To Tame a Sheikh (Pride of Zohayd 1)

She rose from the bed, feeling she was about to receive the ultimate blow. Then the king delivered it.

“Is it true, Johara? Are you pregnant with Shaheen’s child?”

Nine

Shaheen stared at the back of his father’s head, the question reverberating in his mind. His gaze moved to settle on Johara’s frozen face. Her eyes were holding his father’s, shocked denial filling them.

Then she quavered, “No, I’m not.”

And he got his confirmation.

Johara was pregnant.

He felt his heart spiral inside him, as if he were plummeting down a never-ending roller coaster.

From the moment he’d found her gone, he’d wondered if there’d been consequences to their surrender to passion without a thought for precautions. Thinking she could discover her pregnancy while she was alone had exacerbated his misery at her disappearance. But she’d said nothing since they’d been together again, making him certain she wasn’t pregnant. Then after that first time when she’d stopped him from using precautions, making him believe she’d taken her own, they’d made love again and again through the past two weeks, and he’d believed there was no chance of their passion bearing fruit.

But she hadn’t taken precautions because she was already pregnant. And she hadn’t told him due to her seemingly unwavering decision to never compromise him or impose on him with demands she believed she had no right to make, and that he’d be incapable of meeting.

From what felt like the bottom of an abyss he heard his father’s voice, thickened with regret and apology. “I’m sorry, ya b’nayti, if I’m relieved to hear that. I couldn’t wish for a better woman for Shaheen, but as king, the last thing I can consider are my wishes. With the current situation and Shaheen’s commitment to defusing the brewing unrest, I am forced to consider only that, at whatever cost to myself and my family.”

Shaheen saw Johara nod, her golden hair a gentle wave of resignation around her face. And he moved, pushed past his father.

He stopped before her. Unable to touch her as his emotions mushroomed, he heard a bass rumble bleed out of him. “You didn’t believe me. When I pledged that we would be together, that I am yours and will never be anyone else’s. And this is why you never told me. You were planning on leaving me ‘to my destiny’ without telling me. You planned to have our baby on your own.”

She cast her eyes down, as if to misdirect him from the knowledge now coursing through his blood, as if he needed to look into her eyes to see through to her soul. “I s-said I’m not pregnant.”

He touched her then, just a finger below her chin, bringing up those eyes that he needed to look into to feel alive now. “Yes, because you’re terminally heroic and misguided and want to sacrifice yourself for my so-called best interests and those of Zohayd. Your eyes are still promising me freedom, when my only freedom is to be yours.”

His father advanced, confusion and foreboding warring over his weathered, noble face. “So, is it true?”

Johara held Shaheen’s eyes, the attempt to hide the truth trembling for one last moment before it fractured. And it came flooding out with a cascade of beseeching tears. “I’m sorry…”

He snatched her into his arms, crushed her to him. “Be sorry only for hiding this from me, for thinking of denying me not only you, but our child, too. Don’t you understand I’d rather die than be without you?”

“I would, too.” She sobbed in his chest. “But I never wanted to cause you trouble. Now I’ve caused you nothing but. Oh, Shaheen, I shouldn’t have come to that party…”

He held her away to scowl his exasperation down on her. “And what am I? A boy with no will of my own, who didn’t realize the consequences of my actions? Everything I did, I’d do again in the exact same way. The only thing I’d change would be to tie you to my wrist so you wouldn’t leave me for my ‘own good,’ so I’d be there to celebrate the discovery of your pregnancy with you.” Anger at her efforts to protect him frothed on a new surge. “You slept in my arms every day, told me everything…but that. Would you have ever told me?”

“No.” Her eyes melted with entreaty. “I never wanted to keep this from you, but I can’t think beyond the moment with you, can’t imagine a time when you’ll no longer be part of my life or that you won’t be part of our baby’s. All I know is that my pregnancy will do what the king is saying it will. I can’t even imagine the damages if people know you have an heir on the way.”

“And the damages to us, to our baby? You didn’t imagine those?”

A rumble penetrated their cocoon of agitation. Shaheen turned to look at his father, winced at the mess of love and regret and finality that congealed on his face.

Then in a voice heavy with them all, the king said, “I am beyond happy that you have a woman you want—”

Shaheen interrupted him. “I love Johara. Always have, always will. There will be no negotiations about that.”

His father continued, a king who wouldn’t let even his son, or his pain on his behalf, stop him from seeing his duty through. “That this woman is Johara makes it infinitely better. But there is no stopping the chain reaction this will set off.” He turned to Johara, gaze heavy with the remorse of being unable to put her before everything. “News of your pregnancy came to me through servants, so it must be all over the region by now. All we can do is rewrite history and hope for the least possible consequences.”

Johara darted a look into Shaheen’s eyes before her gaze went back to his father. “What do you mean?”

His father exhaled raggedly. “I will announce that you’re already married in a zawaj orfi. Even if it is a secret marriage and frowned upon—and in royal circles in Zohayd, unprecedented—it remains binding. We’ll say this is why you followed Shaheen to Zohayd after such a long absence. It will legitimize your baby, and we’ll have a marriage ritual to make the marriage public and fully legal.”

Shaheen felt Johara tremble in his arms, saw hope quiver on her face before doubt snuffed it out again. “What about the marriage of state Shaheen is required to enter? How will this affect your negotiations and peace in Zohayd?”

His father’s shoulder slumped lower. “I’ll try to convince any tribe to consent to giving their daughter as a second wife.”