A Secret Birthright

chapter Three

She was sick.

That explained everything. The only thing that made sense. Terrible sense. Her desperation. Her mood swings. Her fainting.

She had a neurological condition. According to her symptoms, maybe…a brain tumor. And if she’d sought him out, it had to be advanced. No one sought him specifically except in conditions deemed beyond the most experienced surgeons’ skills. In neurosurgery, he was one of three on earth who’d made a vocation of tackling the inoperable, resolving the incurable.

But a month had passed since she’d first tried to reach him. Her condition could have progressed from minimal hope to none.

Could it be he’d found her, only to lose her again?

No, he wouldn’t. In the past, he’d walked away from her, respecting the commitment she’d made. But disease, even what others termed terminal, especially that, was what he’d dedicated his life to defeating. If he could never have her, at least he would give the world back that vibrant being who’d made giving hope to the hopeless her life’s work.…

“I’m not sick.”

The tremulous words hit him with the force of a bullet.

He stared at her, convictions and fears crashing, burning.

Had she said…? Yes, she had. But that could mean nothing. She’d already denied knowledge of why she’d fainted. She could still be undiagnosed, or in denial over the diagnosis she’d gotten, hoping he’d have a different verdict.…

“It’s my baby.”

This time, only one thing echoed inside his head. Why?

Why did he keep getting shocked by each new verification that this woman had a life that had nothing to do with him? That she’d planned and lived her life without his being the major part of it?

Often he’d found himself overwhelmed by bitterness without apparent reason. He now admitted to himself what that reason had been. That he still couldn’t believe she hadn’t waited to find him, had accepted a deficient connection with someone else.

But that sense of betrayal was ridiculous, had nothing to do with reality. Her marriage had been imminent when he’d seen her. So why did it shock him so much that she had a baby, the normal outcome of a years-old union?

And that baby was sick. Enough to need his surgical skills.

His heart compressed as he realized the reason, the emotions behind her every word and tear so far. The same desperation he’d once felt, to save someone whose life he valued above his own.

How ironic was it that her intensely personal need for his purely professional services had made her finally seek him out?

He’d long given in to fate that had deemed that their paths diverged before they’d had the chance to converge. But to have her enter his life this way was a punishment, an injury. And he wasn’t in any condition to take more of either.

If it had only meant his own suffering, he would have taken any measure of both. But he held his patients’ lives under the steadiness of his hand, their futures subject to the clarity of his decisions. He couldn’t compromise that.

Now he had to deal her the blow of refusing her baby’s case. He would make sure her baby got the very best care. Just not his.

He inhaled a burning breath. “Ms. McNeal…”

As if feeling he’d let her down, she sat up, eyes blazing with entreaty. “I have Ryan’s investigations with me, so maybe minutes will do. Will you take a look, tell me what you think?”

She only wanted his opinion? Didn’t want him to operate on her baby? If so…

Again, as if she felt him relenting, she scrambled up. He noticed for the first time the briefcase and purse she’d dropped. All he’d seen had been her. In spite of everything, his eyes still clung to her every move, every nuance, and his every cell ached with long-denied impulses.

He saw himself striding after her, catching her back, plastering her body against his, burying his fingers in the luxury of her golden cascade of hair, sweeping it aside to open his lips over her warm, satin flesh. What he’d give for only one taste, one kiss…

She was returning, holding the briefcase as if it contained her world, her dawn-sky eyes full of brittle hope.

Ya Ullah, how was beauty like that even possible?

He’d never been attracted to blondes, never preferred Western beauty. But to him, she was the embodiment of everything that aroused his wonder and lust. And it was only partially physical. The connection he felt between them, that which needed no knowledge or experience, just was, was everything he wanted. When he couldn’t have her.

She started fumbling with the briefcase’s zipper as she neared him, and another idea occurred to him.

If this would be only a consultation, he owed her a full one after all the suffering she’d endured for the mere hope of it.

He should also give himself a dose of shock therapy. Seeing her with her baby, with her whole family, might cure him of this insidious malady he’d been struck with at her sight.

He stayed her hand with a touch, withdrew his as if contact with her burned him, and before he tugged her against him.

“I won’t be able to give you an opinion based on those investigations. I don’t rely on any except those done to my specifications.” Alarm flared in her eyes. He couldn’t believe the effect her distress had on him. It…physically hurt. He rushed to add, “Anyway, my preferred and indispensable diagnostic method is a clinical exam. Is your baby downstairs with his father?”

Her gaze blipped, and she barely suppressed a start.

Before he could analyze her reaction, she murmured, her voice deeper, huskier, “Ryan is with his nanny at our hotel. They both got too tired and Ryan was crying nonstop and disturbing everyone, I had to send them away.” Agitation spread across her features like a shadow. “I thought I’d bring them back as soon as I got an appointment with you. But the hotel’s near the airport, and at this time of day, even if I’d told Rose to come as soon as I knew you’d see me, it would have taken her too long to get here. I didn’t even tell her, because Mr. Elkaateb said you had only minutes to spare. That’s why I said an hour won’t do.…”

He raised a hand, stopped her anxiety in its tracks. “I’m going home on my private jet, so the timing of my departure is up to me. Call your nanny and have her bring Ryan over.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh, God, thank you…”

A hand wave again stopped her. He hated the vulnerability and helplessness gratitude engendered in others, was loathe to be on its receiving end. Hers took his usual discomfort to new levels.

She nodded, accepting that he wanted none of it, dived into her purse for her phone.

In moments, with her eyes fixed on him, she said, “Rose…” She paused as the woman on the other side burst out talking. Realizing he must hear the woman, Gwen shot him an apologetic, even…shy glance. “Yes, I did. Get Ryan here ASAP.”

He barely stopped himself at a touch of her forearm. “Tell her to take her time. I’ll wait.”

The look she gave him then, the beauty of her tremulous smile, twisted another red-hot poker in his gut. He had to get away from her before he did something they’d both regret.

He turned away, headed back to the desk and blindly started gathering the files he’d scattered.

When she ended her phone call, without looking up he asked the question burning a hole in his chest, trying to sound nonchalant, “Isn’t your husband coming? Or is he back home?”

He needed to see her with her husband. He had to have that image of her with her man burned into his mind, to erase the one he had of her with him.

She didn’t answer him for what felt like an eternity. His perception sharpened and time warped with her near.

He forced himself to keep rearranging the desk, didn’t raise his eyes to read on her face the proof of her involvement with another. He should, to sever his own inexplicable and ongoing one. He couldn’t. It would be bad enough to hear it in her voice as she mentioned her husband, the father of her child.

When her answer finally came, it was subdued, almost inaudible. He almost missed it. Almost.

His heart kicked his ribs so hard that he felt both would be bruised. His eyes jerked up to her.

She’d said, “I don’t have a husband.”

He didn’t know when or how he’d crossed the distance back to her. He found himself standing before her again, the revelation reverberating in his head, in his whole being.

He heard himself rasp, “You’re divorced?”

She escaped his eyes, the slanting rays of sunset turning hers into bottomless aquamarines. “I was never married.”

He could only stare at her.

A long moment later, he voiced his bewilderment. “I thought you were engaged when I saw you at that conference.”

He thought, indeed. He’d thought of nothing else until he’d forced himself into self-inflicted amnesia.

Color rushed back into her cheeks, making his lips itch to taste that tide of peach. “I was. We…split up soon afterward.” She snatched a look back at him, her lips lifting with a faint twist of humor. “Sort of on the grounds of irreconcilable scientific differences.”

Suddenly he felt like putting his fist through the nearest wall.

B’haggej’jaheem…in the name of hell! He’d walked away because he’d believed she would marry that Kyle Langstrom. And she hadn’t.

Frustration charred his blood as realizations swamped him, of what he’d wasted when he hadn’t pursued her, hadn’t at least followed up on her news. He would have found out she hadn’t married that…that person. But that didn’t necessarily mean that…

“He’s not the father of your child?”

She ended that suspicion with a simple, “No.”

Before delight overtook him, another realization quashed it.

She might not have married Langstrom, but she had a man in her life. He had to know. “Then who is your child’s father?”

She shrugged, unease thickening her voice. “Is this about Ryan’s condition? Do you think knowing his father is important for managing it or for his prognosis?”

He was tempted to say yes, to make it imperative for her to answer him. The temptation passed, and integrity, damn it to hell, took over. He exhaled his frustration with the code he could never break. “No, knowing the source of a congenital malformation has no bearing on the course of treatment or prognosis.”

“Then I don’t see how bringing up his father is relevant.”

She didn’t want to talk about this. She was right not to. He’d never dreamed of pursuing private information from anyone, let alone the parent of a prospective patient. But this was her, the one woman he had to know everything about.

He already knew everything that was relevant to him. From her work, he’d formed a thorough knowledge of her intellect and capabilities. Instinct provided the rest, about her nature and character and their compatibility to his. What remained was the status of any personal relationship she might have.

And yet, there was a legitimate reason for him to ask about the father. “It’s relevant because the father of your child should be here, especially if your child’s condition is as serious as you believe. As his father, he has equal right to decide his course of treatment, if there is any, and an equal stake in his future.”

Concession crept in her eyes. It was still a long moment later when she spoke, making him feel as if the words caused her internal damage on their way out. “Ryan…doesn’t have a father.”

And all he could ask himself now was when? When would that woman stop slamming him with shocks? When would she stop giving him fragments of answers that only raise more maddening questions?

“You mean he’s not a part of your lives? Is he gone? Dead?”

What? the shout rang inside his head. Just tell me.

Her eyes shot up to his. She must be as attuned to him as he was to her. He’d kept his tone even, his demeanor neutral. But she must have sensed the vehemence of his frustration.

She finally exhaled. “I had Ryan from a donor.”

This time he did stagger back a step.

There was no end to her surprises.

But he was beyond surprised. He was flabbergasted. He would have never even considered this a possibility.

Even though he knew this would mean something huge when he let it sink in, and he couldn’t understand why she’d been so averse to disclosing this fact, it only raised more questions. “Why would someone so young resort to a sperm donor?”

She kept her eyes anywhere but at him, her color now dangerous. “Age is just one factor why women go the donor route. And it’s been a while since I left the designation ‘so young’ behind. Thirty-two is hardly spring chick territory.”

His lips twitched at this, yet another trace of wit. “With forty being the new thirty even where child bearing is concerned, you are firmly in that territory. If I’d just met you, I wouldn’t give you more than twenty-two.”

Her shoulders jerked on a disbelieving huff as she gave him one of those glances that made his blood pressure shoot up. “I’ve looked in a mirror lately, you know. You yourself said I look terrible. But anyway, thanks for the…chivalry.”

“I only ever say what I mean. You have proof of that from my unsweetened interrogation.” One corner of her lips lifted. “And my exact word was depleted. It’s clear you’re neglecting yourself in your anxiety over your child. It doesn’t make you any less…breathtaking.”

It was her own breath that stalled now. The sound it made catching in her throat made him dizzy with desire.

He intended to hear that sound, and many, many others, as he compromised her breathing with too much pleasure. For now he pressed on. “And I’ll keep it up until you tell me the whole story, so how about you volunteer it?”

Her shoulders rose and dropped helplessly. “Maybe you should keep it up and I’ll answer what I can because I don’t know what constitutes a whole story to you.”

“I want to know why a woman like you, who will be pursued by men when you’re seventy-two, chose to have a child without one. Was it because of your ex-fiancé? Was there more to your breakup than you let on? What did he do to put you off relationships?”

The hesitant humor playing on her lips reached her eyes. He couldn’t wait until he could see it fully unleashed. “I did ask for it. But you can’t be further from the truth in Kyle’s case. I’m the villain of the piece in that story. It was because of me that even working together became counterproductive.”

Zain. That was succinct and unequivocal. And still deficient.

He persisted, “Then why?”

She looked away again. “Not everything has to have a huge or complex reason. I just wanted a baby.”

He knew she was hiding something. The conviction burned in his gut with its intensity. “And you couldn’t wait to have one the usual way? When another suitable man came along?”

“I wasn’t interested in having another man, suitable or not.”

She fell silent. He knew she’d say no more on that issue.

He had more to say, to ask, to think, and everything to feel. It all roiled inside him, old frustrations and new questions. But one thing crystallized until it outshone everything else.

Not only didn’t she have a man in her life, but she also hadn’t wanted one. After she’d seen him. He knew it. Just like he hadn’t wanted another woman after he’d seen her.

Elation swept him. Changed the face of his existence.

He didn’t know how he stopped from doing what he’d wanted to do since that first moment—sweep her in his arms and kiss her until she begged for him. But he couldn’t do it now.

Not having her now was still torment, only sweet instead of bitter, and the wait would only make having her in time that much more transfiguring.

For now, she needed his expertise, not his passion. He would give her everything she needed.

Her eyes were focused on him in such appeal that he could swear he felt his bones liquefying. “Won’t you look at the investigations anyway, just to get an idea, while we wait?”

Eyes like these, influence like this, should be outlawed. He’d tell her that. Soon.

He smiled at her, took her elbow, guided her back to the couch. “I’d rather form an uninfluenced opinion.”

She slid him a sideways glance, and the tinge of teasing there almost made him send everything to hell and unleash four years’ worth of hunger on her. “Is anyone even capable of influencing your opinion?”

He laughed. For the first time…since he didn’t remember when. After endless months of gloom, with her here, with her free, he felt a weight had lifted. If it weren’t for Hesham, for his unfound woman and child, he would have said he was on the verge of experiencing joy.

“All this because of my interrogation?” He gently prodded her to sit down, got out his cell phone, called Emad and asked him to bring in a meal. When she insisted she’d settle for a hot drink, he overrode her with a gentle “Doctor’s orders.”

He came down beside her, close enough to feel imbued by the fragrant warmth of her body, but leaving enough space for her attempt to observe a semblance of formality.

She looked at him now, not enraged or wary or imploring, but with fascination, unable to stop studying him as he studied her, and the openness of her face, the clarity of her spirit…amazing.

He sighed his pleasure. “I would be a very poor scientist and a terrible surgeon if I wasn’t open to new influences. I should be making the crack about you. After half an hour of my premium persistence all I got out of you was a half-dozen sentences.”

She looked away, making him want to kick himself for whatever he’d done to make her deprive him of her gaze. “Your judgment has served you, and endless others, unbelievably well. You’re one surgeon who deserves to have omnipotent notions.”

“You mean my rare detractors aren’t right and I’m not just a highborn lowlife suffering from advanced narcissistic sadism laced with a terminal god complex?”

She buried her face in her hands as he paraphrased her opening salvo, before looking back up at him, embarrassment and humor a heady mix in her eyes. “Do you think there’s any chance you can pretend I never said that?”

He quirked his lips, reveling in taking her in degrees from desperation to ease. “Why would I? Because you were wrong? Are you sure you were? Maybe I behaved because you handed me my head.”

A chuckle cracked out of her. “I doubt anyone can do that.”

“You’d be really, really surprised what you can do.”

He let to me go unspoken, yet understood.

Before he could analyze the effect this declaration had on her, Emad entered with the waitstaff.

Fareed saw the question, the hope in his eyes as Emad took in the situation. Fareed gave a slight headshake letting him know she wasn’t the woman they’d been looking for.

But she was the woman he’d been looking for.

After preparing the table in front of them, and with disappointment and curiosity filling his eyes, Emad left.

For the next hour Fareed discovered new pleasures. Coddling Gwen—to her chagrin, before she succumbed, ate and drank what he served her, delighting in her resurfacing steadiness, in the banter that flowed between them, the fluency of appreciation.

Then Emad knocked again. This time he ushered in a woman carrying a child. Gwen’s child.

Fareed couldn’t focus on either. He only had eyes for Gwen as she sprung to her feet, her face gripped with emotions, their range breathtaking in scope and depth. Anxiety, relief, welcome, love, protection and so much more, every one fierce, total.

He heard the child squeal as he threw himself into her eager embrace. He registered the elegant, classically pretty redhead in her late forties, who Gwen introduced as Rose Maher, a distant maternal relative and Ryan’s nanny. He welcomed her with all the cordiality he could access, filed everything about her for later analysis. Then he turned to Gwen’s child.

And the world stopped in its tracks.