by Ella Brooke
And those rebels, they keep being so adamant. I wonder if they hope I never have an heir, if they think that Abir would be someone they could reason with?
He banished that thought from his mind. So far, it had been six weeks, and no signs had seemed to pop up yet. Jamsheed respected Brenda enough not to demand they do blood tests or make her use the tests. If she felt her body was telling her something was happening—and, frankly, after the amount of sex they’d been having every night something should be happening—then she’d come to him.
It was so odd, he thought as he stretched at his desk. They’d been closer in London just discovering their relationship than with the weeks between them in Zomelia. Oh, she was wonderful in so many ways. Brenda sat beside him every night when he went to visit his father’s bedside. She read stories to the old sheikh, in case he could hear her in his coma. She often quipped she wouldn’t want to be bored if she were ever like that. He wasn’t sure how his father, if he could hear, would take to being read the entire Harry Potter series, but maybe it kept him sane in that limbo state. Maybe it would be a beacon that could draw his father back. Hell, anything read in that lilting alto of Brenda’s would be tempting enough to pass through heaven, Earth, and purgatory for.
And yet, they didn’t talk to each other, not really. There were schedules and attempts to make an heir. There was endless talk between them and the OB/GYN specialist overseeing all of this about times of the month and cycles. But it felt clinical, as if he’d broken something in that tent almost two months ago. He should have told her about the full extent of his needs before they left England. Rationally, he could argue to himself that he hadn’t because his father was sick, arrangements had to be made, and Haley had to be bailed out of trouble.
But that wasn’t true.
Because he did know how it looked. Yes, her fire and her resilience, everything about her he noticed daily had left him starting to fall for her, but then there was this added pressure, this deeper deadline forcing them together faster than he wanted.
Don’t get him wrong. He wanted the sex. His fiery phoenix was too stunning to forego that for long. However, it was all about making an heir and nothing about trying to nurture the spark between them. He tried to show her at dinner and in a million little ways around the palace that he cared for her and that it wasn’t just about what Zomelia needed. If he just needed anyone, he could draw up a harem as his great grandfather had had years before.
Yet, he could see Brenda building her walls up a little more each day, fortifying them a little bit thicker, and he wasn’t sure what he could do to show her that they weren’t needed. He wasn’t running from her. If they couldn’t produce an heir, then he’d go to parliament himself and the oldest judges of the land, and have everything rewritten. Zomelia could not fall into Abir’s hands. At the same time, he couldn’t lose Brenda’s heart. At least not more than he already had.
There was a knock on his door and he expected it to be one of the servants summoning him for lunch. He tried to take a break daily to eat with Brenda, when before even at his flat in London he was a workaholic who only nibbled on a sandwich in the middle of his CFO’s reports. He’d been a cad and a man-whore, but he always kept the family’s oil business a top priority.
Instead, however, his eyes widened and he couldn’t suppress a grin when he saw that Brenda and Jazmina were standing there instead.
The older woman had her eyes respectfully downcast, but Brenda looked at him, something fearful yet undefinable in her gaze. “Jamsheed, I didn’t mean to interrupt you,” his fiery phoenix started.
He stood and strode over to her in a record number of steps. What could he say? She inspired him, especially quickness in him when it came to bridging physical gaps between them. His hands snuck out of their own accord and found their way to her shoulders and squeezed. “Sweetheart, there’s nothing I’d rather do than talk to you, believe me. Now, what’s going on? Are you feeling all right?”
She bit her lower lip and shook her head. “I think I need to see Dr. Gupurasad. I vomited this morning and was nauseated yesterday even though I didn’t think much of it. I… I think it might be happening.”
***
She lay back on the hospital bed. The medical wing of the palace would put most hospitals in the States or London to shame. The best medical staff money could buy was on hand, at least in the field of cardiology, to help the fallen sheikh; to do anything they could to rouse him from his coma. Jamsheed had spared little expense flying out experts from all over the world as well to compose an OB/GYN and a fertility team for Brenda
—if she were pregnant.
She felt as she did in those long-ago, fuzzy first weeks with Haley. And, God, had she not missed vomiting and the morning sickness. That was one of the supposed “miracles of pregnancy” that Brenda could live without.
Jamsheed sat on a metal stool beside her, his hand clasped around hers. It amazed her somehow, thrilled her down to her core, that difference between the size of their hands. In fact, he could almost envelope both of hers with one of his. God, his broad, thick fingers. Fingers that pleasured her every night, that somehow made this deal feel less of what it was: a trade.
She was like livestock here. She still had her own bedroom and he never forced her to do anything, but she couldn’t help but worry no matter what he said or how passionate he was in bed that this was all about the heir and securing his throne.
I don’t know what I’m doing.
Everything had been abstract before. They’d been trying for six weeks, and she was too nervous to even pee on a stick. The tests, if she’d been taking them regularly, might have shown something a week ago or more. But maybe she didn’t want that, deep down. Maybe she was terrified to have her final illusions ripped from her. As long as it was just the two of them in bed, she didn’t have to think about her sojourn in Zomelia as anything more than her exotic midlife crisis, her Eat, Pray, Love, but in the Middle East instead of India.
But if she really were pregnant, then it was about everyone. Literally, everyone. It was about the fate of a nation and the promises Jamsheed owed to his father and the rest of the Rahal line. It was about what it would mean for them trying to build a family, because she’d be damned if were expected to just sign over any child of hers like it was a puppy once it had been weaned. Then there was Haley. How was she supposed to explain the circumstances of Haley’s possible little brother or sister?
She took in a deep breath and shook a little, the anxiety overwhelming her. That strong hand over her own, clutched hers even tighter.
“My phoenix, are you all right?”
She nodded “I think so. I just… I wish Dr. Gurpurasad would get here with the results. I need to know what’s real and what’s not.”
I wish I could have a simple blood test tell me too if you really loved me, but that’s so much harder to figure out…
Brenda swallowed and blinked back the prickling of tears in her eyes. God, she probably was pregnant. She had felt more emotional over the last few weeks. She mostly attributed it to the complete turnaround her life had taken, but maybe it was the hormones already flowing through her.
“It’ll be all right. If you are pregnant, this is what we’ve both been working so hard for,” he said, then grimaced. Jamsheed must have thought about the double entendre. “You know what I mean.”
Before she could reply, the door swung open and a rotund little man with thick glasses slid on in.
“Well,” he started, looking down at his clipboard. “I think that some congratulations are in order, my sheikh. You’re expecting.”
Her shoulders slouched just a bit, not because it wasn’t amazing to have at least this small piece of Jamsheed if she couldn’t have his heart, but because all the mountain of things she had to organize were already starting.
Haley’s never going to let me hear the end of this!
Of course, maybe she didn’t have to explain the heir deal to her daughter. It sounded bad
in a lot of ways, made her seem cold somehow or possibly nuts. Yes, maybe just letting Haley think it had all come from the heat of passion was for the best. She couldn’t afford to disappoint her child.
“Are you sure?” Jamsheed asked, his tone serious and his amber gaze focused on the doctor with laser precision. “Is everything normal?”
The doctor frowned a little. “Some of her hormone levels are higher than I would have assumed at first, but nothing to worry about. I think the pregnancy seems to be progressing normally here, and we’ll schedule for your first ultrasound in few weeks. Until then, we’ll get her started on regular blood draws and vitamin supplements. Can never have enough prenatal vitamins, I always say.”
Jamsheed gave a curt nod and eyed her. She wasn’t sure what to do then. She was happy that this was working out for him and for the kingdom, happy that she had a piece of him, but she still felt anxious, as if this was all still so temporary. In a couple years, once the baby was safe and healthy and entering into toddlerhood, Jamsheed could change the deal. He could toss her aside for someone younger and hotter. It wouldn’t be the first time that happened to her.
He turned his attention back to the doctor and gestured with his free hand to the door. “If you could give us a few minutes, please? I just need to speak more freely with the sheikha.”
Her eyes widened at that title as did the doctor’s. Both of them knew what it meant to give her that title; what it meant to elevate her from a slightly unconventional surrogate to the woman who would rule beside him on the throne of Zomelia. Everything had just changed, and it had taken only one word to do it.
The doctor shook himself out of his surprise and bowed low to both of them. “Yes, my sheikh and sheikha. I’ll be outside if you should need anything else.”
Brenda had never seen anyone scurry back out of a door as fast as the doctor did. Quirking her head up at him, Brenda regarded Jamsheed’s golden gaze. “You don’t have to offer me that. It wasn’t part of the deal. I know we’ve only been, uh, ‘dating’ for two months.”
He reached out and stroked her cheek, and she couldn’t resist leaning into the gesture, into letting herself relax into the broad expanse of his warm palm. “I wanted to. We’ve known each other for months before that, for all the time in London. Just because our titles were so different then, didn’t mean I didn’t know you.”
“I think we know each other in the biblical sense now,” she joked.
He kissed her. “Or the Koran-ical sense as well.” Jamsheed winked at his own joke. “Sheikha Brenda Rahal. I like the sound of that. No, I love the sound of it.”
Unbidden, her free hand found its way down her stomach and cupped her still flat abdomen. “I know this might be a lot to plan with your father sick and state business and…”
“What? I can get you anything, phoenix. You only have to ask.”
She nodded, swallowing hard. “One of the things that always bothered Haley most were the names.”
“Huh?”
“The names that kids would call her on the playground to get to her. I don’t want anyone to feel free to gossip about the next heir to the throne. Is it possible to arrange a wedding before I deliver?”
He kissed her again. “Not only is it possible, but I’m going to make it the largest ceremony the country has ever seen, even bigger than what Father did for Mother. This is a happy union and we have to celebrate all of it. I have to let you see how much you mean to me too, phoenix, and not just because you’re with child.”
She let the tears come this time because after all her bad luck, it was impossible to feel like a man loved her too. “I’m just so unsure.”
“I’m not,” he said, kissing her again. “And I will prove it, mark my words.”
Chapter Nine
Nine Weeks Pregnant…
“You look nervous,” Jazmina asked as she was led to the medical wing.
Frankly, Brenda was lucky to have suck a dedicated attendant. If she had to try and find her way through the seemingly endless, labyrinthine corridors of the estate, she’d never make it.
She wrung her hands and then gripped tightly on her wrist. “It’s the first ultrasound. If the company hadn’t had a mess in accounting back in London, and then those rebels hadn’t firebombed a bazaar south of here, then we’d have done everything earlier. I guess that’s the price of being with Jamsheed. He has so much he has to give for his country, and I can never get in the way of that. Still, it’s given me so much time to think.”
“And?”
“The blood tests are fine, but it’s not like the blood tests can tell me if there are conjoined twins in here or maybe if the baby’s heart is on the outside of his chest. What if it’s some ectopic thing!”
Jazmina frowned. “Do you have cable in your room?”
“Yes.”
“And I hear there are a few medical channels. Have you been, perhaps, watching them too often and letting your imagination run wild?”
“It’s not too often or too soon to be prepared for everything that could happen as a mother. I had the same fears with Haley. It’s just that now the Live Life Channel is telling me about metabolic diseases so rare only forty people have them and in a pre-Google and super cable TV world, how would I have known?”
Jazmina shook her head as she pressed her security badge to the OB/GYN ward of the medical wing. “Haley was fine, wasn’t she? She came out just fine with ten fingers and ten toes and everything else as well, and you didn’t need to Google or television or to worry about diseases you didn’t even know existed before an internet search.”
“True, but I was probably just lucky, super lucky. I know something feels different this time around.”
“Perhaps it is really a boy, and you are noticing differences that way,” Jazmina said.
“It’s a bit too early to tell,” she admitted. “Still, I know this feels different and Haley was an easy, perfect pregnancy so this must be something bad. I have this intuition about it.”
Jazmina stopped and whirled around to face her. Pushing an errant, graying braid from her face, the older woman patted Brenda’s shoulder. “Then trust my intuition. This is a union blessed by the needs of the people, blessed by the one God, Allah, himself. I know that everything is fine. Like I say. You, my sheikha, are blessed.”
***
“What?” she asked, her eyes open wide.
Beside her with one hand covering hers and the other now caressing her stomach, even though the ultrasound gel hadn’t been removed yet was Jamsheed. His eyes were as comically huge; he looked like an owl blinking under the moonlight. If the lukewarm gel bothered him, he didn’t say, just kept running his hand over her stomach as if she were the damn Blarney Stone, and they needed the luck.
Oh boy; maybe they did.
Jazmina, however, bounced on her heels and clapped. “See. I told you it was a blessed union. Triplets. Now a kingdom that seemed to have no true heir shall have three. It’s wonderful news. When the citizens hear, there will be feasting for days.”
Brenda nodded mutely and looked down at her stomach. “Three. There are three of them?”
“Sometimes, it’s not uncommon for older women to be prone to releasing more eggs when they ovulate,” Dr. G offered.
“Three children,” Jamsheed said, his tone as incredulous. “Wait, three strapping boys…”
“Oh, girls are good too. Haley could rule a whole kingdom on her own tomorrow,” Brenda interjected. “I know she has me wrapped around her little finger. Are you sure? Three?”
The doctor nodded and pointed to three little blobs on the ultrasound screen. “There are three fully functioning hearts and, yes, three separate zygotes. I do not believe there is any twinning or identicals here, no.”
“But three?” she asked.
Wow, she was in her forties. She’d set off for adventure, even agreed to be the sheikha of a country she was still getting to know in order to help a man she cared a great deal about. All of that so far ha
d been both difficult and a damn whirlwind, but three children? She hadn’t been kidding about Haley being an easy pregnancy. That had included the delivery of only five hours and with little pain once the drugs kicked in.
But triplets? How did you get three of those out of there?
“It will be Caesarean of course,” Dr. G said.
She blinked around the room and felt her cheeks flare red. “Did I mumble out loud again?”
Jamsheed chuckled and kissed her deeply, his tongue twisting with hers and promising so much more later. “No, but we could all read that expression.”
“Some twins do deliver vaginally, but with the more multiples, the larger the operating team and the more intense the risks. We’ll want to have as much control over the delivery as possible. We’ll schedule to induce you at seven and a half months. It’s unlikely you’ll get past that and we’ll want to ensure as well you don’t deliver early.”
“I… oh, how badly is that going to hurt?” she asked.
Jamsheed wrapped a strong arm around her shoulders, and she did everything she could to try and relax. She closed her eyes and thought back to the stunning view of London on the Ferris wheel, to the smell of turmeric that drove her wild and, even now, made heat flare through her belly.
“You’ll make it through everything. You’re so very strong.”
“Yeah, but there weren’t three of Haley!”
Jazmina walked over to the other side of the bed and patted her hand. “My sheikha, we shall all do this together.”
“Yes, but only one of us gets cut open!”
***
“Should I go back to my bed?” she asked, walking in a daze.
It sounded morbid but she felt almost as shocked as she did the day of her father’s heart attack. It wasn’t because she didn’t love Jamsheed or even because she didn’t love the babies. Of course she did. But the realization of how intense her pregnancy was going to be, of how many risks there were… She was an older mother carrying triplets, and so much could go wrong. It wasn’t just that it was going to hurt, but that there was a very real risk that their fairy tale ending could come crashing down, and it would be her body’s fault.
