A Secret Birthright

He gave an adamant headshake as he prodded her to enter the limo, making her slide across the backseat by entering after her. “Only during the immediate pre- and postoperative period. And don’t contest this again.”

“I never contested it a first time.…”

“Which was much appreciated, so don’t suddenly change—”

She cut him off in return, feeling her brain overheating. “Because this is the first time I’ve heard of this.”

“Not true. I told you during the flight.”

“Was I awake when you told me?”

He gave her a thoughtful glance, then his smile scalded her with its amusement. “Come to think of it, that you didn’t contest it should have clued me in that you were sleep talking.”

“And now that I’m awake…”

“You’ll be my esteemed guest.”

Before she could utter another protest, Ryan, who’d been getting louder demanding his attention, grabbed his face and tugged. Fareed turned to him and at once they got engaged in another game of fetch-and-explain.

Even though he had been paying Ryan every attention, she knew he relished that timely excuse to end their conversation. She knew there was no use trying to continue it. He had this infallible way of getting his way, of making his unilateral decisions the only ones that made sense. But his place?

She felt she was sinking in quicksand and any move was making her sink faster.

And there was nothing she could do about it.

She exhaled, sought distraction, looked outside the window, her eyes finally registering the splendor of Jizaan’s sparkling capital rushing by.

In the first slivers of dawn, the magnificence of Al Zaaferah, or The Victorious, named after the centuries-old ruling house, seeped into her awareness. It felt as if it had been erected today to the most lavish standards. It also looked constantly evolving with extreme-concept projects rising among the soaring mirrored buildings—everything felt futuristic yet with pervasive cultural influences making it feel steeped in history.

She was lost in recording every detail when she noticed they’d gotten off the main roads and were now driving through automatic, thirty-feet-high, wrought-iron gates. Fareed’s “place,” no doubt.

The limo winded through ingeniously landscaped grounds, approaching a sprawling stone mansion crouching in the distance. Painted in sweeps of shadow and mysticism, it had the feel of a fortress from a Middle Eastern fable, the abode of someone who craved solitude, yet in having to house those his rank dictated, expanded his domain to give them space, and himself distance.

She hadn’t thought what his place would be like. If she had, she would have imagined he lived in either the royal palace, or as imposing an edifice. But even though this place spoke of affluence, it didn’t reek of excess. It was amazing how everything was permeated with the privileges of the prince, yet possessed the austerity of the surgeon.

All through their journey to the main door, she felt invisible eyes monitoring their progress, relaying it to forward stations. Even though she’d experienced many aspects of Fareed’s status, that seamlessly orchestrated surveillance solidified everything in her mind. Who Fareed was. Where she was now.

He handed her out of the limo feet from stone steps leading to the patio. Footmen appeared as if from nowhere and rushed to open the massive brass-work doors.

She entered beside him with trepidation expanding in her heart into a columned hall that spread under a thirty-foot mosaic dome. The doors closed with a soft click. To Gwen, it felt as if iron prison doors were slammed shut behind her.

Her gaze darted around the indirectly lit space, got impressions of a sweeping floor plan extending on both sides, understated colors, a male influence in decor—his virile influence permeating the place. Her inspection ended where thirty-foot-wide stairs climbed to a spacious platform before winding away to each side of the upper floor.

Fareed led them up one side to a guest apartment triple the size of her condo, faithfully displaying the amalgam of modernity and Arabian Nights feel of the rest of the mansion. If she were in a condition to appreciate anything, she would have found it amazing to walk through doors that looked like they’d been transported through millennia intact only to swing open soundlessly with a proximity sensor. She was sure even Scheherazade’s imagination couldn’t have created anything like this place.

“Let me take him.”

Gwen stirred from her reverie at Rose’s words. She found her taking a now sound-asleep Ryan from Fareed.

“We’re both done for.” Rose stifled a yawn as she gave Gwen a kiss on the cheek. She grinned at Emad as she took Ryan’s bag from him. “I’ll find us the nearest beds and it might be night when you see either of us again.”

In a minute everyone had left her alone with Fareed.

She turned blindly, pretending to inspect the sitting area. She ran a hand along the perfect smoothness of a hand-carved chair before turning to a spherical, fenestrated brass lantern hanging from the ceiling with spectacular chains. She made the mistake of transferring her gaze to him and the hypnotic play of light and shadows over his face and figure only deepened his influence.

He stared back at her for long, long moments, winding up the coil of tension inside her tighter until she felt she’d shatter.

Before she begged him to just stop, he finally exhaled. “I apologize for not staying to show you around, but I have to go to work, catch up on everything I hadn’t been able to attend to long-distance. Use the place as you would your own—and don’t argue. Just explore, relax, rest. Then tomorrow we go the center.”

Her heart almost knocked her off her feet. “You—you’ll operate tomorrow?”

He simply said, “Yes.”

After losing all of her family, one after the other, Gwen had thought she’d known all kinds of anguish and desperation. All forms of loss.

But now she knew there was more. There was worse. And there was one injury, one loss, she wouldn’t survive.

If anything happened to Ryan…

“Everything will be fine.”

She chafed at Rose’s reassurance. What she’d reiterated over and over since Fareed had taken Ryan and disappeared into the depths of his staggeringly advanced medical center.

It didn’t work now as it hadn’t worked before. Fareed had come out once, fourteen hours ago, telling them Ryan had been prepared and was already in the O.R. He’d said he’d come out to reassure them as soon as he was done with the surgery.