For a minute, it seemed like he wasn’t going to say anything. He sat and stared at the picture, rubbing his thumb over the boy’s face. Rebecca was flooded with regret that she’d never reached out to him after their last night together all those years ago. Maybe it had been a mistake not to tell him, but she had her reasons. Some of which were going to have to come out tonight.
“You never told me,” he said. That impressive, booming voice of his had gone hollow and frail. He wasn’t Sheikh Zaid Al-Qasimi at that moment. He was simply Zaid, a normal man looking at a picture of his son for the first time.
“I know,” Rebecca said quietly, bracing herself for the backlash.
“You said his name is Calum?” he asked.
“Yeah. Calum Reid.” She put a gentle hand on his arm and felt the tense muscles through the sleeve of his gown.
“He’s what? Five?”
“Almost,” she answered. She wondered what he was thinking as he stared at the photo. The resemblance between them was uncanny. Calum could have been his clone.
“Why didn’t you ever reach out to me?” he asked. The question came out harsh.
“Look, the nights we spent together, they were amazing.” Her own voice quavered. “If things had been different, maybe we could have been something. But you’re a Sheikh and I’m…”
She knew it made it harder for him to understand when he only knew part of the story. He knew about her position in the government, as a diplomat, but he didn’t know the rest, the part that drove her to strive for justice and to further the purpose of peace wherever she went. And she couldn’t tell him all of her secrets. Some things just needed to stay buried for everyone’s safety, hers, Zaid’s and especially Calum’s.
“I didn’t want to drag you down in what I’ve had to deal with,” she finished.
The Sheikh stared at her with a strange look in his eyes. “You do understand I am one of the most powerful members of one of the most influential families in the world, right?”
“Which is more reason to have left you alone,” she argued. “Your family’s wealth and power didn’t need to get caught up in what was going on with my family any more than you did.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” he said. “What was going on with your family that I couldn’t have helped you with?”
She couldn’t tell him everything. That her parents had been dissidents and she’d spent almost every summer camping in some war-torn part of the world as they worked to help the local populace rebuild. That her parents had eventually pulled her and her sister out of school with the intent to homeschool but simply never got around to it.
She could never tell him that this wasn’t her first visit to Sharjah or the enemies her parents made. Or the fear she had lived in when they went into hiding, as a result. The number of favors her parents had tried to call in to find a safe haven for her and her sister and the aging aunt who had agreed to take them in, changing their last name to match hers and insisting that the sisters have no further contact with her parents.
If it weren’t for her upbringing and her education, Rebecca would never have obtained the job she has now, advising governments on how best to remedy the poorer areas in their locales. However, she still had nightmares of that fateful night. She had just turned eleven and she had clutched tightly to her then seven-year-old sister, not wanting her to see the horror of their parents held at gunpoint. How many nights did she relive that moment as she held Amy to her, waiting for the madmen to murder their parents right in front of them?
From the moment she had found out she was pregnant, she vowed that she would never intentionally place Calum in harm’s way and that meant keeping him away from the Middle East until he was old enough to understand.
And while Zaid might be able to accept her family, she knew that it would be completely unacceptable to his father who ruled Sharjah much like a monarchy.
“Just understand it’s political, and sometimes the world we live in won’t see us for the individuals we are versus who our family is,” she explained, telling him as much as she was able to.
“Do you think I don’t know that?” he questioned.
Straightening her shoulders, she looked at him, “It isn’t the same but I don’t expect you to understand that.”
“I want to meet him,” Zaid said, switching back to Calum, turning the picture over in his hand.
She pulled her hand back from him. “Don’t you think, after tonight, that this place is too dangerous for our son?” she asked. “I mean, you try to hide the problems, and that just makes them worse. That breeds more of what we saw today. It’s only going to get worse until something is done to fix it.”