A Secret Birthright(12)

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.





Four



Fareed hadn’t thought about Gwen’s child until this moment. Not in any terms other than his being hers.

He hadn’t had the presence of mind to formulate expectations, of the child, of his own reactions when he saw him. Had he had any mental faculties to devote to either, he would have thought he’d feel what he felt for any sick child in his care.

Now he knew anything he could have imagined would have been way off base.

She’d said Ryan didn’t have a father. He could almost believe that declaration literally now. It was as if he was hers, and hers alone. Even the discrepancy in age and gender, the almost-bald head, did nothing to dilute the reality that he was a pure part of her, body and soul.

But that absolute kinship and similarity between child and mother wasn’t why the sight of Ryan shook him to his core. Ryan, even though no more than nine or ten months old, was his own person. His effect wasn’t an echo of his mother’s, but all his own.

Ryan looked at him with eyes that were the same heavenly blue as his mother’s but reflecting his own nature and character, inquisitive, intrepid, enthusiastic. His dewy lips were rounded on his same breath-bating fascination as he probed him as if asking if he was a friend. Then he seemed to decide he was, his eyes crinkling and his lips spreading.

“Say hello to Dr. Aal Zaafer, Ryan.”

Fareed blinked as Gwen’s indulgent tone cascaded over his nerves, such a different melody from any he’d heard from her.

It had an equal effect on Ryan, who smiled delightedly up at her. Next moment, his every synapse fired as the child turned back to him, encompassed him in the same unbridled smile. Then he extended his arms to him.

He stared at the chubby hands closing and opening, beckoning for him to hurry and pick him up.

Gwen moved Ryan out of reach. “Darling, the adorable act works only on me and Rose.” Fareed’s eyes moved from Ryan’s crestfallen face to her apologetic one. “I didn’t think he would ask you for a ride. He doesn’t like to be held much, even by me. Too independent.”

She thought his hesitation meant he didn’t want to hold Ryan? She didn’t realize he was just…paralyzed? Everything inside him wanted to reach back for Ryan, but the urge was so strong, so…unknown that it overwhelmed him.

He had to correct that assumption. He couldn’t bear that she thought she’d imposed on him, couldn’t stand seeing Ryan’s chin quiver at being apparently rebuffed.