Hence, the only solution was Laxmi staying at my apartment.I switched on the TV and asked Laxmi to watch it while I went for studies. In the late even...ng, I asked her to get food from Neepa. Laxmi went down and got enough food for two.I asked her to dine with me at the dining table. She disagreed. I had to force her to sit on the chair. She quietly had her dinner. I had mine too. She then washes the utensils and arranged for a bed on the floor of the living room. I hit my bed as well.The. Dressed in running shorts and a tank top, she stood up and put her hand out to me. I gazed at her for a moment and admired the beautiful girl in front of me. Her dark skin glistened in the sunlight, her slight curves and lean body youthful and appealing. I reminded myself that she was only seventeen and reached my hand out to hers.Instead of a handshake, she took my hand in hers, moved close to me and spoke quietly in my ear."My mother is a very serious person," she warned. "She does not trust. ‘So many questions… What happened to you?’ Nick sketched a history: Waking to find her gone, wandering aimlessly around Perth, his decision to return to England, the army, and finally, the explosion that had caught him along his left side. ‘The hearing in one ear, a kidney, my spleen, and a knackered leg,’ Nick listed. He grinned at Joelle’s aghast face. With typical black humour: ‘I’ll be OK. The leg’s on the mend. I don’t need those other bits.’ He waved his fingers absently, as though those. If I now let you loose in Cairo you will promptly go home."She could have wept. Everything went wrong. She would be someone´s prisoner forever. Desperately, she pleaded: "Look, there´s such a thing as a word of honour, a parole if you like. I´ll give you mine. Send me to Cairo. I´ll do what you want me to there. I´ll fill the Press with the romance of Abdul Nour, and I´ll come back here with me as your legal wife. Please...?"She had captured his attention indeed. "Why would you do that?" He.