A Secret Birthright

chapter Thirteen

Fareed heard his father’s declaration. He understood the words. He couldn’t make any sense of them.

Still looking at Gwen, his father addressed her this time, “It was your sister, Marilyn, who was Hesham’s woman.”

After all these months, Fareed had a full name for Hesham’s Lyn. Marilyn. Not Gwendolyn.

He turned, no longer of his own volition, but under her agitation’s compulsion.

She was looking at him, and only at him, her eyes flooded with imploring. Certainty was instantaneous, absolute.

She wasn’t Hesham’s woman. Wasn’t Ryan’s mother.

They would register. The import and impact of this knowledge. They would crash on him and rewrite his existence. But not now.

Now only one thing mattered.

He turned to his father. “It makes no difference. Ryan is Gwen’s and you’re not getting him.”

His father’s expression was one he well knew. A “you dare?” and a “dream on” rolled into one eyebrow raise.

Before he did something irretrievable, his father said, “I won’t continue this discussion standing by a helicopter on a beach. Anyone would get the impression I’m not welcome.”

“You’re not,” Fareed growled, aborting his father’s stride. “And this discussion is over. There is nothing to discuss. And don’t try to pull rank. You’re not king here. I am.”

His father ignored him, looked at Gwen. “And you’re queen here. You won’t invite your father-in-law into your home, even if your husband is rude enough not to?”

“Leave Gwen out of this, Father. I’m warning you…”

Gwen’s hand on his arm stopped his tirade.

Then she stepped in front of him. “It would be an honor and a pleasure to receive you in o-our home, Your Majesty.”

Fareed wanted to hug the breath right out of her, emotions colliding inside him. Pride and delight, at how she held herself, addressed his father, the effect her graciousness and classiness had on the old goat. Delight that she’d said our home. Oppression that she’d hesitated while saying it. But mostly, dread of letting his father deeper into their lives under any pretext.

He watched his father take Gwen’s elbow as she led the way back into the villa. He walked a step behind, felt Emad fall into step with him. He only spared him a gritted “Later.”

His father tossed him a glance. “Later, I might take him off your hands. It appears I’ve been remiss in estimating his worth.”

“I’ll make you a gift of him. It appears I’ve overestimated it.”

Emad grunted something, the very sound of politeness. To Fareed’s versed-in-his-noises ears, it sounded like a grown-up groaning at the posturing antics of two juvenile charges.

Once inside the villa, Gwen turned to his father. “We were about to have dinner. I hope you’ll be able to join us. If you don’t like seafood, I’ll get something else prepared right away.”

“The only time we met, I insulted and threatened you.” The king’s regard turned thoughtful. “Even if I abhorred seafood, it would still be better than crow.”

Fareed blinked. Had his father just cracked a joke?

He could think of only one explanation for this aberration. He got his confirmation in Gwen’s crimson discomfiture.

“Oh, no, you don’t, Father. I’m damned if I let you play on Gwen’s sympathies. You’re not some kind, bereaved old man, so you can quit trying to blindside us into lowering our guard right now. We’re not letting you get your hands on Ryan.”

His father gave him a considering glance. “What have you told her I’d do when this comes to pass?”

“No ‘when’ here. And it was Hesham who told her—” he tried again to adjust to the fact that it hadn’t been her Hesham had told, had loved “—told her sister that you almost loved him to death, pressuring and coercing and hounding him into becoming the heir you would find acceptable.” Suddenly he couldn’t stand not knowing. He swung his gaze to Gwen. “What happened to your sister?”

He knew the answer. If not from the fact that she had Ryan, then from the grief that he’d felt dimming her spirit. She’d been mourning her sister. How had she died?

He hated to resurrect her pain, her loss. But he needed knowledge to stop his father’s incursion, especially now that he was using unexpected weapons.

He still almost retracted his question when mention of her sister reopened her wounds right before his eyes.

But she was already answering. “After the accident, they gave her only a preliminary exam. M-Marilyn was told she was fine. They discharged her to make room for those with obvious injuries. Hesham had already…” Her tears ran faster. “By the time I got to her she was deteriorating. I rushed her to another hospital, but she hung on only long enough to start my adoption of Ryan and give me her and Hesham’s last will. I knew everything already because I more or less shared their lives, moving everywhere when they did. I stayed even closer after I realized something was wrong with Ryan…”

“So you were the one who diagnosed him.”

A tear splashed on his hand, burning him through to his soul. “When he was four months old. But Hesham feared seeking you out.”

He rounded on his father, snarling, “That’s why you’re not coming near Ryan, Father. Because Hesham feared you so much he wouldn’t seek my help for his son, his own brother, the best-equipped to offer that help, until he was on his deathbed.”

His father ignored his wrath, addressing Gwen directly. “But your adoption of Ryan hasn’t been concluded yet.”

Fareed felt his head about to explode.

It almost did when Gwen said, “It’s still pending.” That imploring that compromised his sanity intensified. “That’s what I was trying to tell you. I expected you to find out when your legal team discovered I’m not the birth mother, and my adoption hasn’t been finalized. But they somehow got your adoption approved without this coming to light.”

His daze deepened. “I told them not to bother me with details, to just do anything to get my adoption through.”

His father tsked. “Seems anything included falsifying data. Once a discrepancy is found, the adoption might be invalidated.”

He erupted. “No, it won’t. Go ahead. Do your worst, Father. I’m getting this fixed, and Ryan will be Gwen’s and mine, legally, anywhere in the world, no matter what you do. I’ll fight you, I’ll fight Jizaan and Durrah and the whole world for him, for Gwen’s right to be his mother. And I’ll win. Ryan will never be anyone’s but Gwen’s, the one who loves him, who sacrificed all for him.”

His father only sighed. “Have I ever told you how much I wish you were my heir?”

“You know better than to try to appeal to my ego, Father.”

“No, you’re right. What I wish is irrelevant. In matters of state, it always is. I hope Abbas will come around when it’s time for him to take my place. He might not think so, but he’d make a formidable king. While you are more beneficial to Jizaan and the world being who you are, where you are.”

“We’re not talking matters of state here. I mean it, Father. I won’t let you near Ryan.”

“But it’s not up to you.” He turned to Gwen. “I would see my grandson now, ya marat ebni.”

At hearing his father calling her “my son’s wife,” Gwen’s eyes filled.

Fareed stopped her as she moved. “You don’t have to.”

Those eyes that were his world glittered with too much that they took his breath away. “He has more right to Ryan than I do.”

“That’s not true,” he gritted. “You are his mother.”

Twin tears slithered down her face as she tore her gaze away and hurried out of the room.

He stood glaring at his father as they waited for her to come back. She did in minutes, hugging a flushed-with-sleep Ryan.

At the sight of him, Ryan perked up with the smiles and sounds he bestowed on no one else. He was endlessly thankful for that, for he did love Ryan as if he were his own.

Then Ryan realized Gwen was taking him elsewhere and turned to investigate his new destination.

Ryan blinked and looked back at Fareed as if to make sure he hadn’t teleported.

Fareed’s jaw bunched. Surely Ryan didn’t think he resembled his father that much? And even if they did share much of their looks, he couldn’t possibly feel the same vibes from him!

Next moment, Ryan buried his face into Gwen’s bosom.

That was more like it.

Before satisfaction seethed inside Fareed’s chest, he saw Ryan peeking shyly, inquisitively, interestedly at his father from the depths of Gwen’s chest, and his tension roared back.

His father spoke, his voice rough with emotion, “Ya Ullah, this is Hesham as an infant all over again.”

“That’s not true,” Fareed hissed. “Ryan is a replica of Gwen…of her sister, his mother.”

His father turned to him with dazed eyes shimmering with what suspiciously looked like tears. “His coloring is throwing you off and that dimpled chin. But I am the one who hung on Hesham’s every detail from birth. He has his same bone structure, the shape of his features. And wait until his hair grows out. It will be the exact color and curl as Hesham’s. He’ll also be like his father in many other ways. Isn’t that right, ya ebni?”

Ryan squirmed excitedly in Gwen’s arms as if he understood what the king was saying, and that he’d called him “my son.” Then the king reached out to him, and with one last look at Gwen and Fareed, as if he was asking their permission, Ryan reached back.

Fareed’s mind almost snapped when a tiny whimper escaped Gwen as she let Ryan go. He was about to snatch him back when her hand on his arm stopped him. He wouldn’t have stopped if he’d seen dread filling her eyes. But what he saw there…it was something truly feminine, knowing, almost…serene.

He stood beside her, confounded, watched his father caress Ryan, murmur things for his ears only, what Ryan clearly liked.

When the introduction between child and grandfather seemed concluded, and they seemed to have come to an understanding, Ryan made his wish to be held by Fareed clear.

Fareed took him, feeling as if he was returning his own heart to his chest.

Silence reigned for endless moments.

His father finally let out a shuddering exhalation. “I have been more than half-mad since I lost my Kareemah.” He looked at Fareed. “You might now realize how it was for me.”

Fareed grudgingly had to concede that. If he lost Gwen…

He couldn’t even think of it.

“Is that your excuse for what you did to her son and yours?”

“I thought I was honoring her memory, making her son my heir. But I wasn’t sane most of the time. Not when it came to Hesham. He had too much of her, inspired in me the same overwhelming emotions.” Suddenly his father seemed to let go of the invincibility he cloaked himself in, seemed to age twenty years over his sixty-five. “Now it’s too late to right my wrongs. I’m the reason he’s lost.”

Gwen took an urgent step toward him, her eyes anxious, adamant. “You may be the reason for many things, but not that, Your Majesty. Never blame yourself for that. The accident that cost you your son, cost Fareed his brother and me my sister, was an act of blind fate. But I want you to know Hesham and Lyn didn’t live in fear. While Hesham took hiding to unbelievable lengths, he and Lyn soon approached it all as an adventure, one they included me in. I never saw anyone more in love or delighted with every second they had together. The shadow of separation only made them appreciate every breath they had of each other. So in a way, you were to thank for the extraordinary relationship they had.”

His father swayed and reached for the nearest chair, only to collapse in it, dropping his head into his hands.

Fareed stood frozen, watching this unprecedented sign that his father was human.

He finally raised reddened eyes, looking at Gwen. “I wish I could have met your mother, ya bnayti.” Gwen started at hearing him call her “my daughter.” “She must have been a remarkable woman to raise not only you, a woman who possesses such generosity, you’d offer me this absolution, this solace, after the injustices I dealt you and yours, but to raise two women who had my most fastidious sons think their lives are a small price to pay to have them. That was the kind of woman my Kareemah was. I hope she had a man worship her as she deserved, as I worshiped my Kareemah.”

Gwen shook her head, her eyes as red. “Regretfully, no. Our father took off while she was still pregnant with Marilyn. She raised us alone until an accident in the factory she worked in left her paralyzed from the waist down. She died from the complications of a spinal surgery years later, with only me and Marilyn with her. We changed our names to McNeal, her maiden name, because she was our only parent, our whole family.”

Those were more shocking revelations to Fareed. More insights illuminating Gwen’s life and character and choices.

“Your father had better be dead, too, or I will avenge her,” his father rumbled as he rose.

Gwen started in alarm. “Oh, no. He’s not worth it.” Then she gave him a tremulous smile. “And then Mom always said it was the best thing that happened to all of us that he walked. She was happy without him. We were happy together. What happened afterward…blind fate was again to blame.”

Fareed hugged her into him, unable to bear her losses, the gratitude that she’d survived it all, that he’d found her.

His father approached, his steps not completely steady. “I was only stating facts when I mentioned your pending adoption.…”

Fareed cut him off. “Adoption or not, I will fight you, and I will win.”

His father looked at Gwen. “Will you hold your dragon of a husband back?”

Gwen stared at him. Fareed did, too. A shaken king was unbelievable enough. An indulgent one had to be a hallucination.

His father exhaled. “I came here to negotiate, and that’s why Emad let me come. But I won’t now. Not because I believe you would triumph over me in any fight, Fareed. And not because I’ve learned a lesson I’ll never recover from with Hesham. It’s because seeing you together, talking to Gwen and meeting Ryan has changed everything. Gwen has given me a reason to live again with her forgiveness, on her own behalf and that of Hesham and her sister. I’m not losing this reason or more of my flesh and blood to the demands of duty and pride.” He placed a hand on each of their shoulders. “You are Ryan’s mother, Gwen. I will swear to that to the world, starting with the Aal Durrah. Ryan will be your heir, Fareed. While I only want to remain part of your lives, if you would have me.”

Fareed gaped at him. He’d never…ever…

His stupefaction was interrupted by another surprise.

Gwen threw herself at his father, clung around his neck, reiterating, “Thank you, thank you.”

His father was as taken aback. It took him long moments before he brought his shock under control and hugged her back.

At last he put her at arm’s length, looked down at her. “You are all heart, aren’t you? But you don’t have to accept me. Your husband can get me off your backs permanently if he so wishes.”

Her smile trembled up at him. “I don’t want him to. And Ryan doesn’t either. He wants his grandfather. He…recognized you, like he recognized Fareed.”

“He was far more eager with me,” Fareed protested.

His father dared placate him. “Of course he was. He knows his priorities, recognized you’d be the one who would be constantly present in his life and therefore in need of more intensive…humoring.”

Fareed harrumphed. “With all due respect, Father…”

His father suddenly laughed. “I think you left it too late to even mention respect where I’m concerned, Fareed.”

“Fine, we won’t mention it. But even though I am thankful for your change of heart—make that flabbergasted by it, not to mention distressed that I have to revise my opinion of you, and of my whole life, and we do have to discuss the past, present and future down to the last detail later—please, go away now.”

The king went away. Eventually. After the dinner Gwen had invited him to.

She was sorry she had. Not because it didn’t turn out to be beyond her wildest expectations. It was because Fareed constantly looked about to explode with wanting him gone.

He didn’t, thankfully, but he kept prodding him with demands to eat faster. He even cut up his food so he’d finish it sooner.

Now everyone was gone. She was alone with Fareed.

She wanted to do one thing. Beg. His forgiveness.

Before she found the words, he said, “Tell me. Everything.”

Everything was made of one simple statement. “Lyn was with me during that conference party.”

He looked at her as if he was revisualizing the past. It was as intense a gaze as what had mesmerized her during that conference. And changed her life forever.

“And Hesham was with me. I walked out, but he stayed behind, approached her.”

She nodded. “I didn’t notice much that night, but she told me later it was love at first sight.”

“And the rest is history.”

She had nothing to add. Not about this. But she had so much to say about everything else.

Words rushed under pressure. “I never dreamed your father could be this way. Hesham and Lyn made me dread him so much I…”

He waved away her explanations. “You had every right to expect the worst. I myself can’t believe what happened still, am wondering if he’s biding his time until he can pull something.”

“I know he won’t. But I wanted to be the one to tell you the whole truth, and…I left it too late.”

The weight of his gaze increased. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She’d probably lose everything answering him. She probably had already. But whatever happened, she owed him a full confession. “I believed I’d just pass through your life, and I’d be risking losing Ryan by revealing my weaker claim to him, weaker than yours, let alone your father’s. I did trust you, but I thought if you knew, your father eventually would. But I should have told you. You married me because I didn’t. I was still hoping that my adoption would come through and the marriage would serve its purpose. But we now know Ryan will be safe, so the marriage no longer serves any purpose. Now you can…end it.”

His eyes had been flaring and subsiding like fanned coals. Now they went almost black. “I gave you the essmuh.”

“Then…take it back.”

“It doesn’t work that way. Only you can end it now.”

So this was it. Moment of truth. He would have never chosen to be her husband. But he would remain in this non-marriage for Ryan’s sake or if she didn’t release him.

“H-how do I do that?”

“You just tell me. The rest is just paperwork. It’s the words, the intention, that are binding.”

She looked at him. The only man she’d ever or would ever love. She’d be forever empty when he left her life. But she’d be destroyed if she clung to him when he didn’t reciprocate.

And she let go. “I…end it.”

Gwen closed Ryan’s nursery door lost in dark musings.

Would he miss her if she left? Did he even need her anymore? Now that he had Fareed, his grandfather and an extensive family to love and cherish him? Or was she the one who needed him? He who was everything she had left to live for?

Fareed was probably realizing this now. That her role in Ryan’s life had been as temporary as it had been in his. She’d protected him until she’d delivered him into the hands of those capable of giving him the love and life he deserved.

But knowing Fareed, out of kindness, he wouldn’t say anything. He hadn’t said anything as she’d given him back his freedom. But he must have welcomed it. Chivalry and honor aside, he’d probably welcome her disappearance from his life completely, would prefer not to have her in it through their connection to Ryan.

She approached the bedroom he’d given her. The one farthest from his. She’d hoped he’d cut her off from his passion because he’d thought she was his brother’s woman, that when she confessed, his desire would be reignited.

But it had just been extinguished. The bad taste of her duplicity, however he mentally rationalized and accepted it, must have put out the lust that would have burned itself out sooner rather than later.

God, what was she still doing here? He no longer wanted her. Ryan no longer needed her. She had to go away now. She’d solve all their problems this way. She’d unburden Fareed of her presence, and Ryan was too young, he’d forget her in a month.

As for her, she might be less miserable without them, than with them and unwanted and unneeded. She might even survive.

She wouldn’t if she stayed.

She opened the door, hesitated on the threshold.

What was she doing here anyway? She didn’t need to gather her stuff. It wasn’t hers in the first place. Nothing here had ever been hers.

She’d leave like she’d come, with nothing.

And this time, Fareed wouldn’t come running to stop her. He’d stand by and would be relieved to see her go. He might even help…

“Do you know what I wanted to do when I saw you standing on that podium?”

Goose bumps stormed through her. The deep purr, like a coiled predator’s, issued from the bed.

Fareed.

She grabbed at the light switch, her hand hitting and missing it many times before soft, indirect light illuminated him.

He was wearing an abaya again, both it and the loose pants beneath, white and gold trimmed this time. His hair gleamed wet and sooty from a shower, his skin glowed with the same bronze of the headboard he was propped against, with his legs stretched out almost to the end of the bed, crossed at the ankles.

He hurt her with his beauty.

What was he doing here? What did he mean when he asked…

His voice drowned everything again, answering his own question. “I wanted to walk up to you, gather your papers, tell you that you didn’t need to solicit the world’s approval or endorsement anymore, that you have mine, that I would put everything that I have at your disposal. Then I wanted to haul you over my shoulder and take you where I can ravish you.”

She’d walked up to the bed. Was looking down at him.

Was she dreaming this?

But he was saying things she hadn’t even dreamed he’d say.

And he was saying more, infinitely better than any dream. “Then I discovered you were engaged. I was enraged, stunned. How could you not wait for me? I was also noble, stupid and I walked away. Four years of stoic deprivation later, you tell me you walked out of that conference and on that fiancé I fantasized about exiling to some undiscovered island.”

His hand clasped hers, tugged her down. She fell over him, disbelief and debilitating relief racing through her. He melted her softness and longing into his hardness and demand. She shook, gasped, resuscitation surging from his every word and touch.

“Then instead of our siblings paving the way for our being together, everything they did kept us apart and it took a string of tragedies to unite us as we should have been from that first day.”

He dissolved clothes that felt like thorns off her inflamed flesh as he spoke. She writhed in his arms, a flame igniting higher as he tore off his own clothes, the feel of his flesh her fuel.

He crushed her lips under his, breached her in a tongue-thrusting kiss that had her begging for his invasion now, no buildup, just total, instant possession.

He rolled her over, pressed his flesh onto her every exposed inch, driving her into the bed. “Then you were mine, then you were not, then you were my wife, but not really, then you set me free, when my freedom lies in making you mine, in being yours.”

“You mean…you really wanted…this?” she gasped.

“Want is a flimsy, insubstantial emotion. Does it feel like this to you?” He pressed the red-hot length of his erection, of every cabled muscle and sinew into her. Nothing flimsy or insubstantial there; everything invincible, enduring.

“I meant…you told me the marriage was only for Ryan, and to fulfill Hesham’s last request.”

“What would you tell the woman you were disintegrating for, if she looked like she was breaking up inside with grief and guilt, if you thought it was over your dead brother, and that she was hating you and herself for succumbing to your seduction and her needs? And when you’re buried under misconceptions, would you tell her, and yourself, to get over that trivial matter of a beloved dead lover and brother, demand she be your wife for real?”

She gaped at him. And gaped some more. What he was saying…

Everything she hadn’t been creative enough, daring enough, to hope for. His own version of her own misconceptions.

But one thing she couldn’t get her head around yet. “You mean…you would have asked me to marry you…anyway?”

“Why so disbelieving? You wanted me from the moment you saw me, too. And you wanted me forever because it was how I wanted you. But I wasn’t going to propose yet because I thought I first had to battle your issues with my family’s clout and your fear of being a kept woman. Little did I know that, although those might have been considerations under other circumstances, you were only bound on sacrificing your heart for Ryan’s safety.”

She shook a head spinning with the revelations and realizations. “Fareed…I—I…can’t…”

“Yes, you can, Gwen. Like you let me go, to be noble and self-sacrificing again, you can take me back. I’m giving you all that I am again, this time when you know it’s all for you. Because I fell in love with you from that first moment, thought I’d be alone forever if I didn’t have you.”

“Fareed, oh, my love…”

He captured her hot gasp. “Say this again.”

“I might never say anything else ever again. I’ve loved you from that first moment, too, knew that if I can’t have you, I’d never want anyone else. Then…”

“Then everything happened. But we found each other again, and this, what we share, is worth every heartache we endured getting here, earning it. And even though Hesham and Lyn are gone, they left us Ryan, the most beautiful part of them. We’ll continue to love them both in him, and he’ll have us both to love.”

“He…uh…might soon have more…people to love,” she mumbled.

He stared at her. “You mean…”

She felt a flush spreading over her. “Too early to be sure, but…most probably.” She hid her face into his chest, burning. “That’s why I never mentioned protection. I wanted to have your baby, thought it would be all I had of you.”

He turned her face up to his, his smile delight itself. “Same here.” Then whimsy quirked his lips. “I shudder to think what more complications we could have had if we weren’t already on the same wavelength.”

She pulled his head down to hers, took his lips in a kiss that pledged him everything, melded them for life. “I’ll tell you all I can think of. You. All of you. Your flesh in mine, your pleasure, your happiness, your existence.”

And he joined them, took her, gave her, pledged back, “Then take all of me, for life, ya hayati. For you are my life.”

* * * * *