A Secret Birthright(15)
Fareed shook his head as the door closed behind them. He looked at Ryan, who was testing his stubble. “Can you believe this, Ryan? Emad teasing? Seems the power to change the laws of nature runs in your family.”
Ryan squeaked as if in agreement and Fareed turned his gaze to Gwen, offered her his hand.
She stared at it for moments, her lower lip caught in her teeth, the very sight of conflicted temptation.
Before he gave in and reached for her hand, she gave it to him. He almost groaned and barely kept from bringing her nestling into him. He would make her give in, fully, irreversibly. In good time.
First, he would see to her peace of mind.
He made it a pledge. “Now I’ll see to Ryan, Gwen.”
Gwen’s heart gave another boom before resuming its gallop.
But it wasn’t only hearing her name on his lips that caused this latest disturbance. It was that he pronounced it Gwaihn, the breathy sound as he prolonged it a scorching sigh, making an intimacy of it, a promise…of so many things she couldn’t even contemplate.
As if having her hand engulfed in his wasn’t enough. But she had herself to blame for this. She’d given her hand to him when she should have shown him she’d allow only formal interaction.
But she hadn’t been able to withhold it. He was offering her what she’d been starving for. Support, strength other than her own to draw on, an infinite well of it. And whatever the consequences, she hadn’t been able to stop from reaching for it.
He took them to the other end of the room, behind an opaque glass partition, to what turned out to be a fully fitted exam room.
“Gwen…” She started again. He cocked his head at her. “May I call you Gwen?”
She almost cried out, No, you may not. Please, don’t.
Out loud she reluctantly said, “If you like, Dr. Aal Zaafer.”
“I like, very much. And it’s Fareed.”
This was getting worse by the second. “Er…all right, Dr. Fareed…or, uh, do you prefer Sheikh?”
“Just Fareed.”
And wasn’t that the truth. He was unique, as his name proclaimed him to be. She’d looked up its meaning long before…
She shook her head, trying not to let the memories deluge her. “I can’t call you just…that.”
“Rose did, without a second’s hesitation.”
“Rose, as you noticed, is…is…”
“Blessedly unreserved. You should follow her example because I won’t be called anything else by you. We’re not only colleagues—” before she could contest that, he pressed on “—working in complementary fields, but I owe a lot of my most positive results to your breakthrough. The drug you developed has been my most reliable postoperative adjuvant therapy for years.”
She gaped at him, her heart flapping inside her chest with a mixture of disbelief and pride. “I didn’t realize…didn’t know…”
He gave her one of those earth-shaking smiles of his. “Now you do. And even though I’m getting impatient with your slowness in developing the other drug that should shrink tumors before surgery, I’ll forgive you on the strength of the first one. So we have far more than enough grounds for at least a first-name basis.”
His lips listed those acceptable reasons, but his eyes told her the truth. He wanted this intimacy, would have it.
But she needed formality to hide behind, to keep things in perspective. Otherwise…
No. No otherwise. If anyone was off-limits to her, it was Fareed Aal Zaafer. She’d better never forget that.
“How about that game? It’s super-easy and a lot of fun.”
The indulgent drawl, which he only produced while talking to Ryan, snatched her out of her latest plunge into turmoil.
She watched him lay Ryan down on the exam bed and hand him a reflex hammer and penlight to play with. He moved around, turning on machines, gathering instruments, all the time explaining what he was doing and naming everything and what they were for.
He was talking to Ryan because he must know she knew all that. And that he was explaining to a ten-month-old, without the least condescension, as if he believed it was never too early for Ryan to learn, as if he hoped Ryan would at least understand the consideration in his attitude, choked her up again.
When he returned to Ryan’s side, she asked, “Won’t you call your assistants?”
He cocked one eyebrow at her, teasing sparking the fiery brown of his eyes. “You think I can’t handle examining one highly cooperative tyke on my own?”