* * *
Isabella blinked her eyes open into the morning sunshine, searching for the source of the annoying buzz that had woken her up. She fumbled a hand over to the nightstand and grabbed her cell phone, squinting down at the screen with sleepy eyes.
She was alone in bed. Feraz must have gotten up already and left her to slumber.
He was so thoughtful.
Smiling, Isabella answered the call without checking the ID. “Hello?”
“Ms. Nazrani?” a female voice said, clipped and professional. “This is Manhattan General Hospital calling.”
Her heart clogged her throat. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s your mother, ma’am. She was brought in yesterday, unresponsive. We’ve admitted her into hospice care. We don’t expect her to make it much longer. I’m sorry to call with such bad news, but we wanted to let you know that if you wanted to see her again before the end, you should come now.”
“But she’s only Stage I. She should still be fine.”
The nurse on the other end of the line paused. “There must be some mistake, ma’am. I’m looking at her chart and I’m sorry to tell you your mother is in late-Stage IV. The cancer’s metastasized to her bones and brain and liver. Her kidneys are failing. She won’t last more than a couple of days at most.”
Mind whirling, Isabella listened to the rest of the woman’s information, then ended the call in a daze. Her relationship with her mother was strained, at best, but it was still her mother. If the woman was dying, she needed to be there, needed to make peace with her at last, before the end.
On auto-pilot, she got up, showered, and changed, then pulled out her bag to pack for the trip. She needed to tell Feraz what was going on but didn’t want him to come with her to New York. Given the circumstances, this was something she needed to do alone. She felt bad that her mother’s impending demise meant she would be free to tell Feraz the truth. She could stop living a lie and tell him she loved him, not as her dead sister, but as Isabella Germain.
Except, how would he react to that?
She’d lied to him, slept with him, all the time knowing it was wrong, no matter how right it felt to be with him. Tears gathered in her eyes, for all she’d lost and for all she’d never have again. Overwhelmed, she stuffed her emotions down deep and concentrated on one task at a time. First, she needed to call Dr. Hassan and make sure it was safe for her to travel home. Then she needed to let Feraz know about her trip to New York. Then she needed to say goodbye to her mother. Finally, she needed to figure out how to tell her beloved husband—no, she corrected herself, not her husband—and his family the truth without losing her children and the man she loved.
The call to Dr. Hassan was quick enough and she got the all clear to fly.
The conversation with Feraz was a bit more difficult. Not because she didn’t know what to say, but because she couldn’t talk to him. Turned out he’d been called into a special session with his cabinet advisors and wasn’t expected to get out of the meeting until that evening. He’d left strict orders with his secretary, Abdul, that he wasn’t to be disturbed under any circumstances.
Ugh. Leaving a note wasn’t ideal, but with her mother’s remaining moments being measured in hours, not days, Isabella felt she had little choice. After asking Abdul to ready the Nazrani private jet for her, she scribbled down a hasty note to her husband then headed down stairs to the limo waiting to take her to the airport.
She signed her letter “Love, your rohi”. Isabella only prayed that Feraz would still want to be with her once he learned her true identity and why she’d done what she’d done. After making love with him last night, she felt closer to him than ever and her heart truly belonged to him. The babies kicked inside her, as if in agreement. She wanted to make a family with Feraz, wanted to live with him in the palace and be a part of his crazy life. Wanted to join his siblings and their spouse, wanted to enjoy long talks with his mother again, wanted to be with him, now and forever more.
As they pulled onto the tarmac at the airport a short while later, Isabella found it hard to believe she’d only been back in Feraz’s life for one short week. She just hoped he’d give her a chance to prove her love to him once she returned and they could turn their brief time together into forever.
12
“Mama?” Isabella said, taking her mother’s frail hand through the bedrail. She’d arrived at the hospice facility an hour prior and still hadn’t quite adjusted to seeing her mother—a woman who’d been so strong and fierce just a week earlier—now unconscious and corpse-like in a hospital bed. She understood her mother’s cancer had reached its last stages, but she’d never expected her to go downhill so quickly. In truth, she’d never imagined her fearless mother dying at all, yet here she was, breathing labored and cheeks sunken.
The nurses had told her that her mother had been fine one minute then collapsed the next, too weak to stand on her own and had gone rapidly downhill from there. According to the doctors, that wasn’t uncommon with terminal cancer. Isabella couldn’t help feeling guilty that she’d not been here sooner, even though she was doing what her mother had wanted.
She stroked her thumb over the back of her mother’s pale hand, the skin there so thin all the veins were visible. So delicate, so fleeting. If she’d known this was going to happen, she would’ve told her mother how sorry she was about how things had turned out, how
sorry she was that she’d been such a disappointment. How she really was trying to get the money they needed to pay for the new treatments without falling too deeply in love with Feraz.
Okay, that last one would have been a lie. Especially after last night.
Making love with him had been everything she’d ever dreamed and more. Passionate, tender, sexy, and sweet, all rolled into one. He’d made her feel beautiful and wanted and treasured. Which made telling him the truth as soon as she got back all the more heartbreaking.
For so long, Isabella had felt so alone. With her mother and her sister now dead, she felt adrift. Then the car accident had happened and somehow, through the chaos and conniving of her mother’s plan, Isabella had found a true family at last.
Honestly, she loved Feraz’s siblings and Zuhra as much as she loved him.
They’d made her feel welcome, they’d made her feel like she’d come home.
Despite all the emotional wounds her sister had inflicted on them.