The Sheikh’s Secret Son(24)

“Calum, honey,” she said slowly, patiently. “I want you to meet someone very special.” As Calum looked at her with interest, she turned him around to face Zaid. “This is your dad, Sheikh Zaid Al-Qasimi.”

Calum looked back up at Zaid with his tiny eyes fixed on his father’s.

“Sheikh?” he asked. “Sheikh dad?”

“How about, just, dad,” Zaid answered, kneeling down in front of him.

Zaid held out his arms for his son to hug him, and as they embraced, he had to fight back tears from all the time he’d missed with his boy. His son hugged him tight, as if he felt the exact same emotions that were surging through Zaid at the moment.

Zaid broke their embrace and sat back to look at his son. He was suddenly extremely proud.

He looked up at Amy and Rebecca, standing in front of him and looking down at him where he’d just been hugging Calum. Neither one of them seemed too pleased with him, but he didn’t care. Meeting his son for the first time trumped anything else that was going on at the moment.

“What’s this?” Zaid asked as Calum pulled his arms back from their embrace to show his father the two action figures he had in his hands. “Are these your toys?” he asked.

Calum nodded solemnly.

“These are neat. Can we play with them?”

Calum nodded again.

“Excellent. Well, let’s come in.” He stood up and gestured for everyone to enter his quarters. The sister followed, letting the door close behind them. Zaid walked with his son over to the couch, where they sat and started playing with the action figures he’d brought with him.

“You brought these guys all the way from home?” Zaid asked.

“Yes, sir,” Calum said politely.

“That’s cool,” he told his son.



“So, you had no idea we were coming?” Amy asked, as the sisters sat at the small table near the kitchen.

“No idea at all,” Rebecca admitted, making no effort to hide how angry she was at Zaid for not telling her he’d had them flown out behind her back. “I told him I didn’t want Calum here.”

“Why not?” Amy asked, looking from one to the other. “It’s long past time that Calum knows about his father.”

Amy had made her opinions known on whether Zaid should have been told of Calum’s existence from the moment Rebecca told her who he was. But now was not the time for her sister to side with Zaid. “There is potential for unrest in some of the poor sections of Sharjah. I don’t want Calum around if anything happens,” Rebecca argued. She closed her eyes and counted to ten when she caught her sister rolling her eyes at her.

“Judging from the amount of security around here, I don’t think there will be any difficulties protecting him,” Amy countered. “Not everything is worst case scenario simply because people live in poverty.”

“You haven’t seen what I’ve seen, Amy,” she insisted. “If you had, you’d be concerned, too.”

“Maybe,” Amy admitted, “but look at them.” She nodded to Calum and Zaid playing on the couch.

She watched as Zaid and Calum sat with their heads together. Her son lifted his head and smiled at her; as Zaid whispered something in his ear making him laugh that little boy laugh that always made her heart beat harder with love for her little man. The Zaid who sat in front of her now, with their son, was a far cry from the business-minded Zaid she’d come to know. He was gentle and caring. He laughed with their son while they played. He talked in silly voices. He let Calum call the shots while they were playing. It was an amazing transformation, and it happened right before her eyes. She wouldn’t have believed it any other way.

She was still furious with him for bringing both Calum and Amy to Sharjah without her permission but a part of her knew that if the situation were reversed, she would have done the same. Seeing the way he was with their son, she began to have other feelings, feelings deeper and stronger than anger. She realized the dad her son had been missing, the father Calum would have had all along, if she’d reached out to Zaid. She had been too proud to admit that her family upbringing had made it difficult for her to accept that Zaid would be a good father or that Calum could have a normal childhood with both parents involved.

“Hey, mom,” Amy teased, “you should get in there and play with them too. They look like they could use a woman’s touch.”

“I don’t know,” she hesitated. “He needs some time with his father. This is the first time they’ve ever even seen each other in person.”

“And why is that?” Amy asked in an accusing tone. “Why did you keep them apart for so long?”