A Secret Birthright

He’d felt antipathy toward every candidate before she’d opened her mouth. But he’d forced himself to see each performance to its exasperating end. He believed Hesham, the lover and creator of beauty, would have fallen in love only with someone flawless inside and out, someone refined, worthy and trustworthy. But what if Hesham hadn’t been as discerning as he’d thought?

But after a month of agonizing letdowns, Fareed had gone home admitting his method’s failure. He’d known any new attempt would fail without new information to use. For two more months, he’d been driven to the brink on a daily basis thinking his brother’s flesh and blood was out there and might be in need.

He’d groped for a sanity-saving measure, answered a plea from a teaching hospital in the States to perform charity surgeries. A part of his schedule was always dedicated to charity work, but he’d never tackled so many within such a tight time frame. And his work at his own medical center was too organized to provide solace. For the last four weeks he’d lost himself in the grueling endeavor that had managed to anesthetize his pain.

Today was the last day. And after the distraction provided by the crushing schedule, he dreaded the impending release like an imminent jump off a cliff…

“Somow’wak?”

Emad’s prodding “Your Highness” brought him out of his lapse into memories and frustration.

Fareed heaved to his feet. “I’m not seeing any more women, Emad. You were right all along. Don’t go soft on me now.”

“I assure you I’m not. I’ve been sending the women who’ve come asking for an interview with you away.”

Fareed blinked. “There’s been more?”

“Dozens more. But I interviewed them in your stead without inflicting even a mention of them on you.”

Fareed shook his head. Seemed his desperate measure would haunt him for Ullah only knew how long. “So what’s new now? Don’t tell me you’re suddenly hoping that my ‘grief-blinded gamble’ might, ‘against all rationality and odds,’ bear fruit?”

Emad’s lips twitched at Fareed’s reminder of his reprimands. “Somow’wak has an impeccable memory.”

“Aih, it’s a curse.” A suspicion suddenly struck him. “Are you telling me you want me to start this…farce all over again?”

“I want you to see this one woman.”

Fareed winced at the look that entered his eyes. Emad wouldn’t look at a lion with more caution.

Jameel. Great. He was losing it. He huffed in disgust at his wavering stamina. “Why this one? Why is she special?”

Emad sighed, clearly not appreciating needing to explain his conviction. “Her approach was unlike any other. She didn’t use the contact number you specified in the ad but has been trying to reserve an appointment with you through the hospital from the day we arrived. Today they told her that you were leaving and she started weeping.…”

Fareed slammed down the dossier he’d picked up. “So she’s even more cunning than the rest, realized that the others’ approach hadn’t borne fruit and tried to get past your screening by conning her way to me through my work. And when that didn’t work, she made a scene. Is that why you want me to see her? Damage control? To stop compounding the ‘scandal I created for myself and my family’?”

Emad’s dark eyes emptied of expression. “I wouldn’t want to resurrect that mess after I managed to contain it. But that’s not why. The people in reception today are new. They only heard the story of her waiting around for the past four weeks in case you had an opening in your schedule from her disjointed accounts. When they couldn’t deal with her, they sent for me, and I…saw her, heard what little she’d been able to say. She…feels different from the rest. Feels truly distraught.”

Fareed snorted. “An even more superlative actress, eh?”

“Or maybe the real thing.”

His heart boomed with hope, once, before it plummeted again into despondence. “You don’t believe that.”

Emad leveled his gaze on him. “The real thing does exist.”

“And she doesn’t want to be found,” Fareed growled. “She must know I’ve turned the world upside down to find her and she didn’t come forward. Why would she decide to show up when nothing has changed?”

“Maybe nothing we know of.”

Fareed closed his eyes. Emad’s calm logic was maddening him. He was in a far worse condition than he’d realized if anything Emad, of all people, said or did had him within a hair’s breadth of going berserk. It seemed he’d distracted himself at the cost of pushing himself to a breakdown.

Emad’s deep tones, so carefully neutral, felt like discordant nails against his restraint. “But what we do know is that Hesham’s Lyn is still out there.”

And what if that woman down there was her?

He closed his eyes against hope’s insidious prodding. But it was too late. It had already eaten through his resistance.

This woman most probably wasn’t; but really, what was one more performance to suffer? He’d better get this over with.

He opened his eyes as Emad opened his mouth to deliver another argument. He raised his hand, aborting it. “Send her up. I’m giving her ten minutes, not a second more. Tell her that. Then I’m walking out and I’m never coming back to this country.”

Emad gave a curt nod, turned on his heels.

He watched him exit the ultramodern space the hospital had given him as his consultation room, before he sagged in the luxury of the leather swiveling chair. It felt as if he’d sunk into thorns.

If more fake, stomach-turning stories about his brother were flung in his face, he would not be responsible for his actions.

He glowered at the door. He’d seen all kinds. From the sniveling to the simpering to the seductive. He had an idea which type this one would be. The hysterical. Maybe even the delusional.

He steeled himself for another ugly confrontation as the door was pushed open. Emad preceded the woman into the room.

But he barely saw him. He didn’t hear what Emad said before he left, or notice when he did.

All he saw was the golden vision approaching until only the wide desk stood between them.

He found himself on his feet without realizing he’d moved, only one thought reverberating in his mind.

Please, don’t be Hesham’s Lyn!

The thought stuttered to a standstill.