A Secret Birthright(42)
Fareed rejected Emad’s words as they exited his lips.
But another voice rose inside his mind, borne of the observations he’d never heeded. How she’d never asked what the things he said in Arabic meant, especially the endearments he deluged her in, how she seemed to respond appropriately…
No. She’d only understood his tone. He wasn’t letting Emad poison his mind with his crazy theory.
Emad continued. “I couldn’t find a reason why she’d hide her knowledge, but because I don’t believe in inexplicable, yet innocent, behavior, I tried to get more information from Rose.”
“That’s what you’ve been doing with Rose?” Fareed growled. “Leading her on so she’d supply you with possible dirt on Gwen? You went too far in your efforts to ‘protect’ me this time, Emad.”
“I was getting close to Rose for real, and I hope to get closer. Although I don’t know how I will, with the truth revealed…”
“This is not the truth. All you have to support this insane theory is circumstantial evidence.”
Pain etched deeper on Emad’s face. “I have new evidence that the places where Gwen lived are also where Hesham lived, at the same time, that she now lives in the same town he did when he died. She seemed to be living alone in all these places, but then so did Hesham. They must have kept separate residences in Hesham’s obsession to keep their relationship a secret. She became a freelance researcher for the past four years so she wouldn’t have a base. Then she left the job scene around the time she would have been in her last months of pregnancy and during Ryan’s first months. She went back to work only when Rose became Ryan’s nanny.
“And I didn’t get any of that from Rose. She might be shockingly open, but only with her own opinions. She wouldn’t have shared anything about Gwen. But she doesn’t know much anyway because she lived across the continent with her late ex-husband for the last five years. They divorced years ago, but when he had a stroke that paralyzed him, Rose went back to take care of him. He died two months before Gwen contacted her and asked her to become Ryan’s live-in nanny. Two weeks after Hesham died.”
Fareed shook his head, repeated what looped in his mind under the barrage of information. “Circumstantial evidence, all of it.”
Emad closed yet another escape route. “The one thing Rose mentioned was that a tragedy befell Gwen around the same time her ex-husband died. She wouldn’t elaborate and I couldn’t probe more than I did and have her suspect my motives.”
“Good thing you couldn’t afford to alienate the first woman to move your heart since your late wife.”
“I couldn’t afford to alert her to my suspicions and have her relay them to Gwen. If Gwen felt danger, we might lose Ryan.”
“Now I know you’re insane.”
“I would give anything to be wrong, but with you being who you are, with what’s at stake, I have to consider the worst possible explanation for her actions, until proven otherwise.”
Fareed gritted his teeth. “Just to see what kind of twisted ideas you can come up with, what would said explanation be?”
“The ideas I have are courtesy of the twisted fortune hunters who’ve pursued you since you turned eighteen.”
Outrage, on Gwen’s behalf, boiled his blood. “And you somehow suspect Gwen is one of those, among everything else?”
“It’s a theory, but it answers every question. She met Hesham in that conference…” At Fareed’s stunned glance, Emad grunted. “Yes, I realized why I felt inclined to give her a chance. Seemed I recognized her but failed to place her. Until I remembered that you spent a whole evening staring at her across that ballroom.”
So Emad had seen Gwen’s effect on him that day. And Hesham had come to see him during the end-of-conference party.
He still refused to sanction any of the accumulating evidence. “So they were in the same place once…”
“And my theory goes that she realized you were related. Once you left, she might have approached him to ask about you and their relationship began.”
Fareed groped for air. “That’s preposterous.”
“If you have a better explanation to fill the spaces in Hesham’s story, I’d be the first to grab at it. But we can’t afford to blind ourselves to what might be the truth. But if you find Gwen irresistible, Hesham, your closest brother in nature, would have found her so, too. It might have developed naturally between them, with the reason they met, you, unknown by him, and forgotten by her. Then everything went wrong and the king made his ultimatum, and Hesham went into hiding with her. Then he died and she walked away from the accident unscathed. Everything till that point could have been innocent and aboveboard. But I hit a wall trying to find any good reason why she didn’t come forward when you searched for her.