Pregnant by the Sheikh(50)

Swallowing the knot in her throat, she tried to keep the tremors of anguish from her voice. “Numair doesn’t want, or expect, anything in return.”

Numair didn’t want anything anymore. Not from her.

“Are you certain, ya b’nayti?” She winced at how her father called her “my daughter,” as his eyes, so much like hers, probed her in hope. “I thought you were the prize he had his heart set on.”

Unable to utter another word without succumbing to the desolate weeping that had overcome her so many times in the past week, she just shook her head.

That hit her family hard, made them cut their visit short. They’d all come with everything they’d wanted to say or hoped for involving Numair. They’d had their hearts set on Numair ending up with her.

As she’d believed he would. Until that day she’d told him she wasn’t pregnant.

Since that day, he’d been finding excuses not to meet her, and if he had to, he made sure it wasn’t in their place or anywhere private. Every instance of pointed distance had solidified her suspicions. He had been relieved she hadn’t become pregnant, and he wasn’t risking she might become so. But it was far worse than she’d at first thought. It wasn’t the heir he’d changed his mind about.

It was her. He no longer wanted her.

It had taken her seven weeks to fall irrevocably in love with him, to become unable to think how she’d lived before him, or to imagine a life without him. It had taken him the same time to have enough of her.

Who was she fooling? It hadn’t taken her that long to fall for him. She’d done so on sight. Every day since had only driven her deeper into dependence.

And while his desire for her had seemed to intensify, too, it had just come to an abrupt end that day. Ever since, he’d been pretending to still want her, but he escaped any intimacy under a dozen pretexts. He might think he was letting her down gradually, but she couldn’t bear that. If he no longer wanted her, she wanted it over. Now.

Waga’a sa’aa wala kol sa’aa. The pain of an hour rather than that of every hour.

The adage was true. But she knew this pain would only grow until it consumed her. For this was worse than anything she’d feared. Just before her family had come, she’d succumbed and...checked. The two pink lines had appeared instantaneously. It was as she’d feared for some time now.

She was pregnant.

Knowing for sure that she carried the baby of the only man she could ever love—when he no longer wanted that child or her—was pure, unremitting agony.

Now she wanted, needed, to look him in the eye and get the closure of hearing him say it.

That he no longer wanted a child. Or her. That he’d never really wanted her, not as she wanted him.

That it was over.




Nine

Numair stood aside and let Najeeb pass inside what he and Jenan had come to call Malaz, or Sanctuary. Their home.

The home he’d contrived not to let her come to for a whole week now. He’d known if she came, he’d succumb to his need, and more, to hers. The questions, the uncertainty in her eyes every time he’d seen her at the palace or elsewhere with others around during the past week had been killing him. But he hoped, after Najeeb’s visit, the separation he’d enforced on them would be over forever.

He’d invited Najeeb here to face him with the truth.

Najeeb regarded him with confusion as Numair invited him to sit down where he had the first time he’d come here. Their relationship had changed radically over the past weeks since that hostile first meeting. But their interactions had remained with Jenan at their core. No doubt Najeeb couldn’t understand what they had to discuss in her absence.

Najeeb asked at once, “Is this about Jenan?”

Numair sat down on the armchair facing him. “Everything is ultimately about Jenan. But this is about you. And me. And our family.”

Najeeb went still, his face freezing. “Our family?”

“Yes.” He leaned forward, pushed toward him the dossier with all the evidence of his identity.

The teams he’d had scouring the Mediterranean with Black Castle patented equipment and technology had found the sunken yacht. And the remains. A DNA test had proved his memories without a doubt. The remains were incontrovertibly of Hisham Aal Ghaanem. Hassan’s brother. And Numair’s father.

Najeeb went through each document, mounting shock an expanding sweep emanating from him.

Then Najeeb raised his eyes, and there was something there that shocked Numair in turn. The last thing he’d expected Najeeb to feel. Delight.

“You’re my cousin!”

Numair’s throat closed. Najeeb’s reaction rocked him to his core. He’d been bracing for Najeeb’s disbelief, suspicion, dismay and a dozen other things that would be natural reactions when faced with a revelation of this magnitude. But this—the unmistakable acceptance and instant eagerness—hadn’t even been reactions he’d imagined. Najeeb continued to decimate his every expectation. And if he’d already been wondering how to become his antagonist and rival for the throne, he now wondered if he could be.