Sheikh's Surprise Son

by Sophia Lynn

  Those were all very sensible things, very adult things to think, but the truth was that at the bottom of it, it left a gnawing and empty place deep in Adnan's gut. Finally, as the night wore on and peace showed no interest in coming, he rolled over on his back and stared at the ceiling, picking it apart.

  It wasn't so much that she wanted to be alone, he decided. It was something else. There was something in her face that disturbed him, or no, it was more that she was disturbed and not telling him.

  We started this relationship out keeping secrets. Should it be a surprise that she's continuing to do so?

  Despite everything, he was hurt by it, and the hurt churned inside him. Things weren't right, and finally, close to dawn, he rose up to pad barefoot and dressed only in a pair of loose linen trousers to the kitchen. If he couldn't sleep, at least he could make some coffee.

  The coffee was just brewing on the counter top when a soft noise made him look up, and he was startled to see Bailey in the doorway. She looked as surprised to see him, and for a moment, they simply stared at each other.

  “Couldn't sleep either?” Adnan said, and then he took a closer look at her.

  She was lovely in the green caftan she wore, trimmed with bands of silver embroidery. It was one of her new outfits, and she glowed in it, as if she had been meant to wear that kind of outfit her entire life. The outfit wasn't a problem, but it wasn't something she would put on just to lounge around in the house.

  “Heading out?” he asked, and she nodded stiffly.

  “I won't be gone very long,” she said, and there was something so cool in her voice that Adnan almost recoiled.

  “And where won't you be very long?” he asked, a chill of his own creeping in.

  She straightened up as if he had mortally insulted her, and there was a flush of high color on her cheeks.

  “I don't have to answer that,” she said, her words dropping like stones from her lips, and he stared at her.

  “You don't,” he bit out. “But I had assumed that some measure of civility—”

  “I don't owe you anything right now!” she burst out, and the sudden violence of her words stung like the lash of a whip.

  “You are standing in my house, in my country, you have said that you would like to come in and change it for your own profit, and now you won't tell me what you are doing sneaking around mysteriously in the dawn?” Adnan said, his voice rising, and she glared at him.

  “I am leaving now,” she said. “Tell me right now if you are going to stop me.”

  Adnan started to snap something in return, but then he saw that she was gripping her phone tight with one hand, that she was trembling a little as she stood, braced for the worst. Her face was pale and her eyes were almost feverishly bright.

  Adnan's first instinct was to go to her, to try to comfort her and to tease out what was going on. Perhaps he could fix whatever it was that had gone wrong between them, because obviously something had.

  She's terrified, he thought with a sickening lurch in his belly.

  “Of course I'm not going to try to stop you,” he said quietly, and with a surge of guilt, he saw the relief wash over her face.

  Bailey bit her lip, and he got the idea that she was on the verge of tears. Despite what had just passed between them, he took a step closer to her.

  “Bailey, come here. Whatever is happening, it seems like we need to talk. I'm not sorry about what happened last night, but perhaps you are? Come here. We can sort this out.”

  She tensed again, looking like some graceful woodland animal ready to leap away from danger. She skittered a few steps towards the door, shaking her head.

  “Later,” she said. “We can talk later, I just need to— Please. Please leave me alone right now.”

  It went against every instinct that he had, everything in him that needed to be with her, to protect her and to comfort her. When the door shut behind her, his heart sank and he buried his head in his hands.

  What in the world is happening?

  He wondered if he had allowed his heart to be captured by a woman who was discovering that she did not want it. He wondered if she did want it and something about it was breaking her. There was nothing he could do about it or even figure out about it until she came back.

  His father had always cautioned him towards patience. He was good at it, both in conflicts on the international field and while he was gentling a horse. Right now, though, Adnan thought that there was nothing in the world that felt nearly as difficult.

  He sat down at the kitchen table, because despite everything between them, Bailey had never lied about anything. If she said she would be back, she would be.

  An hour passed, and then a second one was almost up.

  Then the earth started to shake, and Adnan leaped to his feet.

  Bailey…

  Chapter 14

  The clinic in Ikkar was small with only a single examination room separated from the tiny waiting area by a thin wooden door. In the waiting room, Bailey listened to an old woman earnestly discussing something with the doctor, a tiny child getting her first shots and a slightly older child getting his arm checked to see how it was healing after a break. The little boy came out of the waiting room with a sticker on his shirt for being good, and he waved to Bailey cheerfully as he and his father passed.

  If I am, then maybe he'll look like—

  She cut the thought off, because she couldn't think like that, not when she didn't know yet.

  Then twenty minutes later, when she came back out, however, she did know. The doctor, an older woman with cropped gray hair and French-accented English gave her the news with a calm and neutral face, and then squeezed her hand.

  “Are you all right?” she asked. “This looks like a shock for you. Is the father—”

  Bailey shook her head.

  “No. I mean yes. Yes, this is a shock, but I'm fine. I'm fine, I just—”

  I need Adnan, she thought wildly. I should have had him here. He should be here, with me, getting this news with me.

  “I'm sorry, I need to go,” Bailey said in a rush. “I am, that is, I'll be fine, I'm safe, I just need to.”

  The doctor looked as if she wanted to argue with her, but then the ground started to rumble. For an instant, Bailey thought that it was only her nerves that made it feel as if the world was shaking apart, and then she realized that no, it was real, the earth really was moving.

  From beyond the door, someone, likely the young pregnant woman who had come in behind her, cried out, and the only phrase that Bailey could make out was hazat 'ardia, over and over again.

  The doctor repeated it, and then cried out earthquake, before grabbing Bailey's arm and dragging her into the waiting room. It felt like the world was coming apart, and the waiting room was a frenzy of people all shouting, some running outside even as the doctor shouted at them.

  Bailey froze, and then the doctor shoved her towards the young pregnant woman with a small toddler clinging to her caftan and crying.

  “Take her, get under the table in the corner!”

  Grateful for any direction, Bailey reached out to take the young woman's hand, dragging her and her toddler to the table. It looked like precious little protection in the rolling tremors that shook the world under their feet, but Bailey pushed her underneath it, squeezing in with her.

  The young woman was crying, clutching her belly with one hand, holding hard to her toddler with the other, and helpless in the face of what felt like the world flying apart. Bailey grabbed on to the woman, holding her just as tight as the power cut out with a loud bang.

  “It's all right. It's all right,” she said over and over again. “It'll be all right, I promise...”

  Suddenly it was all over, and a hush came over the waiting room darkness. A tentative burst of words came out, followed by a harsh babble, and from her position on the floor, Bailey crept out to see people venturing from their sheltering spots.

  The movement of the earth had knocked the chairs
around, sent everything clattering to the floor, but besides the terrible mess, no one looked injured.

  Everything was calming down when the doctor grimly reported that both the entrance and the exit had been blocked enough that there was no way out for the moment, and then the wailing started up again. Bailey was inclined to join in, but then the young woman who had been under the table with her took her hand tentatively.

  “I'm sorry, are you all right? I don't speak any—”

  The woman tugged her down to one of the few upright chairs, and understanding, Bailey sat down with her, holding her hand, letting the toddler play with her phone, which of course had no service.

  All they could do was wait.

  It was another two hours before there was some shouting from outside, followed by the roar of machinery. The doctor ordered everyone back from the door and then there was a nearly deafening crashing sound as the obstruction beyond was pushed out of the way.

  Bailey took a tighter grip on the woman she had been sitting with, and then there was a joyous shout as sunlight, fresh air and rescue workers streamed into the tight space. One moment Bailey was smiling at the woman she had been hanging on to, and the next, she was turned and spun into an embrace that smelled like sun and sweat.

  “Bailey!”

  For a moment, she clung to Adnan, lost in the wonder of him being there with her, and then reluctantly, he pulled back. She was startled to see that he was wearing a jacket that designated him as rescue personnel, and he offered her a wry grin.

  “Come on. I'm taking you to the ambulances. They'll look you over, and then I'll come looking for you. We still have a great deal of searching to do.”

  “Adnan, no, I can help...”

  She had wondered even as the words left her mouth if she was starting a fight, but his gaze was only firm.

  “Then help me. I have an idea why you're here, and… Bailey. Please.”

  She nodded, and she was about to turn and do as he said when he pulled her back to him one more time, as if he couldn't stand to let her go.

  “Thank you. I love you.”

  Bailey stared at him. She felt as if the ground was shaking again, and this time, she was the only one who felt it. She stared into his dark eyes, saw the truth of what he had said, and then someone was calling for him, and he was gone.

  “No... no, Dad, I'm fine. Really. I'm fine. I'm … no, don't send anyone after me. I don't need a private doctor, I don't – no, definitely do not come out here on your own. I'm fine. I promise. They just needed to check me over because … because, well, they're very cautious. I'm fine.”

  She paused.

  “I think we need to talk about that. Things here are … we just need to talk, Dad. Okay. Okay. Yes, thank you. I'd love a call in the morning. Get some rest.”

  Bailey heard an unusual hesitation on the other end of the line, and then her father's next words made her smile. She knew that they were never easy for her father to say.

  “Love you too, Dad. Talk to you later.”

  Bailey sighed and leaned back in the hospital bed. She closed her eyes, almost ready to fall back asleep, but then there was a shuffle at the door, and she had never felt less like sleeping in her life.

  “Adnan!”

  Still in his rescue worker jacket, his hair ruffled and an enormous bouquet of tiger lilies in his arms, he looked amazing to her, and she reached for him without thinking about it.

  “They said that there was a chance you would be asleep so…”

  “Come in. Please. I … I need you here.”

  He entered the room, shutting the door after him, and as he placed the flowers in the empty vase by her bed, she got the idea that he wasn't looking at her, almost as if he were afraid to.

  “Adnan, what's wrong?”

  “You told your father you needed to talk about things.”

  “We do,” Bailey said. “Today, the earthquake, everything … Ikkar has needs that we can't address with just a resort.” She laughed a little wryly. “More or less what you've been telling me this whole time, I guess.”

  “And Ikkar needs to be more than a museum showpiece, as you have been saying. It sounds like we all have a great deal to talk about.”

  She hesitated, and when she spoke, her voice was small.

  “Are you … sorry about what you said this afternoon?”

  His head snapped to her as if she had shocked him, and a moment later, he took her hand in both of his, leaning close to her on the bed so she could feel the warmth of his body pressed against hers.

  “No. Never. Never doubt it. I love you, and I will say it as long as you need me to. I … I was so afraid today.”

  “And … you found me today. And you know something about why I went where I did.”

  Adnan sighed, pulling up a chair so he could sit by her bed. She could see the lines of exhaustion in his face, and without thinking, she stroked her fingertips down his cheek, making him close his eyes briefly to lean against her touch.

  “I guessed. I thought about what you said, how you were acting. I thought about how we were always so careful except once. I thought about how there was only one clinic in Ikkar, and that was how I found you. And I think that if you are going to tell me what I think you are going to tell me …”

  “Yes?”

  “I want it. I want you. Nothing has been the same since you came into my life.”

  Bailey felt as if something had burst into bloom in her heart, as if the whole world suddenly looked brighter. There was so much work to do, so much that needed to be planned and fixed and repaired, but for a moment, the whole world could wait for the joy that she felt right now.

  “Oh … Adnan …”

  “Say it, please.”

  “Adnan, I love you. And … I'm pregnant.”

  “Good,” he murmured, and then she was crushed to his chest again as she hugged him back just as hard. It felt as if she was so full of love that she could hardly stand it, and then she realized that where she and Adnan had just been two people before, now they were going to be three.

  She laughed with joy, and when Adnan tilted her head back for a deep sweet kiss, she returned it with all the hope for their future in her lips.

  Epilogue

  One Year Later

  The video screen in the entertainment room was enormous, stretching almost wall to wall, and Adnan and Bailey watched avidly as a historian from Koli-an University gave the speech opening the new historical center in Ikkar.

  There was still a long way to go. The historical center was only opening the first of four proposed stages. Eventually, it would be a place where people could walk through the gardens and the beaches of Ikkar as it had been in centuries past, a destination not only for tourists but for people who wished to learn more about the region's history and culture.

  “It looks so amazing,” Bailey murmured as they cut the ribbon on the iron gates to the facility. “I can't believe this all got built over the last year.”

  “I can,” said Adnan wryly. “I could barely get you and your father to stop once you got started.”

  “I seem to remember not being the only one pulling some all-nighters,” Bailey retorted. “And after all, I took a break, remember?”

  As if realizing he was being spoken about, Selim cooed in her arms, rousing from his nap with a soft cry. Automatically, Bailey rocked him in her arms as Adnan rolled his eyes.

  “Having a baby is not taking a break. Here, shall I take him?”

  “No, I think he's hungry...”

  With a motion that had become as natural as breathing, Bailey undid her top, and soon Selim was breastfeeding with small noises of contentment and satisfaction. She relaxed against Adnan's body, smiling as Adnan brushed a soft kiss over her forehead.

  “I'm a little sorry we're not there,” she said, nodding at the screen.

  “The history of the world is important,” Adnan said, “but it is just as important that we are here for its future.”

  Bai
ley cuddled the future a little more snugly in her arms, and she tilted her face up to take a soft kiss from Adnan, her heart full and the world safe around her.

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