line.

But the hospital would still need to be Dakan’s job. He couldn’t just up and leave as soon as their parents returned, though that was how things had always gone for Zahir: live in London and come home only when he was needed. Hospitals took a long time to build, more than a year. Probably a couple of years. Stuck.

But a birthing center... That he might be able to get done in a few months.

* * *

It’d been two days since she’d last seen Dakan, and Nira had spent most of that time working. In between viewing the examples he’d had compiled, she’d spent too much time mentally replaying their dinner and the thrill that had rushed through her with every playful word and flirting smile. But the rest was about proper working, still a lot of work between spells of idiocy.

The only other time away from her workstation was to tend to necessities, so her timecard—not that Dakan had made a single other mention of the thing—was so filled it shouldn’t be legal in a civilized society.

Today she’d even showered and put on lounging pajamas to work in. The dresses she’d taken to wearing since she’d arrived were largely comfortable but light in color and they all had sleeves. Sleeves hindered her board work and invariably ended up smudged all around the elbow with fresh graphite—but the pajama top was sleeveless.

Besides, it was just her and Tahira. The guards she had stay outside the flat and downstairs, aside from their hourly checks, so they probably saw her bare arms from the back a time or two when they peeked in and she sat bent over the drafting table, her hair twisted into a sloppy knot on top of her head and secured by pencils.

“Good afternoon.”

Dakan’s voice rumbled down her spine, and she suddenly wished she’d worn sleeves to hide the wash of goose-bumps racing over her skin.

Thank goodness she’d had the forethought to put on a bra.

Pencil in hand, she turned on her stool and smiled so brightly she hoped it would drown out all other aspects of her appearance.

“Not good?” he corrected. “Well, I’m about to make it more interesting.”

She looked at what he carried. Tucked under one arm he had a bundle of blueprints, and in his hand a couple more disks for her. “More examples?”

“Yes. And no. Here, these are all the plans of the hospital that’s there now.” He didn’t say anything about her appearance, but here she stood in the presence of a gorgeous prince, at best disheveled and without a drop of make-up. Her bun felt loose and baggy too, she just knew it was hanging to the side as if she’d had her hair done by a drunken five-year-old.

Lifting one hand, she felt for the pencils and surreptitiously slid them free so she could unwind the still-damp mass of hair. At least that was somewhat concealing, even if it was the sloppiest mess of waves and tangled curls he had probably ever seen. To his credit, although he stopped unrolling the prints and shuffling papers around to look at her, he said nothing.

“Oh, well, that’ll be helpful so I can see how it’s working now. I just had a footprint of it before.”

“That’s not why I brought them.” He spun her chair, urged her to sit with one hand and then rounded the table to sit opposite her. “We’ve got a slight change in plans.”

“Change? Okay. What kind of change?”

“We’re not working on the hospital any more right now.”

Nira squinted at the plans he’d unrolled. “But this is the hospital.”

“Yes, I mean I want you to stop working on the new hospital designs for the time being. There are bigger worries.”

“New project?”

“Old building, new project. So I guess it’s still the same project, but we’re shifting priorities. We need to remodel the old theater and add a small addition to the building there. The surgical theater there isn’t only underused, it’s horrifying. I’ve liaised with the neighboring kingdoms and their hospitals are ready to receive any surgical patients we have for the next couple of months. And when I say remodeled, I mean gutted. Completely redone. And I want a tiny wing added to the side with a nursery to accommodate twins...”

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