Read Online The Sheikh and the Surrogate Mum by Meredith Webber - Free Book Online Page A

him through a self-opening door into the foyer of what looked like a six-star hotel but was obviously the hospital’s main entrance.
    Voices called what she took to be greetings to Khalifa, some men bowing their heads in his direction, not, she felt, subserviently, but merely an acknowledgement that he was among them again.
    He spoke briefly to a woman in loose trousers and a long tunic, a uniform not unlike the clothes Liz had brought with her. So she’d got that right , she was thinking when Khalifa took her arm and steered her towards another foyer with a bank of lifts.
    This was the bit she still had to get right, she realised as her body reacted with volatile enthusiasm to his touch. She could have lit up an entire fireworks display had the fizz and sparks been visible. It had to be the hormonal shift of being pregnant. She’d put it down to that and, in the meantime, avoid opportunities that involved touch—or smiles, or laughter, or even, if possible, hearing his voice. Toes could only take so much!
    ‘This is the theatre floor,’ he said, preparing to lead her out of the lift, but she dodged his hand and strode ahead then realised she’d turned the wrong way. That was okay. Now she could follow him, trailing in his wake, taking in the ramrod-straight back, the sleek sheen of his hair, and the neat way his trousers hugged—
    Totally not going there, Liz!
    He led her into a theatre anteroom where a group of men and women were already pulling on hospital gowns over T-shirts and shorts, or were fully gowned and discussing what lay ahead of them.
    ‘This is Dr Elizabeth Jones,’ Khalifa announced above the rush of greetings. ‘I won’t confuse her with all your names at this stage but she’ll take care of the baby once it’s delivered.’
    He beckoned to a woman at one side of the room and she came forward, her dark eyes studying Liz.
    ‘Laya is the head nurse in our nursery,’ he explained, and Liz held out her hand.
    ‘Call me Liz,’ she said. ‘And lead me somewhere I can have a shower and change. Who knows what foreign germs I could be carrying?’
    Laya led her into a large bathroom with several shower stalls.
    ‘Theatre gowns are in these cupboards,’ she explained. ‘I’ll wait and get you kitted up.’
    Liz grinned at her.
    ‘Kitted up? Is that a local expression?’
    ‘I trained in England,’ Laya said. ‘I could have chosen the USA but my family had been visiting London for years so I knew people there who were happy for me to live with them.’
    She’d been stacking clean theatre gear on a bench so hadn’t noticed Liz’s baby bump until she turned back towards her.
    ‘Oh!’ she said.
    ‘Exactly,’ Liz told her, ‘though it’s not what it seems and, anyway, I’m perfectly well and quite capable of doing my job. Just get me a couple of sizes larger of everything.’
    Laya looked as if she’d have liked to protest, or maybe ask more, but Liz hurried into a shower stall, stripping off her underwear then grimacing as she realised she’d have to put it back on again afterwards—or wear some of those enormous paper undies that were available throughout most hospitals. Pity they didn’t do large size paper bras.
    ‘Now we’re organised,’ she finally said to Laya, ‘so lead on.’
    Scrub up next, then into Theatre, gowned and gloved, where the patient was already on the table, one of the men from the anteroom in place at the patient’s head, another man, obviously the obstetrician, preparing for an incision on the woman’s swollen belly. Khalifa was on the far side of the room, examining the X-rays and scans on what looked like a flat-screen television fixed to the wall.
    Liz checked the preparations Laya had made in the hastily set-up newborn care corner. A trolley of fixed height with radiant warmer, drawers that would hold equipment, an oxygen bottle, a hand-operated neonate resuscitator, scale, pump suction with foot operation, IV cannulas, mucus extractors, soft towels