by Sophia Lynn
She leaped to her feet, and when Nadim would have joined her, she waved him off.
"I think I need to think for a little bit. Wait for me here."
In another time, she would have thought it was humorous that a little singer and waitress thought that she could give the sheikh of Hadara orders. Right now, however, she needed to get away from him, and she was only pleased that it worked.
She set aside the food that she no longer cared for and walked a ways down the beach. She let her feet sink into the cool sand. She looked out over the blue water and the horizon, squinting slightly so that they became one. She looked back at the town, white-washed walls with orange clay tiles baked to bright orange terra-cotta. She took several deep breaths and felt herself grow calmer. When she felt as if she was ready to speak with the sheikh again, she returned.
"I don't think you know what you just asked. Listen to me, all right? You just asked me if I wanted to stick around to raise a child that I am offering to you. Not as a third parent, not as someone the child knows he has a relationship with, but as a servant. Do you have any idea how it would feel?
"Every day, I would see a child who is mine, who I’ll long to hold and to touch and guide. And in your plan, I would get to guide them a little, to teach them, but it sounds like I will be keeping my identity secret, like the world's worst superhero. I will restrain myself when my child is close, and when you and your wife come to see how my child is doing, I will be less than nothing."
She shook her head, and then a thought occurred.
"God, did you even bring this up with your wife?"
"No," he said, and there was a guilty look on his face that made her stare at him even more sharply.
"Of course you didn't" she said almost to herself. "You weren't going to tell her."
She couldn't hear another word out of him. Elise turned away, starting to run up the beach. She didn't know where she was headed, but she thought in that heated moment that she would never stop, she would simply flee. She would run and run until finally she sprouted wings and flew, a true songbird at last, but one that would no longer sing for the sheikh of Hadara.
Instead, Nadim caught her in his arms, holding her as she struggled to be free. Finally, all the fight went out of her, and she rested in his arms as if they were simply two lovers staring out at the surf.
"I am sorry," he murmured. "I am so sorry."
"Why would you say such a thing?" she asked, and even in her own ears, her voice sounded shamefully small and wounded.
He sighed, his breath tickling her hair. His arms tightened around her briefly before letting her go. She took his hand as they both sat back on the blanket.
"Because I was not thinking at all," he said. "I saw...the possibility of keeping you close. I wondered if it would be a pleasure for you to see your child grow. I was not thinking."
Elise sighed, squeezing his hand because it was not a cruel thought he had had. It was only a careless one, and she had certainly had enough of those in her own life.
"I suppose we have never spoken all that much about what is to happen between us someday. Let me be perfectly clear. I want to give you a child, and not only because of the money. At this point, I want to give you a child because this is something that you want very badly. I also think that you will be a good father. I think at this point that I could stand to give you a child and stay away. As long as my child has two good parents who love them and who want to make sure that they are safe? Who will raise a child with more resources and better care than most in the world could imagine? It would be terrible for me to get in the way of it."
"If I had to stay and watch...I do not think I can do that. Do you understand, Nadim?"
He was watching her face closely, but she wondered if he had any idea how transparent he could be sometimes. Something about her speech troubled him, but he smoothed his face over before she could recognize anything specific.
"I do," he said with a sigh. "Thank you for explaining that to me."
She paused. There was another thing she had to bring up, but she was afraid it would trigger another snap of cold, another period where it felt as if she didn't even know the man she slept with.
"One more thing," she said, taking a breath. Tell the truth and shame the devil, as her boss had once said.
"Yes?"
"I...I am not certain yet, but I do think that my period will come and that we'll find out I'm still not pregnant yet. This will happen in the next few days, and that means that you should be ready."
"I'll make sure to get plenty of brioche and dark chocolate from town well in advance," he said with a smile, but she only frowned at him.
"That's very sweet, but honestly, I just need to know that you are going to be okay with it. The last time this happened, I had to throw a lamp at a wall to get anything done."
He chuckled a little ruefully at her statement, bringing her in close.
"Do not worry, my darling songbird. It will be fine. I will not shut you out again."
"Good," she said, and allowed herself to be gathered into his arms. It felt good, better than anything else in the world, to be held by this man. As time went on, however, she started to wonder which embrace, which kiss, which night was going to be the last.
***
After he could tell that Elise was soundly asleep, Nadim went to the study and locked the door behind him. For a moment, he simply stood breathing and trying to keep his temper under control, and then he grimly reached for his phone.
Despite the hour, it was answered after two rings by Ahmed.
"Well?" he asked tersely, and he could hear his assistant wince.
"She is furious, Sheikh Nadim, but no one knows why. She has been raging for almost a full two days now, only stopping to collapse into her bed and wail herself to sleep."
Beneath the perfectly modulated tone, there was a panic there, and Nadim couldn't help but sympathize. When Malaya lost her grip on things, when nothing could help and everything simply brought more rage and more fury, it was like being lost in a black morass of twisting vines.
"Has she asked for me?"
"She has said that you are the last person in the world that she wants to see. I am sorry, sir."
Nadim's eyes narrowed.
"You are holding something back from me," he said, too tired and furious to be tactful. Right now, he needed tact less than he needed solutions.
"There are rumors, sir, that there is perhaps someone, a man, someone that she does wish to see."
Nadim felt something deep inside him shiver and die. He realized with a kind of detached amusement that it was the last of whatever regard he had for his wife. The lack of surprise was immense, and he knew that he had frightened Ahmed a little with his laughter.
"There have been many such rumors for quite some time," he said with a shrug. "Is she dangerous?"
A pause.
"No, sir. She has not injured anyone, she has not broken anything, she has mostly stayed in the living quarters. The people are a little confused as to where you are, perhaps, but it has been given out that you are traveling to manage your personal holdings."
"Good. If Malaya becomes worse, call her doctor. If she calls for me, let me know. If she doesn't...well, I have business I am attending to, even if it is not what might be supposed."
"Yes, sir," Ahmed said reluctantly, and Nadim could guess that his assistant would very much like him to return. Things were sometimes calmer when he did, but he knew - they both knew - it was a temporary measure at best. Sooner rather than later, he and Malaya would be at each other's throats again, and then her fits would get even worse.
"Call me if anything changes, and make sure that you give yourself and the relevant staff the bonuses that come with this."
"Yes, sir."
When he hung up the phone, Nadim was startled to find that he was shaking.
He wondered sardonically if some part of him thought that this life in Omorphia was his real life now, and Elise his
real lover. It was certainly possible to think it if one only looked at things a few days at a time, and that was certainly how he was looking at things. In this moment, locked in his study and speaking with his assistant, he knew the truth of things. Omorphia was a beautiful fantasy, a soap bubble that could be shattered by a single careless touch. His time here was limited, and his time with Elise was also limited. He could not blame her; the idea of watching his child being raised by others sounded like a kind of hell, especially if she was meant to stay unknown.
Beneath that was a deeper fear as well. Somehow, she thought that Malaya would be a loving and caring mother. Most of the children of his class were reared by nannies, and the idea of Malaya being loving or not had never truly entered the picture for him. He had never had to think about it before, but now that he did, he could see in no uncertain terms that she would be dreadful and terrifying all at once.
The idea of his children, of any children dealing with her when she was in one of her fits was unacceptable, and so he had begun to plan.
Chapter Thirteen
There was something strange in the air. Elise could feel it. She didn't know what was coming, but she wasn't sure she liked it. Another month had passed with still no sign of a child, but when she had revealed the fact to Nadim, he only shrugged and told her again that it could take a while before such a miracle happened.
"It does not happen as quickly as we might wish," Nadim said with a shrug. "With you, I am prepared to allow it to take as long as it has to."
Elise bit her lip and summoned up all of her courage. She knew that when it came to some things, she was as bold as a lion. There was something about this matter, though, that kept her as mute as a dove. She had never been so shy before, but she felt that there was something in Nadim that brought it out in her.
"Will...will there be a chance that you’ll want to try it with someone else?" she asked, her voice as still and as strong as she could make it.
The question floated between them, and Nadim scowled at her. She had asked herself if it was worse if he said he would simply return to his wife in defeat or whether it would be easier to hear that he intended to go find someone else. She had never figured out for herself which one was the worse option, and now she still wasn't sure.
"What are you saying?" he asked. "Are you asking how long you have until...I decide to try something else?"
She took a deep breath, because the answer to that question was yes, even if the words were far too unspeakably cruel to bear.
"I only want to know what you want and how long you are willing to chase it," she retorted, and in answer, he pulled her into his arms.
Almost against her will, she relaxed into his embrace. There was a feeling of intense peace and pleasure when she could do this. It felt as if all was right with the world. Some part of her recognized his embrace as heaven, but the rest of her asked if a heaven that you knew you couldn't keep, that would inevitably be gone, wasn't truly a kind of hell.
"I want you," he said hoarsely. There was some kind of emotion trembling on the edge of his voice there, something perfect and elusive and unexplainable. Perhaps she would be able to decipher it if she was looking at him, but his large hand cupping the back of her head felt too good.
"I want you more than the stars want the moon, more than the tides love the shore. I want a child from you. That is allowed to take all the time that is necessary."
"But you don't have all the time in the world," she pointed out. "You don't have time to wait if it takes me two or three or four years to conceive. The fact that you have even been able to stay here with me for this long feels like some kind of miracle."
He started to speak, but she squeezed him tighter, bidding him into silence.
"I have heard you speak on the phone," she said. "I am not a fool. It sounds like things are getting angrier and angrier in your absence. Are you going to tell me that that is not true?"
For a moment, she thought that he was going to do just that, but then he shook his head. There was no way to deny it. While he kept her company in Greece, and while they tried to conceive an heir for his throne, things were going poorly in Hadara. Every night it seemed, he was plagued with people who needed things from him, who needed him in meetings, who needed his presence or his wisdom on this matter or that.
"I am not the sheikh of Hadara," she continued. "You are. The important thing here to you is your throne. You will do what you need to do to protect it. I know you, and the thought of you doing anything else is...unthinkable. However, because I am not your country, because I am not your wife, I need to make sure that I know what your plans are. How long are you going to try to do this? How long are you going to try to straddle two worlds?"
"What does it matter to you? You are getting paid the same one way or the other."
For a moment, she only stared at him, her mouth slightly open. Elise felt lightheaded, as if she had taken a blow to the head. For a moment, she was not sitting in the beautiful little cottage in Omorphia. Instead, she was flying through space, untethered and unmoored with no idea what she had done or what had been done to her.
She could see Nadim tense as if he expected another fight from her, as if he expected another lamp to come flying his way. Instead, she simply shook her head at him and went to walk along the shore.
She could hear him calling her name, but she kept going, changing course only when she came to the sea. The waves lapped over her feet, and Elise had a moment to truly think about how far she had come. She had come from nowhere, and she had lived the strangest kind of life. She had taken odd jobs wherever she could find them, she had sung and waited tables, and in the end, she had come here, to this beautiful island with a man who wanted to treat her as a princess when he didn't think that she was a whore.
Elise hugged herself tightly. This time, there were no tears. There was nothing but a numbness that she started to fear would seep into her bones, turn her into a cold and brittle woman long before her time.
Even in this frigid space, however, there was something about her heart that would always wok, and that was the part that wanted to sing. She stared out at the ocean, and the lyrics came to her lips as if she had known them all her life.
"Do you think you get to travel this path with me, do you think it is wise..."
The music spilled out of her effortlessly. She didn't know if it was good yet or if it was bad. That could come later when she was editing. Right now, the important thing was the powerful pull of the notes as they skidded between sky and water, the way her lungs filled and she could simply pluck the notes out of the air as if they were made for her.
A part of Elise wondered what would happen if she just stood on this shore and sang. There was something enchanting about the idea of singing until there was nothing left of her but her voice. Everything else would be taken away by the salt and the wind, and someday, all that was left would be a sad song that floated over the water.
Elise had to shake her head at her own foolishness. Even if it did feel as though her heart was shaken in two whenever she considered Nadim's cruel words, there was a stubborn part of her that clung to life no matter what. She might not get the ending that she wanted, but she would keep on walking, keep on moving.
She was just getting ready to think about what had happened at the house when there was a rustle in the trees behind her. A chill ran up her spine. It was getting close to dark, and while Nadim had told her that the woods close to the house were safe, she knew better than most that fences that were meant to keep people from randomly walking into the forest generally did more to bring them in, and on top of it, she had no police to help her.
She was tensed to run back to the house if she had to, but then to her surprise, a dark head popped out of the bush.
"Hello?" she asked hesitantly, and she was greeted by a giggle.
Another moment, and a little girl, barefoot and dressed in a worn red dress, popped out of the forest close to the beach like a little elf.
It was such an unlikely thing that Elise stared at her. That meant that she was completely unready when the little girl splashed her with water.
Elise yelped with surprise, and then she splashed the little girl back. It was purely spontaneous play, something that she had not had a great deal of. The little girl seemed to delight in soaking Elise with the warm sea water, not caring whether Elise splashed her back, and after just a few moments of shouting and splashing, they were both soaked. Elise had always thought that she looked like a deflated wet rat when she was wet, but apparently this little girl did not care at all. Instead, when it seemed obvious that the play was over, the little girl rushed towards her and threw her arms around her.
The hug woke Elise up to reality, and she looked down at the girl in dismay, and then at the darkness around them.
"This isn't right," Elise said with surprise, her tone dismal. "I don't even know where you live..."
"I do," Nadim's voice said out of the darkness.
She jumped, automatically putting the little girl behind her until she could figure out what was going on. To her relief, it was only Nadim standing on the edge of the forest, visible in the lowering gloom only by the pale linen tunic and trousers he wore.
"Have you been watching us all this time?" she asked, unsure why she felt oddly violated. This entire side of the island belonged to him, and it wasn't like she was doing something strange or illegal at all. Still, a part of her wanted to tug the little girl behind her until she figured out exactly what it was he wanted.
"I have been," he said with an unconcerned shrug. "I was worried that you had come out here and done yourself some harm."
She thought he might have some more to say about that, but then he tilted his head slightly, and the next words that Nadim spoke were addressed to the little girl.
She answered him eagerly, no trace of fear in her voice at all, and he laughed a little. When Nadim held out his hand, she ran to him immediately.
