A Secret Birthright(41)

He cocked one eyebrow at her. “You’re saying I coerced you?”

“I’m saying free will and you are mutually exclusive.”

“I had to take charge of Ryan’s care. Then I had to make you act on our shared desire. But if I ever feel that being with me is no longer your priority or good for Ryan, if you ever have a better offer professionally, I won’t try to make you stay. This I promise you. On my honor.”

She looked as if she’d burst into tears.

Before he rushed to add something, anything, she choked out, “Oh, God, Fareed…you’re being so unfair. You’re…deluging me with so much. But I have to say no. I never dreamed it would go this far, but if you’re too blinded to care about your best interest, and ours, to end it now, I have to do it.”

He wanted to kick himself. He hadn’t considered those reasons for her reticence. That she believed he was compromising himself, and her, for something that would end. She was calculating the damages, to him, to her and Ryan, after such a finite, even if prolonged and powerful, interlude ended.

But he couldn’t make it clear he had no intention of ending this. Before he discussed permanence, he had to first resolve all her issues, about her and Ryan’s future here, give her more than offers and promises, show her how it would work in practice.

His cell phone rang. He ignored it, began, “Gwen, galbi…”

She grabbed his forearm. “Won’t you answer?”

“No.” He glared his annoyance at the phone on the dresser, tugged her nearer. “Now, Gwen…”

Her grip tightened. “That’s Emad’s ringtone.”

He shrugged. “He’ll call later. Gwen…”

“But he’s not hanging up,” she persisted. “It might be Ryan or Rose and my own phone is dead or something.”

She scrambled to get out of bed, and he stopped her, resigned that the moment was ruined.

“I’ll answer him.” He jumped out of bed, reveling in her hungry eyes on his aroused nakedness, despite her alarm. “And it’s not about Ryan or Rose, I’m sure, so you stay right there. I’m coming back as soon as I blast Emad to the farthest kingdom in the region.”

He felt steam rising from his skin as he snatched up the phone and put it to his ear.

Emad preempted his frustration. “I need to speak to you.”

“You couldn’t have picked a worse time,” he hissed.

Emad’s exhalation was weary. “That’s true, if not for the reason you mean. I am waiting downstairs in your office.”

“I’ll come down in an hour. Maybe two.”

“No, Somow’wak.” Emad sounded like never before. Blunt, brooking no arguments. “You’ll come down now.”





“Now” turned out to be twenty minutes later, the shortest time it took Fareed to dress and to take his leave of Gwen.

He strode into his office, displeasure roiling inside him. “You’d better have some unprecedented reason for this, Emad…”

Suddenly, Fareed’s blood froze in his arteries. The look on Emad’s face. This was momentous.

This was about Hesham’s family.

A lead had finally led somewhere. He could think of nothing else that would make Emad ask his presence so imperatively, or look so…so…

“You found them?” he rasped.

Emad gave a difficult nod.

Fareed’s heart crashed. “Something happened to them?”

Emad leveled grim eyes on him. “No, but it’s not much less terrible than if something had.”

“B’Ellahi, Emad, just tell me,” he roared.

Emad winced at his loss of control.

Then with regret heavy in his voice, he said, “I’ve found proof that Hesham’s woman is…Gwen.”





Ten



“You’re insane.”

That was all Fareed could say, could think. That was the only explanation for what Emad had just uttered.

“Her given name was Gwendolyn. She changed it to Gwen in official documents since her college days.”

A dizzying mixture of relief and rage churned inside Fareed’s chest. “That’s your ‘proof’?”

Regret deepened in Emad’s eyes. “That’s just the tip of the iceberg. The doubts that made me investigate Gwen began when I became convinced she knew Arabic. She responded appropriately to things said in Arabic too many times, if only in that inimitable glint of understanding in her eyes, that I thought it strange she wouldn’t mention it. So I tested my theory by speaking Arabic on purpose when she was within earshot and observing her reaction. She was careful not to show that she understood, but I could see that she did. I became absolutely certain when I once calmly told a servant to walk out of the room naturally, then run like the wind to investigate the silent alarm I received from the southern guard post. Her alarm was unmistakable, and she tried to indirectly find out if anything was wrong. Because I spoke fast and idiomatically, I became certain she has knowledge of not only Arabic but our specific dialect.”