by Olivia Gates
Not that she needed imagining. He’d given her absolute freedom to do whatever she wished to him and she’d been losing her mind all over him, doing everything she’d ever dreamed of with that body of his. And he’d been doing everything she’d known about, and many, many things she hadn’t known about, with hers. To both their complete and supreme ecstasy.
He now came to tower over her from behind, his eyes flaring and subsiding like glowing emeralds, snaring her eyes in their reflection. In her mind she only saw a sequence of events that had happened so many times during the past six delirious weeks. Numair picking her up, making her feel weightless, thrilling her yet again with all the power this man of hers possessed. And how he used it all to worship and pleasure her!
Then his hands descended on her shoulders, and she shuddered in anticipation, though she knew she shouldn’t be inviting another session of passion. She’d told her father she’d be back in the palace in an hour to give him proof Zafrana’s debts, and his mess, had been wiped clean. Thanks to Numair.
But surely her father could wait a few hours longer...
“Have you...checked?”
Numair’s quiet question felt like a slap of icy water across her heated body and fantasies.
There wasn’t any use wondering what he was asking about. His meaning was totally clear. And her instant mortification had an equally known origin.
For she hadn’t checked.
She’d been avoiding doing so. She hadn’t wanted to make sure if she was pregnant, even now that her period was late. He might have insisted that wanting her had come first, and still did, but she feared that becoming pregnant would destroy their intimacy, not solidify it.
She also believed he’d insisted on marriage early on in order to give his heir the legitimacy she now suspected he’d never had. He’d always avoided talking much about his past, but she was now convinced the facts he made known were nothing but a fabrication, that he’d never had a family, and that his childhood had been too terrible to share.
She wanted to do anything at all to make it up to him, to give him everything he wanted and needed, yet she couldn’t bear that he’d marry her for any other reason but for her.
And there was another concern. Though he’d been deluging her in his passion and consideration, she still felt him holding back...so much. Not knowing what he was hiding of himself, of his past, she couldn’t chart the future.
That was why she dreaded changing the present. And her pregnancy would blow that up big-time.
Instead of saying she hadn’t checked, she said, “There’s nothing yet.”
And it was as if a dagger drove into her heart.
That flare in his eyes. That convulsive squeeze of her shoulders. That shudder that emanated from his body and reverberated in her own.
He was relieved.
That she wasn’t pregnant.
The magnitude of his relief had almost rocked him off his feet. If he hadn’t grabbed her shoulders so hard, she thought he might have even slumped to his knees.
His reaction was so startling, so incongruous with everything she’d believed up till this point, about him and about what he wanted. She felt beyond shocked.
And there was only one explanation she could find.
He’d changed his mind.
He no longer wanted to have an heir.
Not from her.
* * *
Numair didn’t know how it was possible, after all he’d done in his life, that he’d deserved a second chance.
Yet he’d somehow gotten it.
Jenan wasn’t pregnant yet.
The news had almost buckled his knees when bullets had failed to do so. Relief still so enervated him, he hadn’t been able to do anything since she’d left for Zafrana’s royal palace an hour ago.
This development bought him the most precious commodity—time to resolve everything. This way he could let it be her choice to give him a child after she knew everything about him, and everything that had brought him into her life. He wanted nothing but for her to have the dignity, the freedom and self-determination to decide to be with him, to share her life and child with him, after full disclosure.
This was everything he wanted now. He no longer cared about taking over Zafrana’s throne or even Saraya’s. He no longer even cared about punishing his uncle or avenging his father or himself. All the ugliness and horrors and suffering suddenly felt as though they had happened in someone else’s past, someone he no longer was.
He was now a new man, a man who loved Jenan with all the heart she’d created inside him. He cared only that she forgave him his initial deception and gave him her trust, her love, forever. Nothing else but her mattered.
As for resolving the other matters he’d come here for, his plans had radically changed. He still had to depose Hassan, as this was no longer just about him, but because he couldn’t let such a criminal continue ruling his homeland. He now just had to find a way that wouldn’t hurt or disgrace the rest of Hassan’s family...and his own. Then he’d be able to confess everything to Jenan.
Suddenly, another realization burst in his mind.
He couldn’t make love to her anymore!
Though there was a possibility he couldn’t impregnate her since he hadn’t yet—which he also realized didn’t matter at all—he couldn’t continue making love to her without protection, in case they finally succeeded in creating a child before he resolved everything. And he couldn’t suddenly start using protection, either, not without explaining why.
His only way out was to not make love to her at all. It felt like the most mutilating sentence he’d ever had inflicted on him. But it was a price he had to pay for his mistakes, until he fixed them and told her the truth.
He could only pray to whoever or whatever had answered his first prayer, that when he did, she’d still want him and would give him a second chance.
The second chance his life depended on.
* * *
“Is Numair coming today?”
At Fayza’s eager question, Jen turned from staring numbly at her reflection in her bedroom mirror. She found both her sisters with their heads poking around her suite’s door, their long hair cascading like waterfalls of mahogany and ebony. They were now the one thing that made being back in Zafrana’s royal palace, in Zafrana at all, in this whole life, bearable.
She had one response for them. “No, he isn’t coming.”
And she feared he never would again.
“But we want to ask him if we can have another party on board his jet,” Zeena lamented.
“Can we call him?” Fayza zoomed inside, bombarding her with questions. “We don’t have his phone number. Does he even answer if it’s a number he doesn’t know? Or does he know our numbers? Would you call him for us?”
“Don’t you think we’ve taken enough from Sheikh Numair?”
Jen’s heart squeezed at their father’s weary voice. He now followed the girls into her suite at a much slower pace, as if it hurt to walk.
Forcing a smile, she rose to greet him, and he took her in arms that trembled and kissed the top of her head.
It felt as if her father had grown smaller in the past months, had aged far beyond his sixty-three years. Being helpless to solve his kingdom’s problems, and the shame of having to sacrifice his eldest daughter as their only solution had taken their toll. Even now that it was over, it seemed the ordeal still echoed its distress and defeat inside him. It probably would for the rest of his life.
She pulled back, wanting to soothe him, even when she had nothing but dread and pain inside her own soul, and he looked at her with a world of contrition in his eyes.
“When you first came to me with Numair and told me he’d resolve Zafrana’s debts, I couldn’t believe he’d do that without asking for something eve
n bigger in return. I didn’t even know if he could do it. Then Hassan called everything off, and I knew Numair had fulfilled his promise. A week ago, I got back everything I signed away, just because Numair willed it. Now I find myself in an even bigger debt than what bound me in servitude to Hassan. This time to Numair. The debt of the restoration of your freedom, of our kingdom’s stability and of my dignity. And it’s a debt I have no idea how I will ever repay.”
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.
Najeeb sat forward, every line in his body explicit with his excitement. “Ya Ullah, after all these years! What happened? How did you find out? Did you just find out? B’Ellahi, this is incredible, amazing! Wait till Haroon and Jawad and my other siblings find out about this! The girls especially will go ballistic. They’ve been swooning over you, and now they’ll have premium bragging rights. But we’ll have to make it clear right off the bat to every other lady in our family and acquaintance that you’re the exclusive property of Jenan—”
Hating to do it, Numair had to interrupt his zeal. “I got you in private because I don’t want anyone but you to know. You’ll realize why when I tell you the whole story.”
Numair couldn’t believe how it dismayed him to see the spontaneity in the other man’s eyes dimming. He’d no doubt extinguish it completely if he declared his right to the throne.
For now, he told him the story he’d already decided to tell him. The attack, his father’s murder and how he’d been left for dead, and the fictional parts about being rescued then adopted, then back to the truth of retrieving his memories of the incident after years of hypnotherapy.
Najeeb looked more moved with every word. Then he let out a ragged exhalation. “But this means you knew your true identity when we first met. Why didn’t you tell me then?”
“Because I was still searching for the proof you have in your hands now.”
“You thought I wouldn’t believe you without evidence?” Najeeb seemed stunned that Numair had considered such a thing.
“Wouldn’t you?”
“To borrow your and Jenan’s favorite catchphrase, you’re kidding, right? After my initial hostility, which was all concern for Jenan, I felt a kindred link to you that I couldn’t explain. I would have believed you without any proof beyond those of my instincts.” Suddenly, he laughed. “But it’s your lady’s instincts that are uncanny. She’s the one who saw through it all from the first moment, who kept saying we felt as close as brothers. As we are.”
“As we are,” Numair repeated, something hot and overriding stirring in his chest.
He had his brothers, and they were an essential part of his being. But the tug of blood between him and Najeeb was something he’d never experienced, or expected to. Since the last trace of worry he could rival him for Jenan’s affection h
ad been erased, and now that Najeeb accepted him so readily, he let it sweep him.
He hated to spoil those moments of closeness, to tarnish the purity of Najeeb’s goodwill. But he had to tell him the rest.
“Making contact with my long-lost family wasn’t why I went to your father’s reception. Or why I came here.”
That again stunned Najeeb. “What else did you want?”
“To reclaim my birthright. And to exact vengeance.”
The light in Najeeb’s eyes went out. “Vengeance?”
“I believed your father had mine killed.”
To say Najeeb was shocked was like saying Numair slightly liked Jenan. Numair could feel his statement tearing through the other man’s very foundations.
Then shock gave way to adamant rejection, and Najeeb just said, “No.”
Before Numair could respond, a sound emptied his mind. That of the helicopter that had been bringing him Jenan for the past weeks. All but this last one.
He heaved up to his feet. “We’ll discuss this at length, Najeeb. But for now just stay here and wait for me.”
Before Najeeb could even blink, Numair ran out.
He had no idea how he’d send Jenan away without explaining why, but he couldn’t have her see Najeeb. The can of worms had been opened, but nothing had yet been resolved.
By the time he crossed the villa, she was already opening the front door. He rushed to intercept her, and she raised her gaze to him. What he saw in her eyes made him almost stumble.
She looked...bereft.
Forcing his legs to work, he reached her as she closed the door, and pulled her into his arms. “Is everyone all right?”
She nodded, but pushed out of his arms when she always clung.
At a loss what to make of her disturbing disposition, he said, “You didn’t tell me you were coming.”
Her eyes again rose to his, and they looked so wounded, foreboding pierced his heart. “You would have only found a way to escape seeing me. But don’t worry, I won’t stay where I’m no longer welcome.”
He gaped at her. “What?”
