Heir to a Desert Legacy

chapter FIVE



FOR THE NEXT COUPLE OF weeks, Sayid simply wasn’t around. And Chloe was grateful for it. His words, callous, and clearly true to him, had put her on guard.

She was nothing but a pawn to him. Simply an incidental. If scandal threatened to break, he would ship her back to Portland, of that she was certain. And she wasn’t ready to leave Aden.

Not yet.

She had nearly six months left with him, and she was going to treasure every moment. Capture it so she could hold it close. Always.

She closed her eyes and envisioned her hypothetical classroom again. It would be filled with students ready to learn.

And in the back of her mind, she would wonder the whole time about Aden. If he was being held enough. Loved enough.

She stood up from her computer and tugged her glasses off, walked from her room into his. She knew she shouldn’t pick him up since he was sleeping, but after the jarring thought of being separated from him, thousands of miles between them, she needed closeness. Needed to feel the bond that had been growing, strengthening, since the moment she first felt him move inside of her.

While pregnant, she’d never thought of him as hers. But it had been impossible not to marvel at it. She knew all about the development of babies in the womb. Such an intricate act of science that required everything to happen according to a perfect plan, with precision, with timing that was utterly essential.

And it had been happening inside of her.

Then, when he’d been born, all she’d thought about was survival. Hers and his. A bond forged by fire.

Now...it was changing again. When she thought of him, everything inside of her softened, the emotion she felt was an ache that started at the base of her throat and spread throughout her chest, to her limbs. And there was no rational explanation she could find for it, no biological excuse to try and explain it away.

Because biologically, Aden wasn’t her son. But her body had stopped caring.

Her heart didn’t care very much anymore, either. But her brain...her brain knew. Knew that it couldn’t last. That he wasn’t hers. That the wise decision was to keep aiming for her academic and professional ideal.

That this interruption of her plan, this detour, shouldn’t be allowed to matter so much.

For the first time, her brain was losing the argument.

She reached into the crib and picked Aden up. He squeaked, burrowing into her chest, the little noise making her heart lift. What was she doing? She wasn’t mother material. She knew nothing about a functional mother-child relationship.

And she wasn’t his mother.

You’re the only one he has.

That her brain knew and agreed with. There would be no nurturing from Sayid. There would be nothing from his uncle, no affection, no kissing scraped knees. There would be staff.

The thought of it chilled her, down to that deep, indefinable part of herself that was made up of pure, raw emotion. The part that transcended logic and reason. Trumped it completely.

She couldn’t allow it.

Certainty spread through her, a certainty that had been growing, steadily and surely, since the moment Aden

was born.

She didn’t want to walk away from her life in Portland. Didn’t want to put her dreams on hold.

But she could.

The one thing she couldn’t do was walk away from Aden.

* * *

“Sayid, I need to speak with you.”

Sayid looked up and saw Chloe standing in the doorway. She was wearing black slacks, a white button-up shirt and a suit jacket. The buttons on the white top gapped at her breasts and the jacket was left unbuttoned, likely too tight for her post-baby figure.

He needed to have his dresser get her a new wardrobe that would accommodate her curves, but he hadn’t had the time. Especially because he’d been so busy avoiding her. Doing necessary work, of course, but avoiding her had been a perk.

“It’s far too hot for that outfit,” he said.

“Yes,” she said, wiping a hand over her forehead, “but appropriate for a meeting.”

“You’ve called a meeting with the sheikh, have you?” He pressed his palms flat against the cool surface of the desk. “Ambitious. But I am very busy.”

“It concerns your king,” she said, her tone icy enough to leave frost on his desk in spite of the desert sun that blazed outside. His body reacted to it, a visceral response that went deep. His attraction to her was completely unexplainable. He liked women unchallenging and biddable. Liked women who wanted a couple hours and orgasms of his time and nothing more.

Sex was perfunctory for him. Another need that he saw was met. It wasn’t this. This...desire that was turning itself into an ache. That filled in the cracks that were starting to break open inside of him and forced them deeper, wider.

“Then speak, but be quick.” He curled his fingers in slowly, making fists, using the tension to help combat the tightening in his gut.

“Six months is no longer agreeable for me,” she said, clipped.

The desire that had been pooling in his gut, wearing a gully through the stone wall that blocked his emotion, turned into rage. It was far too late to stop the flow by the time he realized what he’d allowed to escape.

“Cutting into your study time is he?” Sayid asked, keeping his voice measured, keeping his emotions in check. He couldn’t credit what made him so angry about her announcement. Couldn’t credit why he’d allowed himself to feel it.

Everything was in place for Aden’s care. Chloe was an incidental. An incidental that was popular with the people, but an incidental nonetheless. He didn’t need her and neither did Aden.

Yet the idea that she could be so callous as to abandon her baby... No. Not her baby. Rashid and Tamara’s baby. Chloe had no reason to stay and he would do well to remember that.

“Not in the least,” Chloe said, her answer surprising him.

“I will not argue with you, Chloe. You were the one who asked to come, if you would like to leave now, the door is wide-open. Aden will want for nothing. Considering the experience, or lack of it, that you bring to the table, I doubt Aden will miss you too terribly.”

“Is that what you think?” she asked, her tone thick.

“I do.” He looked back down at the paperwork on his desk. “Shall I ready the private plane to take you back to the States?”

He heard her take a deep breath in. “No, actually, what I was trying to tell you was that six months is no longer enough for me. I need more.”

“What more do you need?” he asked.

“It’s never going to be enough,” she said. “Ever. I thought it would. I thought if I waited, then I would really start to long for the future I always imagined I would have. And I still want it, it’s not that I don’t, it’s just that...it’s not the most important thing anymore, and no matter how hard I try to make it the most important thing, I can’t.”

“What exactly do you mean?” His patience was getting short.

“Aden,” she said, her voice raw. “I don’t know what I’m doing with him, but at this point, I know one thing. I can’t...leave him. Not in six months, not ever. I tried to be rational about it, and tell myself that he’s not my son. Tell myself I’ve worked too hard for too long to compromise my position in graduate school but I...”

“What are you proposing?” he bit out.

“That I stay.”

“For how long?”

“For...for forever?”

“You intend to stay here in the palace—in Attar—forever?”

“It’s not ideal, I grant you that. I’m much more suited to the climate in Portland, and I was going to school there. And I miss trees, dammit. But...but not nearly as much as I’ll miss Aden if I leave. I can’t leave.”

“This is what you want?”

She shook her head, looking down at the floor. “I don’t know what I want anymore. I spent most of my life wanting one thing, and now it just doesn’t mean what it did anymore. Now I don’t know what I want. All I know is what I can live without, and what I can’t.”

“And how is it I’m to explain to the world that Aden’s life-saving nurse can’t bear to leave him?”

“Sounds plausible to me,” she said. “You know how we women are with our emotions, and other nonsense sheikhs just don’t bear.”

“There’s a chance it will cause suspicion and that’s one thing we can’t have.”

“Why?” she asked, weak. Pitiful. She was showing her vulnerability. He could crush her now, emotionally, as easily as he could crush her if he wrapped his fingers around her soft, lily-white throat.

The showing, so artless, so genuine, sent a shock of anxiety through him. Didn’t she know what people could do with such an open expression of emotion? How much power it gave to others? She had just given him a weapon capable of destroying her, one that would enable him to manipulate her into doing whatever he chose.

She had revealed her biggest weakness to a man who had been trained to exploit weakness in others. To use it with ruthless precision. He both rejoiced in it, and feared for her.

Now the decision he had to make was what he would do with it. If anything.

“You know why,” he said, keeping his tone calm, collected. “It’s not just to preserve the memory of Rashid and Tamara, it’s so that Aden’s right to the throne is never contested. DNA testing is fine and good, but can you imagine what the more traditional citizens of my country would think about you carrying the sheikha’s child? If he is perceived to be illegitimate, or the product of something unnatural, then the way they view their future king could be compromised and I will not allow it.”

“Protect the king,” she said. “At all costs.”

“Otherwise the game is lost.”

Chloe took a shaky breath, feeling outside of herself, as if she was above her body somewhere, watching, rather than living in the moment.

“There has to be a way. There has to be...”

“Six months was the agreement, Chloe,” he said, his voice hard. “Anything beyond that cannot be guaranteed.”

“I see.” She heard herself answer, but she wasn’t sure if she spoke the truth. Or how she’d managed to get the words out past the lump in her throat.

“It is not my intention to hurt you, but I have to think of Attar. Of Aden.”

“I am thinking of Aden.”

“In a sense, yes. But I am thinking of his future as a ruler, not of his need to be tucked in at night. I’m thinking of the essential things.”

She wanted to argue that being tucked in at night was essential. At least, she imagined that it was. Her mother had been too caught up in the husband who used and mistreated her to take time for her daughter. And her father... She had started shrinking away from his touch at an early age, her survival instinct screaming that he was a predator who saw those smaller and weaker as prey. She’d retreated into her mind, found comfort there, because there had never been anything physical for her to find comfort in.

But she imagined it could be essential. That it could be wonderful.

“There’s more to life than duty,” she said.

“Not when you’re royalty, habibti, not then. Because the happiness, the future, of millions of people depend on you. A royal is both the most important person in a country, and the least. For they must give it all in the name of serving the people.”

Her stomach clamped down hard. “I don’t want that for him.”

“It is what he was born for.”

“I know.”

“Then you cannot stand in the way of it.” He looked back down at his paperwork, and she could tell by his posture that he was through with her.

She was through with him, too. For now. She wasn’t letting go of the idea. The certainty that she was asking for the right thing by asking to stay with Aden had only grown when he’d refused her. If there was one thing she knew how to do, it was put her head down and soldier on, no matter how hard things were.

No matter how violently the storm raged around her, she knew how to keep herself safe. How to keep herself from going crazy. Even with everything happening in her home growing up she’d gotten perfect grades in school. She’d learned to insulate herself, to go to her mind, to ignore what seemed like impossibilities and find ways to work around them.

The only absolutes were in the scientific world, and she’d made it her business to discover them all. Everything else had room for negotiation.

She turned on her heel and walked out of Sayid’s office. Yes, she was done with him for now. Until she could formulate a plan. And once she did, heaven help the man that thought he could control her, put her in her place as easily as he seemed to think he could.

* * *

It had been several hours since his confrontation with Chloe, and Sayid had spent that time going over the news stories that had been written about Aden and the circumstances surrounding his birth. And the stories written about him. The uncertainty, the doubt in his ability to do anything more than use brute force to get results.

Chloe James was hailed as a hero. The woman who had risked the wrath of the remaining royal family in order to ensure the safety of their miracle child.

There was speculation as well of who would be raising the beloved heir. It was rumored, and it was true, that an army of staff and nannies would be on hand to deal with the child. And concern over what sort of influence Sayid would be able to provide. If he would show Aden anything other than the cold stone wall he presented to the media.

He was a symbol of Attar’s strength. Of its unbending attitude to its enemies. And his country knew it. He made such a success of the image that even his own people feared him.

The media wanted a family for their beloved prince. One that would fill the void left by Rashid and Tamara. And one thing they were certain about: Sayid could not fill that void.

But Chloe James could.

Oh, she was no natural mother, anyone could see that. But there was a need there, a fierce protectiveness that was unlike anything he’d ever seen. Even more than that, the nation recognized her as Aden’s savior, and by extension, theirs.

As dark as the loss of Rashid had been, it had been even bleaker still that he was the one left to rule. There were whispers of his incompetence, even throughout the palace. That he was too hard. Too damaged from his years away from the palace, his time as a prisoner of war.

The second son’s duty was to serve the country. Not simply as a soldier, but as the lead military strategist. Second sons were sent away to learn, to cultivate toughness and strength. Second sons could not afford to be treated with softness or affection.

The need for empathy was a necessary trait for a leader, but not for a man of war. A machine of war.

His uncle, the second son of his family, had raised Sayid for most of his life. A man who had seen much war, a man who had lived through things no man should live through. A man who had emerged with his sanity and who had set out to make sure Sayid was strong enough to do the same.

You are a symbol for the country, Sayid. An ideal. An ideal must never be allowed to fail, or everyone who puts faith in it will fail along with it.

So he had become more than a man. And in so doing he had lost his humanity. Something that didn’t bother him anymore. That required feeling. Feeling he didn’t have.

It had been Kalid who had taken that final weakness, that final bit of tenderness inside of him, and given him reason to cut it out of his chest on his own. It had seemed a cruelty then. Pain beyond measure. But the man had been showing him his own weakness, and showing him why it must not be allowed to remain in him.

Look at how your weakness betrays you.

So he had carved all of the emotion, the empathy, the love, the pain, from his chest, leaving it hollow. Leaving himself protected. Leaving others protected.

But Aden was born to be a leader. His requirements were different. His needs were different.

It was not in Sayid to admit weakness, and yet, in this area, there was no circumventing it. He was at a loss to provide love, emotional support, to the future heir of his country.

He picked up one of the newspapers from his desk, the one with Chloe’s picture on the cover, of her standing behind him, a blanket-wrapped bundle in her arms.

They were positioned just as the royal family would have been positioned for a press conference, with her to his right, just behind him, the child in her care.

It could not have been posed better if they were trying to make it appear that that was what they were: a family.

His brain began to quickly slot things into place. Turning problems to solutions was a major part of his life, of how he kept people safe. And yes, he had failed in it before, but he had sworn he never would again.

Just a few hours ago, the desire Chloe James felt to stay in Attar was a problem. A slow smile, one that had nothing to do with happiness, curved his lips upward.

He knew just how to make Chloe a solution.