Zafir wouldn’t do it like this. He wouldn’t send a messenger, his father of all people, to end this between them. Not after everything they had shared.
But you’ve told him that all that didn’t matter. That it was all a lie. That the one small thing he hadn’t told her minimized everything else he’d shared with her, felt for her, showed her.
She sank her fingers into her hair and pushed at it, a strange fear gripping her limbs all of a sudden.
Some sort of sound must have escaped her because Rashid peered down at her.
“Do you require medical assistance, Ms. Hamby?”
“I’m not Miss Hamby anymore.” Her response was instant, defensive, like a screech of wind in the silence.
“Yet you’re here, thousands of miles away when your place is by my son.” Dry and derisive, his voice scraped at her nerves. “For six years I’ve been in a coma and little has changed in Western society’s perception of marriage.”
“You’ve no idea what happened between us. Nor do I owe you an explanation.”
“I can see why my son indulged in this nonsense with you.” His gaze lingered on her face thoughtfully, then shifted to her belly for a fraction of a second. “But that he lets you have this reckless freedom in this dangerous city when every minute of every day, you court the media’s eye or even harm. I reminded him that you’re his wife, that he should command you to be back in—”
“I’m not a possession, Your Highness.”
“Is it my grandson’s safety that you’re so careless about?”
Fury rattled along Lauren’s nerves. “You’ve no right to speak to me that way. And that it’s a…” She slapped a hand over her mouth and glared at him. “I won’t share that with you. Not before I tell Zafir.”
Because she had broken their agreement and asked the ultrasound technician to tell her.
She’d waited for him to call so that she could share the news. Had been dismayed that he hadn’t. Instead, he’d had Farrah call her and confirm that everything was all right.
As if he was completely through with her.
“Is my son aware that you know then?”
Shocked at how easily he’d manipulated her, she tried to corral her thoughts. “My child will not be yours to mold, Your Highness. I won’t allow it and neither will Zafir.”
He bristled at her reckless statement.
“You seem to be certain of a lot of things about a husband you have fled. In secret, with a bitter old woman’s support, a woman that wishes him no less than a painful death. Do you have any idea the risk you took in trusting her with your child, my grandchild’s, safety? Or how it torments my son, night after night, as if your reckless actions were his fault?”
“Stop it, please,” she whispered, sweat pooling over her. God, what had she done? What had she turned her back on? “Just…tell me why you’re here. Or leave.”
Arrogant pride filled the gaunt crevices of his face. “All of Behraat is at Zafir’s feet today, as it always should have been. Yet there is no joy, no pride in his eyes. You…” His gaze seemed to spear her, and with doubts eating away at her, she struggled to hold it. “…have weakened him, crippled him in a way I can’t seem to fix. My son will not be brought down by a selfish, spoiled, so-called independent American who doesn’t understand the first thing about duty and—”
“Maybe it’s you who did that to him,” she attacked, loathing herself as much as he seemed to. Because, the galling thing, the bitter truth was that he was right.
For a moment, her words suspended there in the room, like bullets stilled on their way to the target in some 3-D action flick before shattering away.
His eyes widened in disbelief but she didn’t care anymore. Not when every cell in her ached to see Zafir and hold him. “Maybe it’s time to stop asking Zafir to give more of himself to you and Behraat. Maybe if someone, for once, thinks of him, instead of sucking him dry in the name of duty, he’ll smile and laugh again. Maybe what he needs is someone who loves him unconditionally for the kind, honorable, generous man that he is, then he will…”
And in her own desperate, impassioned words, Lauren found the truth that she’d been so blind to see. As if it was there all along inside her, clawing to get out.
A whimper fell from her mouth.
It was herself she’d never believed in.
For all her promises, she’d been waiting for a reason to believe that Zafir would abandon her like her parents had done, waiting for it all to fall apart. And the moment their relationship had been tested, at the first hurdle, she’d run away.
As if life and love were a fantasy she’d could dabble at, just like Zafir had mocked her.
That he’d chosen to unite Behraat didn’t cancel out all that he’d shown her. Didn’t corrupt all the promises he’d made her.
She buried her face in her hands, the scope of the damage she had wreaked a lead weight on her chest.
Rashid stood up and looked at her, a smug little curve to his mouth. As if victory was finally his.
“It is clear you were never right for him with all the nonsense you just spouted. His sheikha would understand his destiny and would not distract him.” With every wrong thing Rashid said, Lauren could see the right path.
Both she and this insufferable old man were wrong, too absolute, too rigid in their thinking. And Zafir…he’d been walking that tightrope all along. From the minute he had met her.
“I suggest you have your lawyers look at the papers I brought. My son needs to put this…episode behind him. As for my grandchild, I’ll—”
“No,” Lauren threw back, straightening from the couch. She’d face this bully and a thousand more like him for Zafir. She’d prove her love a thousand times over to Zafir if only he’d give her another chance. Mind made up, she said, “I’m not going to sign a thing and you can’t make me. And I’ll tell Zafir that you were trying to blackmail me into cutting all ties,” she added for good measure.
Rashid’s stare was flat, derisive. Could have scorched her into ashes, if she let it. “You think my son will believe your word over mine? If you still haven’t learned your lesson—”
“If you care anything for Zafir, if there’s even a little regret inside that political heart of yours about what you denied him for so many years, you’ll take me to Behraat,” she demanded.
Warning glittered in his eyes. “There’s nothing but misery for you in Behraat. Zafir does not forgive.” And in that last sentence, there was a crack, a deep regret.
“I’ll take my chances,” she threw back and slammed the door.
She quickly dialed her ob-gyn for an appointment.
She’d beg if that’s what it would take.
* * *
Lauren had to wait eleven hours and twenty minutes after setting foot in the dusty, blazing inferno that was Behraat before she saw Zafir.
Through the ride in the armored, dark-tinted limo, Lauren saw little villages en route to the city between long stretches of rough road in between. Her pulse thudded when the high walls of the palace came into sight.
This was home now, she reminded herself resolutely, even as she felt daunted by the task ahead.
Only to be told by Rashid’s nasally aide that she’d have to wait.
She’d eaten, walked a path on the rug, fallen asleep out of sheer exhaustion and jet lag, wanted to scream at the silence, had even wondered if Rashid hadn’t somehow imprisoned her with no intention of ever telling Zafir again. But she’d been shown into her old suite.
A day of administrative affairs cannot be disturbed for one emotionally weak woman, Rashid had said before leaving her to his staff, a grim smile to his mouth.
Not Farrah, not Huma, not even Arif, it seemed knew of her arrival. Only Ahmed waited outside in the lounge, as much a prisoner as she because he’d refused to leave her side. Even when Rashid had commanded it. Patted her shoulder in encouragement in that awkward way of his when he’d realized what she meant to do.
She’d showered and changed into a sleeveless tunic and loose, flowy cotton trousers and once again, fallen into a restless sleep. Inky black night cloaked the room in semidarkness and she wondered what had woken her.
When she checked the time, she was shocked to see she had slept for more than three hours.
She sat up and whimpered as a cramp twisted her calf.
“Should I call for Farrah?”
The room lit up in a blaze of lights and Zafir stood at the foot of the bed. Tall. Dark. Impossibly gorgeous. Heart-wrenchingly remote.
“How long have you been here?”
He shrugged, as if he didn’t care enough to answer. And in that casual tilt of his shoulders and the dull glow of his golden eyes, Lauren knew she was walking a very tight line.
Throat tight and limbs shaking, she looked at his face bathed in the light. A deep well of emotion clamped her chest.
His dark blue dress shirt and black trousers utterly failed at masking that barely civilized air around him. Thick stubble marked his jaw and her fingers itched to trace the proud angles of it. He’d let his hair grow longer and it made his face even more narrow and gaunt. Dark shadows hung under his eyes and she wondered how long he’d been up for if Rashid’s words were to be believed.