A Secret Birthright

Without waiting for an answer, he turned away.

The door closed behind him in seconds. But she still felt his presence surrounding her, making her world secure, and life no longer a setting for anguish and struggles.

She could offer him nothing in return for the gifts he’d showered on her and her own. A chunk of her life wouldn’t suffice. But he’d asked her to make his easier by taking herself off his endless list of worries. Complying with his request was all she had to offer for now.

She found the bedroom, and with a moan, sank into the bed’s luxury, into the depths of thankfulness. For him, for Ryan’s cure. And for being saved by the pager.

She prayed she’d never be forced to lie to him outright again, until he discharged Ryan.

Once he did, she’d run, disappear, and he’d never know.

And she’d never see him again.

The joy that had begun to take root inside her drained. Tears flowed again as she prayed.

Let his obligations keep him away for as long as she had to remain in Jizaan. Let his loss start now.

Only that would save her from sustaining further injuries.

Chapter Seven

She should have known.

That anything she hoped for would happen in reverse. With the record of the past years, how had she hoped otherwise?

Apart from Ryan’s healing at a breathtaking rate, blossoming under Fareed’s comprehensive care, everything else was going wrong. Terribly wrong.

For the week they stayed in the center, Fareed was constantly present. She knew this wasn’t true, that he disappeared for hours but he came back so often, in her amplified awareness of him, it felt like he was always there, giving her no respite.

After dreading being in his place, where everything echoed with his feel and was soaked in his presence, she couldn’t wait to go back there. She hoped that with him at work during the day, and hopefully returning home exhausted, she’d see less of him. But for the following four weeks, the opposite again happened. He came home too often, too unpredictably, so she couldn’t brace for his appearance, worsening her condition at every exposure.

Everyone in the center had told her he made them feel he was omnipresent. She could well believe it. After the endless hours in the O.R., consultations, follow-ups and administrative chores, not to mention his duties as a prince, which he said he’d lately limited to steering the kingdom’s health system, as if that wasn’t huge enough, she couldn’t figure out how he had time for her. Not to mention had a life. A private life…

Her throat tightened as it did each time that thought forced its reality on her. It was ridiculous to feel that way, but still…contemplating the horde of glamorous women who no doubt pursued him, of whom he took the most voluptuous and beautiful to bed…

Peals of laughter, masculine and childish, wrenched her mind away from the images, only for different ones to superimpose themselves. The images that would be engraved in her mind, seared into her soul forever. The sight of Fareed and Ryan together, bonding, reveling in each other.

But as painful as the sight was, it was also incredible. And worth any future suffering to live through.

Fareed was sitting with Ryan on the floor, in the middle of his mansion’s family room, wrapped up in their game, caressed by the warm, golden lights of polished brass sconces that illuminated the expansive space. The French doors leading to the massive terrace were wide open and the gauzy cream curtains were billowing in the desert’s cool evening breeze. The unpolished sand-colored marble floor was spread in hand-woven kilims and scattered in huge cushions covered with the same designs and vivid hues. Fareed had said those were the Aal Zaafers’ tribal patterns and colors, intricate combinations of stripes and rhomboids, in vibrant crimsons, gold and greens. He’d also said the room had never been used. Until them.

As if she needed more heartache, to know he’d been welcoming them in the place reserved for his future family.

Before they’d settled down for the evening here, they’d finished another physiotherapy session with Ryan. He’d turned another of the mansion’s rooms into a rehabilitation center, and had turned those uncomfortable, exhausting and sometimes painful sessions into Ryan’s most anticipated playtime.

Now he was playing catch with Ryan. After giving Ryan easy catches to get him excited and motivated, he’d throw one out of reach and have him eagerly crawling to fetch.

He was always thinking of another exercise for Ryan, another method to gauge his improvement. He’d made an art of helping Ryan enjoy it, participate wholeheartedly, and subsequently heal faster, develop more power and better coordination.

He now threw the soft red ball on the huge square table that paralleled the couch she sat on. Ryan hurtled after it, reached the table, then stopped, an absorbed expression painting his face as he contemplated his dilemma.

She transferred her gaze to Fareed. “Seems you’ve given him a challenge he’s not up to…yet.”

Fareed shrugged, his face spread in the warmth that messed her up inside. “He hasn’t given up yet. Let’s see what he’ll do.”

She nodded even as her heart constricted. Every cell in her longed to end Ryan’s frustration, give him the ball. But Fareed had been teaching her not to coddle him, to drive him to achieve his potential, and be as loving or even more so while at it.

Ryan finally approached one of the table’s corners. Then after some internal debate, pulled himself up in degrees until he unfolded to his feet, stood braced at its edge. Her heart boomed.

It was the first time he’d ever stood up!

Her eyes flew to Fareed. He looked as moved, his smile as proud as hers. But when she moved to get the ball for Ryan, he gave her an imperative “wait” gesture.

She waited. And under her disbelieving, delighted eyes, Ryan hooked his right leg, the one that had always been weaker, over the edge of the table and pulled himself on top of it.

Once there, he weaved through worked-silver plates, gleaming copper candleholders and glass planters like a cat, knocking nothing over. Once he reached his quarry, he grabbed it, waved it at her in delighted victory.

“You did it, darling,” she said, forcing back tears, her smile so wide that it hurt. “You got the ball because you’re brilliant and strong and determined and the most wonderful boy on earth.”

After a satisfactory dose of adulation, he remembered his playmate, the one he wanted to impress most.

Ryan reversed his way across the table, backed off its edge carefully. Once his feet touched ground, he plopped back down, catching his breath after the unprecedented endeavor.