A Secret Birthright(3)

Jameel. Great. He was losing it. He huffed in disgust at his wavering stamina. “Why this one? Why is she special?”

Emad sighed, clearly not appreciating needing to explain his conviction. “Her approach was unlike any other. She didn’t use the contact number you specified in the ad but has been trying to reserve an appointment with you through the hospital from the day we arrived. Today they told her that you were leaving and she started weeping.…”

Fareed slammed down the dossier he’d picked up. “So she’s even more cunning than the rest, realized that the others’ approach hadn’t borne fruit and tried to get past your screening by conning her way to me through my work. And when that didn’t work, she made a scene. Is that why you want me to see her? Damage control? To stop compounding the ‘scandal I created for myself and my family’?”

Emad’s dark eyes emptied of expression. “I wouldn’t want to resurrect that mess after I managed to contain it. But that’s not why. The people in reception today are new. They only heard the story of her waiting around for the past four weeks in case you had an opening in your schedule from her disjointed accounts. When they couldn’t deal with her, they sent for me, and I…saw her, heard what little she’d been able to say. She…feels different from the rest. Feels truly distraught.”

Fareed snorted. “An even more superlative actress, eh?”

“Or maybe the real thing.”

His heart boomed with hope, once, before it plummeted again into despondence. “You don’t believe that.”

Emad leveled his gaze on him. “The real thing does exist.”

“And she doesn’t want to be found,” Fareed growled. “She must know I’ve turned the world upside down to find her and she didn’t come forward. Why would she decide to show up when nothing has changed?”

“Maybe nothing we know of.”

Fareed closed his eyes. Emad’s calm logic was maddening him. He was in a far worse condition than he’d realized if anything Emad, of all people, said or did had him within a hair’s breadth of going berserk. It seemed he’d distracted himself at the cost of pushing himself to a breakdown.

Emad’s deep tones, so carefully neutral, felt like discordant nails against his restraint. “But what we do know is that Hesham’s Lyn is still out there.”

And what if that woman down there was her?

He closed his eyes against hope’s insidious prodding. But it was too late. It had already eaten through his resistance.

This woman most probably wasn’t; but really, what was one more performance to suffer? He’d better get this over with.

He opened his eyes as Emad opened his mouth to deliver another argument. He raised his hand, aborting it. “Send her up. I’m giving her ten minutes, not a second more. Tell her that. Then I’m walking out and I’m never coming back to this country.”

Emad gave a curt nod, turned on his heels.

He watched him exit the ultramodern space the hospital had given him as his consultation room, before he sagged in the luxury of the leather swiveling chair. It felt as if he’d sunk into thorns.

If more fake, stomach-turning stories about his brother were flung in his face, he would not be responsible for his actions.

He glowered at the door. He’d seen all kinds. From the sniveling to the simpering to the seductive. He had an idea which type this one would be. The hysterical. Maybe even the delusional.

He steeled himself for another ugly confrontation as the door was pushed open. Emad preceded the woman into the room.

But he barely saw him. He didn’t hear what Emad said before he left, or notice when he did.

All he saw was the golden vision approaching until only the wide desk stood between them.

He found himself on his feet without realizing he’d moved, only one thought reverberating in his mind.

Please, don’t be Hesham’s Lyn!

The thought stuttered to a standstill.

B’Ellahi, what was he thinking? He should be wishing that she was, that his search was over.

It shouldn’t make a difference that her drowned sky-at-dawn eyes dissolved his coherence and the sunlight silk that cascaded over her bosom made his hands ache to twist in it. It didn’t matter that the trembling of her lush lips shook his resolve and her graceful litheness gripped his guts in a snare of instant hunger. If she turned out to be Hesham’s Lyn…

His thoughts convulsed to a halt again.