DECEMBER.
It had always been Flo’s favourite month.
Not any more.
She had worked a lot of late shifts in the first two weeks, but more so that she would have a genuine excuse not to attend the many functions and get-togethers that came with this time of year.
The unbelievable had happened and Christmas had lost its gloss.
She had finished up work yesterday to commence her long-awaited leave and was determined to inject some enthusiasm into the season. Yet she decorated the tree and her tiny flat with something more akin to grim determination than enthusiasm.
Then Flo headed out to make a start on her Christmas shopping.
The bus stopped right beside the chocolate café. If Maggie had still been working there, Flo would have dropped in for a hot chocolate and a gossip.
Then, after her shopping, she might well have ended up back there again.
They spoke online often enough, but it was in the day-to-day things that Flo missed her an awful lot.
The shops were all decked out for Christmas yet Flo’s shopping wasn’t done. She traipsed around the various stores, but the music was too loud and the crowds overwhelming. As well as that, she had seen what was surely the perfect necklace for Maggie.
Yet, just as she had been admiring it, Flo had thought of the stunning jewels that Maggie now had access to and had put it back.
Somehow she could not get in the mood.
Last Christmas had been awful.
This one was faring no better.
Well, that wasn’t strictly true.
Last year at this time she had been happy, decorating her tiny flat and dashing to the shops to get the perfect presents for family and friends and her now ex-boyfriend.
Yes, this time last year she had been busy and happy.
It was Christmas Eve that had been hell.
She had felt so ashamed yet, looking back, she hadn’t cried tears over the loss of him.
Yet, after one night with Hazin, Flo had cried.
And she had cried over him several times since.
Today, as she took the bus back to her flat, it felt as if it could be one of those times.
The bus made its way along the busy London street and Flo looked down and saw Dion’s.
She hadn’t been back since that night when he had first turned her life around.
According to the gossip columns, neither had Hazin.
That morning, after the wedding, when she had woken in his bed and they had shared that lovely kiss, had been the last time she had seen or heard from him.
Flo had found out from Maggie that he hadn’t been back to Zayrinia either.
It would seem he really did not want to deliver that speech or stand with is brother.
He was off in the Caribbean, according to the last gossip rag Flo had read.
Flo let herself into her flat. She pulled off her boots and scarf and refused to cry over a man who clearly had no real interest in her.
Another one.
Only with Hazin it didn’t feel the same as it had with other boyfriends, for when she had been with him, his interest in her had felt real.
Get real! Flo told herself.
It had been three months.
She pulled out her laptop, trying not to think about Hazin, and to decide what to get Maggie for Christmas. Flo had left it rather too late to post something, so she’d have to spend a small fortune for a necklace Maggie might not even want.
Suddenly Maggie messaged her. Great minds think alike, Flo thought.
Free to chat?
A few seconds later there was Maggie, smiling from the screen. Her red hair was thick and glossy and she was clearly rocking those pregnancy hormones.
‘You look amazing,’ Flo said. ‘Three weeks to go!’
‘It feels like for ever,’ Maggie sighed.
‘How’s it all going?’
‘Very well,’ Maggie said. ‘Well, at least I think so...’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing. I just...’ Maggie closed her eyes. ‘Flo, do you remember when you asked if you could deliver me?’
‘Yes, and you said that you could think of nothing worse than that.’
‘I could think of nothing better now,’ Maggie told her.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Honestly, yes. I’m getting the best care and I really am fine. I’m getting all worked up, though. I have to deliver at the Palace, unless something goes wrong, of course. But as well as the Palace doctor there has to be a Palace elder present at the birth.’
Flo held in her own thoughts about that.
Maggie didn’t need them.
At the end of the day, she was giving birth to the future King. Of course there would be certain customs that had to be adhered to.
Yet Maggie was a very private person.
Late pregnancy was often a difficult time, especially given that Maggie was in a new country and didn’t speak the language, and it made sense that she would want someone from home with her.
But Flo wasn’t sure if she wanted to go.
Not that she said it out loud; instead she pointed out a fact. ‘Maggie, what happens if the baby’s late? First babies often are and I’m due back at work on the fifth of January.’
‘I know. It would just be so nice to have you here for a while.’
Flo thought about it.
She wanted to be there for her friend but she loved Christmas, and the thought of not spending it with her family was daunting.
‘Flo, it honestly would be a holiday,’ Maggie said. ‘We can go out and you can go off exploring. I’ll take you out to the desert where Ilyas and I met.’
‘You’re thirty-seven weeks pregnant.’
‘And there are helicopters lined up outside like a taxi rank. Though I do have a couple of functions to attend, so long as the baby’s not here. I just...’ Maggie hesitated. ‘I’m asking too much. I know how much you love Christmas and being with your family.’
Flo had always loved Christmas—the tree, the scents, the gorgeous dinner—but she had been feeling so low of late.
Flo needed to think about it, yet she could see the pleading in Maggie’s eyes and she was absolutely useless at saying no, or even asking for some time.
‘Of course you’re not asking too much,’ Flo said. ‘I’d love to come.’
Maggie gave a squeal of delight. ‘When?’
‘How soon do you want me?’
‘Now!’ Maggie said, and started to speak of arrangements. ‘Don’t bring a thing. I’ve got a wardrobe of robes and I’ll get Kumu to—’ but Flo cut in.
‘You’ll have to message me the details. If I’m going to be flying to Zayrinia at short notice then I need to hit the shops now.’
‘I just said you don’t have to bring anything.’
‘I’ve got my family’s presents to get,’ Flo pointed out.
* * *
This was more like it, Flo thought as she entered the huge store that she’d so listlessly walked around just a couple of hours before.
On the bus ride over, she had thought about it and a working holiday in Zayrinia, and delivering a future King, wouldn’t look too bad on her résumé.
Hazin might be there; after all, he had that dreaded speech to give.
He wasn’t the sole reason for her cheery mood. She and Maggie were very close, but the chance to see Hazin again was certainly a factor.
She simply couldn’t get him out of her mind, though she had to now because Flo had so much to do.
So much!
Yet this time around it all happened with ease.
Her brothers, sisters, parents, nieces and nephews were soon off her list and Flo left the bags at a counter to collect later.
Ilyas?
Impossible.
So he got a box of dark-chocolate-covered ginger.
A big one, though.
Maggie had become newly impossible to buy for, but she utterly refused to think like that, so Flo went back to the necklace and bought it, along with a book that she knew Maggie would enjoy.
And then Flo went to the place she longed to be most—the baby floor.
Despite seeing, holding and smelling newborns each and every day, it was never too much for Flo.
Shopping for her friend’s baby was an utter delight, though she would love to be shopping for her own.
Flo had wanted a baby as far back as she could remember.
Every doll she had begged for at Christmas and birthdays had proven a secret disappointment when she’d finally held them, for she had longed for them to be real.
It wasn’t like she was peering into prams and longing to scoop the babies out, it was just that she hoped to be a mother one day.
Flo knew Maggie was having a little boy but, rather than blue, she loved the more neutral mint greens and pale lemons and she searched for just that.
And then she found it—a little playsuit in the palest green with the face of a rabbit, or dog, or something of that nature on the front.
It wasn’t very regal, but it was gorgeous.
And he got a teddy, because from the little she knew of the al-Razim brothers, they hadn’t exactly been plied with toys as children and a palace could be a cold and lonely place.
So she splurged and got him a little play mat and a rattle too in the shape of a ladybird.
Done.
Not quite.
Hazin!
Her mother had trained her well, and of course there must be spare presents for the unexpected and, in this case, much-hoped-for, guest.
For that was what he was, Flo thought, more a guest in the Palace than a much-loved son.
Hazin had been born a spare.
So an extra box of chocolate ginger would not cut it, Flo thought, even as she bought some for him anyway.
She stood in the middle of the store as that Hazin-shaped wave hit her again.
It had swamped her on too many occasions of late.
What were you supposed to get for someone you desperately fancied but who might not even be there. What present were you supposed to get a man who could afford absolutely anything?
Flo couldn’t fight it any more.
While it might have been sex in a hotel to him, it had been far more than that to her.
She was crazy about him.
That night in his arms in the Palace where nothing had happened had been the most amazing of her life.
She loved sex, but Flo had found out that night just how nice it was to hold someone and be held for no other reason than to hold and be held.
It had never happened to her before.
She’d been held before, of course, but there had never been one without the other.
Until Hazin.
She had to get a present for him, just in case he was there, but what?
It had to be light, Flo thought.
But she wanted more of Hazin, not less...
And suddenly Flo knew what to buy.
It could prove an expensive mistake, Flo thought as she grabbed her many bags and headed off to make her purchase.
And it could prove a rather lonely exercise.
But then at least she’d know.