A Secret Birthright

chapter Two



Gwen McNeal heard the choking accusations as if they came from a disembodied voice. One that sounded like hers.

It seemed the past weeks had damaged what had been left of her sanity. She’d made her initial request for a meeting with it already strained. But as time had ticked by and her chances of meeting him had diminished, her stamina had dwindled right along.

She’d thought she’d be a mass of incoherence when she was finally in his presence.

Then she was there, and the sight of him had jolted through her like a lightning bolt. The intensity of his gaze, of his impact, had slashed the last tethers of her restraint.

She’d just accused him of being an over-endowed sadist who lived to make lesser beings beg for his intervention.

At least the unchecked flow had stopped. All she could do now was stare in horror at him as he stared back at her in stupefaction. And realize.

He was what she remembered. Description-defying. Or there had to be new adjectives coined to describe his brand of virility and grandeur. Seeing him felt like being catapulted into the past. A past when she’d known where her life was heading. A life that had been derailed since she’d laid eyes on him.

Ever since, she’d told herself she’d exaggerated her memories of him, had built him up into what no one could possibly be.

But he was all that. It was all there, and more. The imposing physicality, the inborn grace and power, the sheer influence. She had no doubt time would continue to magnify his assets until he did become godlike.

One thing time hadn’t enhanced, though. His effect on her. How could it when that had been shattering to start with?

Then he moved. The move itself was almost imperceptible, but the intention behind it, to come closer, when that would engulf her even deeper into his aura, intensify his effect, went off inside her like a clap of thunder.

Desperation burst from her in a new rush of resentment. “Five minutes? That’s what you allow people in your presence? Then you walk away without looking back? Do you smirk in satisfaction as they run after you begging for a few more moments of your priceless time? Do you enjoy making them grovel? That’s how much regard the world’s leading philanthropist surgeon really has for others?”

A slow blink swept his sinful lashes down, before they lifted to level his smoldering gaze on her.

“I actually said ten minutes.”

She’d thought his voice had been hard-hitting in the videos she’d seen of his interviews, lectures and educational surgeries. In reality, the depth and richness of his tones, the potency of his accent, the beauty of his every inflection made the words he uttered an invocation.

“And when I said that…”

She cut him off, unable to hear more of that spell. “So you granted me ten minutes instead of five. I can see how your reputation was founded, on such magnanimous offers. But I’ve already wasted most of those ten minutes. Do I start counting down the rest before you walk away as if I’m not here?”

He shook his head as if it would help him make sense of her words, and L.A.’s winter afternoon sun slanting through the windows glinted off his raven mane. “I won’t do any such thing, Ms. McNeal.”

Her heart gave one detonation. He…he…he remembered her?

The world receded into a gray vortex. A terrible whoosh yawned in her ears. Everything faded away as she plunged in a freefall of nothingness.

Something immovable broke her plummet, and she found herself struggling within the living cables that encompassed her, reaching back to the reprieve that oblivion offered.

“B’Ellahi…don’t fight me.”

The dark melody poured into her brain as she lost all connection with gravity, was swathed in hot hardness and dizzying fragrance. She opened her eyes at the sensation and that face she’d long told herself she’d forgotten filled her vision. She hadn’t forgotten one line of symmetry or strength, one angle or slash or groove of nobility and character and uniqueness. Sheikh Fareed Aal Zaafer would be unforgettable after one fleeting look. Secondhand exposure would have been enough. But that firsthand encounter had been indelible.

But if she’d thought his effect from a distance the most disruptive force she’d ever encountered, now that she filled his arms, he filled her senses, conquered what remained of her resistance.

A violent shudder shook her. He gathered her tighter.

“Put me down, please.” Her voice broke on the last word.

His eyes moved to her lips as soon as she spoke, following their movements. Blood thundered in her head at his fascination. His hands only tightened their hold, branding her through her clothing.

“You fainted.” His gaze dragged from her lips, raking every raw nerve in her face on its way back up to her eyes.

She fidgeted, trying to recoup her scattered coordination. “I just got dizzy for a second.”

“You fainted.” His insistence was soft like gossamer, unbending as steel. “A dead faint. I had to vault over the desk to catch you before you fell face down over that table.”

Her eyes panned to where she’d been standing by a large, square, steel-and-glass table. Articles were flung all over the floor around it.

Even though she’d never fainted in her life, no doubt formed in her mind. She had. And he’d saved her.

The bitterness that had united with tension to hold her together disintegrated in the heat of shame at her behavior so far. All she wanted was to burrow into his power and weep.

She couldn’t. For every reason there was. She had to keep her distance at all costs.

He was walking to the sitting area by the windows as if afraid she’d come apart if he jarred her. What did was the solicitude radiating from him.

She pulled herself rigid in his hold. “I’m fine now…please.”

He stopped. She raised a wavering gaze to his, found it filled with something…turbulent. Then it grew assessing, as if weighing the pros and cons of granting her plea.

Then he loosened his arms by degrees, let her slide in nerve-abrading slowness down his body. She swayed back a step as soon as her feet found the ground, and her legs wobbled under her weight, as if she’d long depended on him to support it. His hand shot out to steady her. She shook her head. He took his hand away, gestured for her to sit down, command and courtesy made flesh and bone.

She almost fell onto the couch, shot him a wary glance as soon as she’d sought its far end. “Thank you.”

He came to tower over her. “Nothing to thank me for.”

“Just for saving me from being rushed to the E.R., probably with severe facial fractures, or worse.”

His spectacular eyebrows snapped together as if in pain, the smoldering coals he had for eyes turning almost black. “Tell me why you fainted.”

She huffed. “If I knew that, I wouldn’t have.”

His eyes drilled into hers, clearly unsatisfied with her answer. “You’re not alarmed that you did faint, at least you’re not surprised. So you have a very good idea why. Tell me.”

“It was probably agitation.”

His painstakingly sculpted lips twisted. “You might be a renowned pharmaceutical researcher, Ms. McNeal, but I’m the doctor among us and the one qualified to pass medical opinions. Agitation makes you more alert, not prone to collapse.”

He wouldn’t budge, would he? She had to give him something to satisfy his investigative appetite so she could move on to the one subject that mattered. “It—it was probably the long wait.”

He still shook his head. “Eight hours of waiting, though long, wouldn’t cause you to be so exhausted you’d faint. Not without an underlying cause.”

“I’ve been here since 4:00 a.m…” His eyebrows shot up in surprise. And that was before she added, “yesterday.”

His incredulity shot higher, his frown grew darker. “You’ve been sitting down there for thirty-six hours?”

He suddenly came down beside her, with a movement that should have been impossible for someone of his height, his thigh whisper-touching hers as those long, powerful fingers, his virtuoso surgeon’s tools, wrapped around her wrist to take her pulse. Her heartbeats piled up in her heart before drenching her arteries in a torrent.

He raised probing eyes to her. “Have you slept or even eaten during that time?” She didn’t remember. She started to nod and he overrode her evasion. “It’s clear you did neither. You haven’t been doing either properly for a long time. You’re tachycardic as if you’ve been running a mile.” Was he even wondering why, with him so near? “You must be hypoglycemic, and your weak pulse indicates your blood pressure is barely adequate to keep you conscious. I wouldn’t even need any of those signs to guide me about your condition. You look—depleted.”

From meeting her haggard face in the mirror, she knew she made a good simulation of the undead. But having him corroborate her opinion twisted mortification inside her.

Which was the height of stupidity. What did it matter if he thought she looked like hell? What mattered was that she fixed her mistake, got on with her all-important purpose.

“I was too anxious to sleep or eat, but it’s not a big deal. What I said to you is, though. I’m sorry for…for my outbursts.”

Something flared in his eyes, making her skin where he still held her hand feel as if it would burst into flame. “Don’t be. Not if I’ve done anything to deserve this…antipathy. And I’m extremely curious, to put it mildly, to find out what that was. Do you think I left you waiting this long out of malice? You believe I enjoy making people beg for my time, offer it only after they’ve broken down, only to allow them inadequate minutes before walking away?”

“No— I—I mean…no…your reputation says the very opposite.”

“But your personal experience says my reputation might be so much manufactured hype.”

Her throat tightened with a renewed surge of misery. “It’s just you…you announced you’d be available to be approached, but I was told the opposite, and I no longer knew what to believe.”

She felt him stiffen, the fire in his eyes doused in something…bleak. She’d somehow offended him with her attempts at apology and explanation more than she had with her insults.

But even if she deserved that he walked away from her, she couldn’t afford to let him. She had to beg him to hear her out.

“Please, forget everything I said and let me start over. Just give me those ten minutes all over again. If afterward you think you’re not interested in hearing more, walk away.”

Fareed crashed down to earth.

He’d forgotten. As she’d lambasted him, as he’d lost himself in the memory of his one exposure to her, in his delight in finding her miraculously here, then in his anxiety when she’d collapsed, he’d totally forgotten.

Why he’d walked away from her that first time.

As she’d concluded her presentation and applause had risen, so had everyone. He’d realized it had been the end of the session when people had deluged him, from colleagues to grant seekers to the press. He’d wanted to push them all away, his impatience rising with his satisfaction as her gaze had kept seeking him, before darting away when she’d found him focused on her.

And then a man had swooped out of nowhere, swept her off her feet and kissed her soundly on the lips. He’d frozen as the man had hugged her to his side with the entitlement of long intimacy, turned her to pose for photos and shouted triumphant statements to reporters about the new era “their” drug would herald in pharmaceuticals.

He’d grabbed the first person near him, asked, “Who’s that?”

He’d gotten the answer he’d dreaded. That, a Kyle Langstrom, had been her fiancé and partner in research.

As the letdown had mushroomed inside him, he’d heard Kyle announcing that with the major hurdle in their work overcome, there’d soon be news of equal importance: a wedding date.

The knowledge of her engagement had doused his blaze of elation at finding her, buried all his intentions. His gaze had still clung to her receding figure as if he could alter reality, make her free to return his interest, to receive his passion.

Just before the tide of companions had swept her out of sight, she’d looked back. Their eyes had met for a moment.

It had felt like a lifetime when the world had ceased to exist and only they had remained. Then she’d been gone.

He’d seen her again during the following end-of-conference party. The perverse desire to see her again even when it oppressed him had made him attend it. He’d stood there unable to take his eyes off her. She’d kept her gaze averted. But he’d known she’d been struggling not to look back. He’d finally felt bad enough about standing there coveting another man’s woman that he’d left with the party at full swing.

He hadn’t returned to the States again until Hesham.

He’d replayed that last glance for months afterward. Each time seeing his own longing and regret reflected in her eyes. And each time he’d told himself he’d imagined it.

He’d long convinced himself he had imagined everything. Most of all, her unprecedented effect on him.

It had taken him one look today to realize he’d completely downplayed it. To realize why he’d been unable to muster interest in other women ever since. He might not have consciously thought it, but he’d found no point in wasting time on a woman who didn’t inspire the white-hot recognition and attraction this woman had.

Now she’d appeared here, out of the blue, had been waiting to see him for a month, her last vigil lasting a day and a half of sleepless starvation. She’d just said she was here because he’d “announced he’d be available to be approached.”

Had she meant his ad? Could it be, of all women, this one he’d wanted on sight, hadn’t only been some stranger’s once, but Hesham’s, too?

If she had been, he must have done something far worse than what she’d accused him of in her agitation. What else would that be but some unimaginably cruel punishment of fate?

He hissed, “Just tell me and be done with it.”

She lurched as if he’d backhanded her. No wonder. He’d sounded like a beast, seconds away from an attack.

Before he could form an apology, she spoke, her voice muffled with tears, “I lied—” She had? About what? “—when I said ten minutes would do. I did keep asking reception for any moments you could spare when they said full appointments were reserved for patients on your list. I now realize they couldn’t have acted on your orders, must have done the same with the endless people who came seeking your services. But I was told you’re leaving in an hour, and that long might not do now either and…”

He raised his hands to stem the flow of her agitation, his previous suspicions crashing in a domino effect.

“You’re here for a consultation?”

She raised eyes brimming with tears and…wariness? Nodded.

Relief stormed through him. She wasn’t here about the ad, about Hesham. She was here seeking his surgical services.

Next moment relief scattered as another suspicion detonated.

“You’re sick?”