FLO HEADED BACK down to the wedding celebrations, which were in full swing.
The feast was incredible and Maggie and Ilyas looked so happy. It was a wonderful occasion and full of food and much dancing.
And then came the gorgeous candle dance. Flo had no idea what it was but smiled as Maggie stood with two lit candles, just enjoying the goings-on, when unexpectedly she was handed one herself.
All the woman were, and with candles lit they stood behind the bride and followed her to the sounds of a soulful song. And then Flo was moved along the entourage so she stood by her friend and Flo realised then that this should have been Maggie’s mum.
It was a special moment and Flo danced alone with her friend, who had been through so much.
And then it was the men’s turn to dance and Maggie must have been thinking the same thing—that Hazin should be here.
Yet Flo understood why he could not be.
‘How’s Hazin?’ Maggie asked.
‘He’ll be fine,’ Flo said, but she didn’t divulge to Maggie that he hadn’t been drunk at all. ‘I’ll check on him later.’
As the celebrations eased down, and the bride and groom were about to leave for the desert, she said goodbye to her friend.
‘Thank you for coming all this way.’
‘It was hardly a burden. I’ve had the most wonderful time.’
And now it was goodbye.
Flo held back from crying until she could be alone in her suite. But she would miss Maggie terribly. They had been friends for years. When Flo had first started at the Primary she had found the chocolate café and their friendship had soon formed.
And she didn’t know how this marriage and Maggie’s new title might change that, only that she knew it would.
She was so ready for a good old howl that she actually forgot about Hazin, right up until she got to her suite.
His apartment was quite a walk from hers but she trudged down there.
Yes, she wanted to check on him, but not because he was drunk.
She wanted to check on him, on them, while she had the chance, for she loathed the way they’d parted.
There was a guard outside, one of the guards who had deposited him on the bed, and he gave Flo a nod and let her in. She walked down a long corridor and when she got to his bedroom she knocked softly and opened the door quietly.
Moonlight lit the room.
Hazin was asleep on top of the bed. In fact, he was just as he had been when she’d left. Flo slipped off his shoes and covered him with a large throw and he stirred.
‘I told you,’ he said, ‘I don’t need a nurse.’
‘I know you don’t,’ Flo said. ‘And whether or not you need a friend, tonight I do.’ She slipped off her shoes and climbed onto the bed beside him. Without a word, he pulled her in and covered her with the throw.
It wasn’t sexy or anything, it was just nice, to lie there in the quiet.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I knew who you were.’ Flo said.
‘It doesn’t matter.’ He gave her arm a squeeze. ‘It was a good night until then.’
‘It was.’
‘So you were there for Maggie?’
‘She wanted to tell Ilyas about the baby.’ Flo nodded slowly as she looked back at that night and then sighed. ‘I’m going to miss her an awful lot.’
‘You’ll still see her. She’s hardly going to have to save up her frequent flyer miles to come and see you.’
‘Perhaps, but it won’t be the same. I was so happy when she came back from her year away. I was looking forward to being like an aunty to the baby...’
‘You still can be,’ he said, and then asked a question. ‘Did you used to go out on the town together?’
Flo smiled to herself. ‘We met for coffee most days. Maggie’s not into clubs.’
‘And you are?’
Not any more, Flo thought, but she did not say it.
‘So when does your self-imposed exile end?’
Flo lay there and still said nothing.
It had ended with him, but she could not see herself heading back out there.
Something had shifted within her on the very night she had met Hazin, though she hadn’t explored it properly and could not do so now, for she doubted that Hazin wanted to hear on this night that she was completely crazy about him.
He misread her silence.
Or not.
For there was sadness in the air; he just didn’t put it down to being about him.
‘What happened, Flo?’ Hazin already knew that her ex had been married but he wanted to hear it from her. ‘Why have you been hiding yourself away?’
She hadn’t just been hiding, it had been a punishment, one she had inflicted on herself.
‘He was married,’ Flo said. ‘I honestly didn’t know, though looking back I should have. I knew he went away on business a lot. At the time, I was fine with it because it was coming up for Christmas...’ She thought about it some more. It had actually been a bit of a relief when he’d gone away for he’d liked to see her at short notice and would be put out if she had other plans. On-call sex, really, now she looked back. ‘We didn’t actually go out that much,’ Flo admitted. ‘I met him at Dion’s and after that it was always bloody hotels.’
‘What’s wrong with hotels?’ Hazin asked.
‘Nothing at all, if sex is all you’re after. He would sometimes come to my place but it was mainly hotels—he told me his apartment was being renovated. We were always staying in when I wanted to go out.’
‘Where?’
‘Anywhere, just on a date.’
But the concept of a date was clearly as unfamiliar to him as her aversion to hotels so he asked for more clarification. ‘But where would you go?’
‘Anywhere. Movies, theatre, meals...’
He yawned and Flo lay there. ‘I haven’t been on enough dates,’ she told him. ‘I can see it now.’
Her year off men had served her well.
‘How did you find out he was married?’ Hazin asked.
She was silent.
‘Tell me.’
‘I’m too embarrassed to.’
He could feel the tension lock her arms tight against her body. ‘Flo,’ he said, ‘do you know my reputation?’
‘I do.’
‘Then you must know that not much shocks me.’
Flo had held it in for so long. She remembered the night she and Hazin had met and his kind, non-judgmental smile. She had come close to telling him then and so she told him now.
Hazin was the first person—the only person—she had ever shared this with.
‘He came into my department with his wife. She was booked in at a private hospital but it was all happening too fast...’ Even with months having gone by, even with the shield of his arms, she could not complete it, but Hazin knew her job and soon worked it out.
‘I stand corrected,’ he admitted, for he was shocked. ‘Bastard.’
They lay there together and he thought about it.
‘You didn’t have to deliver her?’ Hazin checked.
‘Oh, God, no, never!’ Flo said. ‘I hid in the IV cupboard and I never wanted to come out.’
It had been rock bottom for her.
‘Then I told my colleague I had a bad period and I needed to go home. I called in sick for two days...’
She looked up and he pulled a face at her ailment choice.
‘Well, I guess I could have just pretended to be drunk, as a certain person does when he wants to get out of something.’
They both smiled just a little, but hers wavered when she recalled that time and the explosion of feelings it had produced.
‘It was Christmas Eve and the next day I had to go to my parents’ home and pretend to be all happy...’
Hazin frowned. ‘I never feign happiness, I’m just a miserable bastard whenever I feel like it.’
‘You don’t feel like one now.’
He felt lovely, all big and strong and so very kind, and then he said something she did not understand.
‘I used to, though.’
‘When?’
He thought back to the early months of his marriage, before Petra had taken ill. He had been the dutiful Prince then, attending endless functions with his gorgeous bride. Petra had been very hands on and had liked to get close to the people. At night they would get into this very bed and make love—yet it had not really been love, for he would lie there afterwards in the dark of the night with a hollow longing in his soul for the life he had once led in London.
Yet he could never tell anyone that.
And so he asked Flo a question instead of answering hers. ‘Why did you have to pretend to be happy?’
‘Because that’s what I do,’ Flo said.
‘Would your parents have been cross with you?’
‘No, no, they’d have felt awful for me. It was Christmas,’ she said, as if that explained it.
It didn’t.
So she tried.
‘You do what you can to make it happy for the people you love, especially at Christmas, and me sobbing into the turkey wasn’t going to help anyone.’
He lay there, waiting for her to explain further.
It took a moment to realise she had fallen asleep.
Confession really was good for the soul.