Challenging The Doctor Sheikh

CHAPTER TWO

“I HADN’T CONSIDERED designing as we go,” Nira said. It seemed rude to sit with her back to him when she had no real reason to do so, aside from avoiding looking like a sex-crazed royal fan, which her reaction to him was starting to feel like.

He might be a prince, but he was a prince who had not even responded slightly to her geekery. Being attracted to him—while entirely understandable—would be a really stupid idea to entertain.

Keeping her goals in mind? Much more sensible than some overdeveloped Cinderella story. One-sided attraction should always be ignored, especially when the other side was a freaking prince. Stupid. Understandable, but stupid.

There were other aspects of her heritage to explore without adding “Explore Arabic sensuality” to her list. Besides, Mum had already done that, with disastrous effects.

Focus.

“I suppose I could design in stages to an extent, but I’d need to block out the entire footprint first. You know—the general layout, decide the square footage of each department and the best flow of one department to another before I got started. But otherwise I don’t see why we couldn’t go in stages with the proper planning. It’ll be trickier, but designs are always done with specifications and constraints, so not that much trickier.”

And by doing it in stages, she’d actually get to be here for part of the construction! She’d get to see the first building rise that truly came from her ideas. It made the whole job even more exciting for her.

He gestured to a writing tablet lying at her side and Nira slid it over to him with a pen. “Okay, then, you’ll start with the split building we talked about. I’ll get someone else working on selecting good equipment so you’ll have equipment dimensions to work with in your plans.”

Nira leaned slightly to get a glimpse of his writing. Not the chicken scratch she’d expected. “Did you take drafting classes?”

“Drafting?” He stopped, an odd lift to his brows. “That’s not part of a medical curriculum.”

“You write like you’ve done hours of board lettering.”

Silence hung after her words, and suddenly Nira was reminded of the elevator. She’d said something wrong again. It wasn’t a stupid question—lots of people took drafting classes in secondary school. Probably. If they wanted to...draw things.

Light crinkles appeared in the corners of his eyes just before he chuckled. “I have no idea what that means. Board lettering sounds like writing on wood.” Her shoulders relaxed when he laughed, and a dimple appeared in his left cheek that completely wiped the notion of royalty from his persona.

“It’s a way of writing, back to Ye Olde Days of drafting when they tried to make everyone’s writing standardized so it would be universally legible. Most computers have a hackneyed font called Draft-something-or-other now approximating the style. I just meant your writing is very neat and uniform. I thought doctors were all scribblers.”

“My first education was to write from right to left. When I learned English, it was hard to remember at first, so I learned to take care with my...lettering, was it? I want to be understood.”

“Of course. I didn’t think about that. I should’ve, though. My attempts at writing anything in Arabic have been laughable. I drag my hand in the ink and smear it, or I drag my hand on the pencil and smear it. We won’t even talk about calligraphy nibs...” She shrugged and gestured back to the tablet. Stop derailing things. The man might be a doctor when he’s not prince-ing, but right now he was her client, and clients deserved not to be interrupted by nervous women trying not to notice how their dimple contrasts delightfully with their square jaw.

“I need to know patient volumes we’re designing for. Do you want to start small until you get people used to the idea of the hospital?”

He took the redirection with ease, not commenting on her failure not to smear her practice writing. Thank God.

“No. I want to go big. Big enough it’s impossible for people to ignore it. Big and shiny enough to draw attention and bring people in. Starting small just means staying small. It will get the use it needs if we make it important by making it big.”

That was a new tactic. Her career experience wasn’t yet expansive, but everyone she’d worked with had worked within a budget. But when your client ruled a country, he could probably do whatever he wanted with the budget.

“I still need a target number of patients, because my idea of big and yours might be two different things. And I hate to ask this since I know how fast you want me to get started, but it would really be beneficial to me to see what sort of facilities people are currently using.”

He laid the pen down and leaned back in his chair. “You want to go to the hospital? It’s barely functional. I’m not sure what you could get from going there besides tetanus. Though, on the upside, as far as hospital infections go, I doubt you could get MRSA.”

“I’d like to avoid tetanus, so I won’t touch anything. I don’t know what MRSA is, so I’ll just be glad I can’t get it.”

“Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. It’s like staph on steroids, resistant to most antibiotics, really hard to get rid of. But since antibiotics so rarely make it to Mamlakat Almas, anyone who has it would likely have caught it from someone coming into the country. So, probably right before they died, or healed it themselves.”

“Right. I’d like to avoid that.”

Maybe going to the current treacherous hospital wasn’t the best idea. Except...

“But we’re leaving the current building and adding on? Blending the old and new?”

That was why Zahir had hired her specifically, even without a CV loaded with practical experience. Also it was why the animation had started with the old building.

Dakan scribbled a few more notes on the pad, then leaned back again. “No. It’s on a large piece of land. As we’re going to do it staged, we’ll leave the old hospital up and functioning—such as it is—and begin construction for the new facility in another area of the property. Maybe right beside it, then tear down the old when the new is up and running.”

Definitely not blending the old with the new that way, not that the current hospital was exactly old—it had been built in the twentieth century if the old blueprints were accurate. He was probably exaggerating. Still, she could work with that. And who wouldn’t want a shiny new facility? But she had a point about visiting the hospital besides seeing what she was adding to.

“It’s nothing to me if the old building is razed after the first unit is completed, but I still need to see the facility or visit a healing center. Zahir—I mean Prince Zahir—said there were a few bigger healing centers within the country. I need to see how the waiting and reception areas function, see what people expect so I can make sure the building feels familiar enough to be welcoming.”

He fixed his gaze on her, and for a moment she thought he might finally yell at her, as she’d been expecting him to do in the lobby. But instead he paused for a considered moment and said calmly, “I know blending the old and the new is what you and Zahir discussed, but I really have no interest in that, Miss Hathaway.”

With her not knowing what to call him, every time he said her name it made her a little more aware of their different positions. She’d address that first. “Please call me Nira. I don’t mind.”

“All right, Nira. I’ve inherited the hospital project, and since I’ve had a few more days to think about it, I’ve decided to go a different route from Zahir’s old plans. I want a thoroughly modern hospital. None of that modern on the outside and quaint and nostalgic on the inside nonsense either. Modern. Something that would look at home if it was plunked in the middle of London, Sydney, or New York.”

“Prince Dakan.” She used his title again, since he’d made no overture that she could go without it. “Your brother was quite adamant the king wouldn’t accept such a facility any of the times he’s presented any plans. He batted back all our proposals already too, before we any got further than conceptuals.”

The only reason she had the job was the years of study—or some might say obsession—with studying ancient Middle Eastern architecture. She’d only been in the country three days. Prior to that, she’d simply been emailing Zahir proposals, which the King had constantly knocked back. She had loads of ideas, doodles, and even a few sheets of paper with what could almost pass for sketches, but no idea if any of it would work.

“Three days, sitting in a fancy flat in your kingdom, isn’t enough to get what I need to design anything properly. All I’ve seen, aside from a fantastic skyline, has been the bazaar today and the airport the other day.”

“My father isn’t here,” Dakan reminded her, then moved to her drafting table, where he began riffling through the dotted newsprint paper sketches she’d used to think on. “He won’t be involved in the design.”

“But isn’t he coming back?”

“I certainly hope so,” he murmured, stopping at the conceptual fountain she was most proud of, and giving it a good look.

“Water makes for a soothing environment. It’s good for waiting areas,” she explained, trying not to sell the idea too hard. She liked it too much to risk so bold an opening maneuver.

“It’s also good at slowing down progress. The objective is to open as soon as possible. Embellishments will come later.”

“The footprint, the basic layout, needs to be present for later, though. And there are structural issues—like plumbing and power—that need to be accounted for in the building stage, or you’ll just end up having to rip up what we’ve already built.”

“Fine, then put what is required for the fountain in the foundation so it can be added in later. Then put a floor over it and make it useful.”

At least he seemed to like it.

“Please don’t take offense at this, but I really need to see what is expected now. I don’t even know if the waiting rooms can be together, or if they need to be segregated by class or gender or some other classifier. You can thank the internet that last week I learned how to tie a scarf and also that henna is amazing but far too hard for me to do on myself no matter how much I like to draw or doodle. I may know Middle Eastern architecture and art back to ancient times, yes, and I’ve been learning Arabic for about eighteen months, but pretty much every other aspect of your culture is still very foreign to me. I don’t want to mess it up, and waste time and money as I struggle to get it right.”

“Aren’t your parents immigrants? Or your mother at least?”

Her mother? Maybe hiding the picture wouldn’t save her from this discussion.

“My mother is British. Ginger, even,” Nira murmured, wariness seeping into her belly. How had they gotten round to this subject? “I know I look like I should know these things, but I grew up in a tiny village in the north of England, where everyone looked like she did, and no one looked like I...like we do.”

“Your father?”

Her father. Or the mystery that was her father. The wariness turned to lead. “I don’t know.”

Nira knew exactly three things about her father: what he looked like in the one and only picture she’d ever seen of him, currently face down beside her laptop; that he was from the Middle East somewhere; and that her mother refused to ever answer any questions about him. She had never allowed Nira to explore those aspects of her heritage.

She’d surmised their relationship had ended badly. But she wouldn’t be ashamed about it. So what if she didn’t know her father? Plenty of people didn’t.

Lifting her chin, she made herself look him in the eye. Being illegitimate was probably heavily frowned on here, and he could disapprove all he liked. Whatever nonsense had gone on with her parents had nothing to do with her capabilities.

“My point is I need information or the building will be as culturally clueless as I am. You want people to use the facility when it’s open, and so do I. The best way to ensure that is to make them feel at home there.”

The Prince nodded too slowly for her to read the meaning behind it, those dark eyes giving no hint of his opinion on her parentage. “We’re not so different here. People are still people, Nira. It doesn’t matter what they look like, or where they grew up.”

So maybe he didn’t care? Not that she should care either way, but right now navigating this place required she do a lot of guessing and reading between the lines. But his reaction was far enough from her expectations that she couldn’t decide if it could give her any clues for future interactions with other people here.

“They need to feel like they’ve not been tucked away somewhere and forgotten in a little waiting room, and they need to not feel like they’re lost in the crowd of a big waiting room.” He grabbed the pad of paper again, thought for a moment and then scribbled down some numbers beside a list of prioritized departments. “Use these numbers to rough out your footprint. I’ll get someone working on the equipment, hunt up a firm to handle the interior, and get some examples of facilities I like and want you to aim for. I’ll be back in two days.”

Two days. Nira nodded mutely. What else could she do?

He picked up his jacket and swung it on as he strode for the door.

She looked at all he’d written down—numbers, departments with arrows linking them up, which she could only interpret as clues as to where to locate them. One department was missing.

She called after him, “What about healers? Will they have their own department?”

“No healers. Doctors!” he answered, not even breaking stride.

* * *

Two days later a very tired Nira stood at the massive plotter and sorted out the drawings that had already fallen into the bin.

Any second now Dakan would blow in and she’d find out whether or not he thought she could handle the job, whether her ideas were up to snuff.

She shuffled another print to the drafting table and smoothed it out, trying to uncurl the sheet as the last drawing rolled off the plotter.

“You’re still wearing it?” Dakan said from behind her, chuckling as he made his way in.

“Wearing what?”

“The scarf.” He nodded to her head. “I figured you’d have abandoned it by now.”

Nira reached up and touched the colorful silk carefully. The housekeeper, Tahira, had helped her with her technique in the days since she’d seen him last. “I thought it would be respectful to your ways for me to wear a scarf. And...well, I just want to.”

“They’re not exactly my ways. My ways are a little more complicated, and honestly I miss England. Working with a British woman is a perk for me. Aside from that, we’re indoors now in your home, out of public view.”

“But you’re a stranger,” Nira countered. Anyone would hear the Gotcha! in her tone. She knew that much at least—a scarf should be worn in public or with strangers.

“Am I?” The shock in his voice couldn’t be anything but an act, but it still made her smile. “I’ll have to do something about that, then. You can get to know me over dinner, and tomorrow you won’t have that argument. And then you can tell me why you want to wear the scarf when you’re at home.”

With their rocky start, she’d assumed that same general tension would permeate all their interactions, but his mood had drastically improved today. He might even be flirting with her—how weird would that be?

“Call me Dakan because we’re friends now, at least in private. Right?”

Setting the colorful silk and clips on the side table, she smoothed her hands over her hair to make sure it wasn’t sticking up absurdly.

He smiled then, flashing that dastardly little dimple pitting his left cheek—undoubtedly designed to make her heart stutter.

Good grief, the man was still beautiful, and she’d spent a large part of the last two days trying to convince herself she’d just been fooled by her memory—it was pretty much all she’d been able to talk to herself about. And she’d been terribly convincing. Up to ten minutes ago she’d have sworn he’d only been that handsome in hindsight, and maybe through some kind of Cinderella story memory filter. But here he was, in the flesh, making her insides quiver...

And judging by the twinkle in his eye as he smiled, he was used to knocking women’s feet out from under them.

Well, her feet could just get back under her, charming, beautiful man or not. Her goals still mattered, and one of them was not to go to a foreign country and have an ill-advised romance. Those always ended badly, or, if she listened to Mum, sometimes worse than that.

He summoned Tahira, ordered dinner to be prepared, and then turned back to her drawings.

For the next hour they went over the different layouts she’d come up with—high-rises versus sprawling facilities with clusters of smaller buildings and parking structures. And finally settled on a layout that combined the best of both.

“Did you bring the examples you talked about?” she asked, after shuffling off the printouts that had been rejected and leaving his choices on the drafting table. “I’d like to look at them and get started.”

“After dinner.”

“Or during. We could have a working dinner, look at what you’ve brought.” She looked around him, expecting to see a bundle of prints somewhere. “Where are they?”

Dakan fished a DVD out of his jacket pocket, bumped the button on her laptop and loaded it into the tray. “I don’t want a working dinner. But I’ll set this up...” His words dried up as he caught sight of the framed photo beside her computer.

Attractive couple. Fair, freckled woman with red hair. Man with dark hair and tanned skin.

He picked it up to examine the photo more closely, and found himself looking at the frame, which was constructed of tiny gray bricks and mortar.

It was very well made, and obviously done by hand—there were just enough irregularities in the bricks to see small fingers had formed and smoothed them. The architect had spent hours constructing it to fit the photo—the one personal item on her desk.

“Are these your parents?” he asked, looking back at her as he did so.

There was wariness in her gaze again, like that he’d seen in her the other day when they’d spoken of her father.

The father she’d claimed to not know.

“I thought you didn’t know who your father was?”

“I don’t. Not his name or where he’s from—aside from a Middle Eastern country. All I have is this one picture.”

She carefully extracted the photo from his hand as if he might break it. Or like she’d saved that photo from being destroyed in the past...and now protected it with tiny bricks she’d made herself.

“He looks...” Familiar.

Familiar but grainy—the photo was old enough that he couldn’t be certain.

How likely was it for him to know her father anyway? Millions of people lived in “a Middle Eastern country...”

CHAPTER THREE

“HAPPY,” DAKAN SAID INSTEAD. “They both look happy. I’m guessing things went downhill after that picture if your mother isn’t giving you other information.”

“That’s my guess as well.”

His Big Emotion warning system started to become more insistent. She wouldn’t carry around her unidentified father’s picture for no reason, but continuing to poke at this situation—when he already knew nothing he could say would make it better for her—was a bad idea.

But the familiarity of the man bugged him.

“Do you know where that was taken?”

“No. She never told me what country she was in. I assume it was his country, but I really don’t know. Maybe he was living abroad.”

“So she came here somewhere, had a fling, got pregnant, and went home?”

“I guess.”

She grew stiffer the longer they spoke about it, no trace evident of the smile she’d returned earlier when he’d found himself flirting. Instead, her shoulders stretched this way and that as she spoke, trying to dispel tension.

“I’d like to tell you more, but I really don’t know anything.” She placed the photo back on the desk, though a little further back this time. “I used to ask her all the time, but she’d never answer. And she always shut down any attempts I made to learn about that aspect of my heritage when I was growing up. Burned a book or two, even! One was from the library...”

The housekeeper informed them dinner was ready, and Nira gestured to the guest bathroom. “Would you like to meet in the dining room?” She darted off like someone wanting to escape.

He really shouldn’t pry into her background. He liked people. He was good with people. But big, sticky emotions weren’t really his thing. Definitely Zahir’s territory. He’d know what to say to her to make her feel better—good leaders were like that—but he just didn’t.

There was one thing he could do very well, which he was pretty sure would make her feel better. Kissing her had been in his mind since he’d dragged her out of the market and marched her back home. Which was weird, and probably some kind of side-effect of being stuck where he usually avoided showing interest in women out of fear his father would start beating the marriage drum again. She might be British, but she looked like those princesses he and Zahir had been threatened with for years. So, exactly opposite from his type.

Dakan went for pretty much anything he could only really get abroad—blond or red hair, pale skin, pale eyes...

She had the eyes. Green and gorgeous, they stood out—not that she wouldn’t have otherwise. One thing the scarf always did wonderfully was focus attention on a woman’s face. Even without the long silky dark hair she’d been hiding, she was something to look at.