A Secret Birthright(55)

Fareed could believe that. Abbas was a swashbuckling, extreme-sport-loving, corporate-raiding daredevil. He dreaded the day he’d have to give up the wildness and freedom of his existence to step into their father’s shoes. He always said, only half-jokingly, that the day of his joloos on the throne he’d turn the kingdom into a democracy and be on his way.

But it was making more sense by the second, explaining the infuriating enigma of his father.

“So this was why Father pressured Hesham to that extent. He was trying to turn him into the crown prince he knew he wasn’t equipped to become.”

“Yes, and this was why he so objected to…to…”

“To his choosing you. He must have had some pureblood royal bride lined up for him, too. This does explain why he reacted so viciously to Hesham’s news that he was marrying you.”

“But even with Hesham gone, Ryan…”

“Wait, Hesham meant Ryan’s name the way I pronounce it, the Arabic version, didn’t he? But he picked it because it worked in your culture, too, with a different meaning.”

She nodded, her urgency heightening at what she considered unimportant now. “What I was saying is that Ryan might still be considered the king’s first-in-line heir. And this is why he might never give up trying to get custody of him.”

He ran his hands down his face. “Ya Ullah. I see how your fear of our father is a thousand times what I believed it should be. But you no longer have to worry. Even a king’s claim to his rightful heir wouldn’t trump our combined custody.”

“You might be wrong…”

His raised hand silenced her. Ominous thunder was approaching from the darkness that had engulfed the sea.

A helicopter. He would bet his center it was carrying his father. This had to be Emad’s doing.

His fury crested as he turned to Gwen. “Go inside, please. I’ll deal with this.”

“Fareed, let me tell you first…”

But he was already running to meet the helicopter as it landed, needing to end this before it started. And to end Gwen’s worries once and for all.

The moment his father stepped out of the helicopter that, to Fareed’s fury, Emad was piloting, Fareed blocked his way.

“Father, go back where you came from. Gwen told me everything. And it’s over. Ryan will never be in your custody.”

Challenge flared in his father’s eyes. “I’m surprised you even think your ‘adoption’ is a deterrent. Our laws don’t sanction adoption, just fostering, and adopting him according to another culture’s laws means nothing.”

“The deterrent is not only that Ryan has the Aal Zaafer name through me, not Hesham. It is that I’ll give up my Jizaanian nationality if it will make my adoption binding anywhere in the world, starting with here. But most of all it is that I, a man of equal status to you and superior wealth, am married to Ryan’s mother.”

The king only transferred his gaze behind him. Gwen had followed him, was almost plastered to his back.

Then, without taking his eyes off her, his father said, “That is not your greatest weapon but your greatest weakness, Fareed. Gwen isn’t Ryan’s mother. She’s his aunt.”





Thirteen



Fareed heard his father’s declaration. He understood the words. He couldn’t make any sense of them.

Still looking at Gwen, his father addressed her this time, “It was your sister, Marilyn, who was Hesham’s woman.”

After all these months, Fareed had a full name for Hesham’s Lyn. Marilyn. Not Gwendolyn.

He turned, no longer of his own volition, but under her agitation’s compulsion.

She was looking at him, and only at him, her eyes flooded with imploring. Certainty was instantaneous, absolute.

She wasn’t Hesham’s woman. Wasn’t Ryan’s mother.

They would register. The import and impact of this knowledge. They would crash on him and rewrite his existence. But not now.

Now only one thing mattered.

He turned to his father. “It makes no difference. Ryan is Gwen’s and you’re not getting him.”

His father’s expression was one he well knew. A “you dare?” and a “dream on” rolled into one eyebrow raise.

Before he did something irretrievable, his father said, “I won’t continue this discussion standing by a helicopter on a beach. Anyone would get the impression I’m not welcome.”