by Ann Mcintosh
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
FARHAN DIDN’T NEED to ask why, just moved toward the door, shepherding everyone in the room out in front of him, making polite noises as he went. Curiosity overwhelmed him as he firmly shut the door and turned back to the bed.
Sara was still pale, looked as though she were about to cry too.
“T-Tell him what you said to me,” she said, reaching out and pulling Farhan closer.
“You are my granddaughter.” It wasn’t a question but a firm, convincing statement. “When I saw you on TV, saw you had married Prince Farhan, I knew.”
A rush of mixed emotions fired through Farhan’s blood, and he had to tamp them down, keep his voice level, as he said, “Are you sure, Mr. Raj? Princess Sara was adopted as a baby. Her roots are uncertain.”
The look the old man gave him was just shy of scathing.
“She is Prince Bhaskar’s daughter, and child of my daughter, Yolande. I know this to be true.”
As though her legs wouldn’t keep her upright anymore, Sara sank down onto the edge of the bed. Farhan noticed she hadn’t relinquished Mr. Raj’s hand.
“How...? What...?” She cleared her throat, and tried again. “Why didn’t you say anything when everyone was searching for Bhaskar?”
Mr. Raj shook his head, sorrow making his already wrinkled face even more lined.
“My Yolande was just fifteen when I took her to Huban, where I was stationed as part of my duties to the then Governor. I don’t know how or when she met Bhaskar but, just after we returned to the south, she disappeared. No one was very interested in finding out what happened to her, not when just after that Prince Bhaskar disappeared as well, and I never thought the two things were in any way related.”
“How did you find out that they were, sir?” Farhan’s heart was pounding. The air in the room felt close, arid, and it took all of his control not to react to what he was hearing.
“Many years later, my daughter contacted me by letter. She told me she was living in Canada, in a place called Fort McMurray, and confessed to what she’d done. Bhaskar had convinced her to go away with him, had arranged it all through a friend in England. They were happy, she said, and I knew revealing their whereabouts might endanger Yolande.
“I didn’t dare tell anyone what had happened. The Queen was almost crazed in her grief, and I, perhaps cravenly, wished most of all for my daughter’s happiness. If Queen Nargis had found out what had really happened, I have no doubt she would have sent soldiers to bring them back, whether they willed it or not.”
“Do...do you know what happened to them?”
Mr. Raj shifted fitfully, and Sara rose to help him lean forward, rearranging the pillows behind his back.
“Thank you,” he murmured, his gaze never leaving her face.
“You’re welcome,” she said, but she didn’t smile. Her face looked pinched, suddenly exhausted, and Farhan wanted to take her away, leave the rest of the story untold, but knew he couldn’t.
No matter how painful the end might be.
“Yolande kept in contact with me after that. They had taken new names, of course, and settled in a place where there were no Kalyanese immigrants. She was lonely, and homesick, but the greatest unhappiness in her life was that she was unable to conceive. She was in her late forties when she finally told me she was expecting. I was worried, for her, for the baby, and I was right to worry.”
His voice broke, and a tear trickled down his cheek.
“Yolande wrote to tell me Bhaskar had died unexpectedly and she had decided to arrange for her baby to be adopted should anything happen to her. I wrote to tell her she could arrange to send the child to me instead, but I never heard back from her, and my inquiries into her well-being were too late. I eventually found out she had died in childbirth, and no one would tell me where her baby had gone.”
Farhan felt the silence like a weight. He had his hand on Sara’s shoulder, felt her trembling. There was one way to make sure the story was true, but it was the effect hearing this all was having on Sara that concerned him the most. He smoothed his hand down her back, and she leaned into the caress.
“Do you remember the names they used in Canada, sir?” Farhan asked.
“Of course. Brian and Yasmine Haskell. Do you want to see a picture of your mother?” The last addressed to Sara.
“Yes, please.”
“There’s a box in the wardrobe. Bring it to me.”
“Stay,” Farhan said. “I’ll get it.”
When he put the small cedar casket in the other man’s hands, Farhan found himself under scrutiny.
“I did meet you, many years ago, Your Highness, when you were just a small child. I hope you don’t mind my telling the nurses about it, so as to see my granddaughter.”
“Of course not, sir.”
That earned him a small smile, before Mr. Raj turned his attention to the box. The picture was almost at the very bottom, and when he held it out to Sara, Farhan’s breath caught in his throat. The resemblance between mother and daughter was obvious, their smiles identical, although Sara had inherited much from her father too. He’d seen her staring at Bhaskar’s portrait in the palace, her gaze pensive, perhaps searching for the connection she couldn’t feel.
Sara took it almost reverently, stared at it for a long, silent time. Tears streamed down her cheeks, but she seemed unaware of them until Farhan shoved his handkerchief into her hand.
Seeing her like that almost undid him.
His heart ached, feeling her sorrow and overwhelming joy as if they were his own.
He’d never been an emotional person. He’d pushed emotions away until they were like background noise in his life, not things that drove or spurred him on. Now he felt he was all emotion, driven by the need to protect and keep her safe.
But this encounter with Mr. Raj had made an already complicated situation even more complex, and Farhan wasn’t sure how to deal with the fallout.
* * *
Sara was wrung out.
They’d stayed with her grandfather for hours, listening to his stories of her mother as a child, reading the letters Yolande had sent her father. The last one had made her cry. Her mother’s anguish at the loss of her husband had seemed to pour off the page.
She’d promised to come back and see her grandfather the following day, although they were supposed to go back to Huban that evening. Having just found him, she didn’t want to simply disappear.
Farhan had questioned the nursing home staff about his condition. Anupam Raj was in fairly good health, although his stomach bug had laid him low for a little while. He was in the nursing home, they said, because he had no family still alive.
Her heart had ached when they’d said that, knowing the loneliness he’d experienced over the years while his daughter had been gone, hiding so as not to be torn away from the man she’d loved.
“Perhaps if my wife were alive, she would have realized what was happening between Yolande and Bhaskar, but she died when Yolande was just eleven, and I was raising her on my own. I was consumed by my work, trying to make sure I could give her a good life, send her to university, give her whatever she needed. I wasn’t paying attention to the signs.”
So much heartbreak in his life. Sara wanted to ensure his last years were happier.
But just finding him had changed everything.
She’d heard Farhan quietly ask her grandfather to hold onto the secret of her father’s identity a while longer, and the old man’s promise to do so. Now she had to try to figure out what that question meant, both for her and her future in Kalyana.
The agreement between herself and Farhan hadn’t truly taken into consideration what would happen should someone come forward to name her the daughter of Bhaskar. He’d been so sure no one would that he’d said a year would be long enough for them to remain married. She’d been so eager for adventu
re she’d said yes, never contemplating how the journey would change her life.
How being Farhan’s wife, his lover, would change everything.
More and more she felt the chains binding her to Kalyana tightening.
It all felt surreal. She’d thought the story of her birth would remain a mystery. Oh, she’d believed Farhan when he’d said Bhaskar was her father, had even looked at his portrait in the palace gallery, but she’d felt nothing. He’d been a handsome face on the wall. But seeing her mother’s photograph, hearing their story had brought such a welter of emotions she wasn’t sure how to deal with it.
Kalyana had truly changed her forever.
And now her time here, already limited, seemed set to be cut short.
How could she leave so soon, just when things between her and Farhan were so good? When her heart wasn’t ready for the separation?
“Are you all right?”
They were in the back of the official vehicle that had driven them around all day. Outside the windows it was dark, shadows of trees flashing by against an only slightly less dark sky. They’d stayed way past when they were supposed to get back to the plane, and she suspected, while she’d been caught up in the moment, Farhan had made all the necessary arrangements for them to stay the night.
She appreciated it, but couldn’t muster any energy to think about anything else but her grandfather’s story and wondering what would happen next.
“I’m fine,” she replied, but reached blindly across the seat for his hand, desperately in need of human contact.
In need of him.
He took it, his thumb rubbing over her knuckles in gentle, soothing circles. And it did soothe her.
When had he become so important to her emotional well-being?
The question caused an icy shiver up her spine, and she pushed the thought away, too drained to deal with it just then.
“I have to return to Huban tomorrow morning.”
“Yes,” she replied. He had surgery scheduled for the afternoon. They were counting on him to help with the backlog. Was it terribly selfish to want him to stay, even knowing the hospital needed him?
“I’ll send the plane back for you, unless you want to remain longer.”
“No.” She was in a fog but, even to her, her monosyllabic responses sounded rude. “No, I’ll visit Grandfather in the morning and come back to Huban in the afternoon. That way I can get started making arrangements for him to come too.” Having just found him, she wanted him close by.
“Leave that to me,” he said, in his usual no-nonsense way. “I can handle it for you.”
It made her, stupidly, want to cry again, but she quashed the urge. His poor handkerchief was already a damp, wrinkled mess from before, and she’d run out of tissues.
“I’m sorry,” she said instead. “For disrupting everything.”
“There’s nothing to apologize for,” he replied, squeezing her fingers. “You didn’t plan any of this, neither was it of your making.”
He was so understanding, her heart ached. Why did he have to be so perfect? She turned her hand to squeeze his fingers in return, thankful to have him on her side.
And later, when he came to her room as usual, he said, “I thought you could use some company. Not sex, just company.”
That’s when she knew there would never be another man for her. She was resigned to leaving, because she wanted all of Farhan, not just sexual attention, dribs and drabs of affection.
All of him; heart, body, and soul, if that were even possible. Just as she’d given him.
Nothing less would do for her.
And no other man would do either.
He held her, and she contemplated the lonely years ahead. Not unfulfilling, she decided, just not the home and family life she’d always thought she’d eventually have.
Not this feeling of safety she had lying in Farhan’s arms.
Or the soul-shaking rush of emotion whenever they made love.
All the feelings of the day whirred together in her head, keeping her awake, restless.
So she rolled over, trapping him under her body.
“What is it, beautiful? Are you okay?”
She didn’t want to talk. Instead, she wanted to somehow transcribe her inner emotions into the physical. Leaning down, she kissed him, taking the lead, their tongues tangling together deliciously.
He groaned, putting up no resistance, letting her love him as much as she wanted. As she slid down his body to kneel between his thighs, she could see his eyes gleaming in the weak moonlight coming through a crack in the drapes.
Over the last days she’d gotten bolder, but had never been this assertive.
“Lift,” she said, tugging at the waistband of his silk pajama pants, and he did as bidden without a word.
But as she tugged them off, he said quietly, carefully, “We don’t have to do this, beautiful.”
She took his erection in her hand and said honestly, “I’ve never felt I have to do anything with or for you, Farhan. I want to. I need this tonight.”
Taking him to the brink with her hands and mouth gave her such intense satisfaction it was as though he was touching her in return.
“Beautiful, please,” he whispered, his body tense, bowing in ecstasy.
It was a plea, whether for her to stop or for the release building in him she didn’t know. Giving him pleasure took her outside herself, to a place where all she thought about was him, all she felt was the love inside, now acknowledged, growing stronger each minute.
When he lunged up to take her by the shoulders and drag her body up over his, she laughed, making him growl in response.
“Are you trying to make me go insane?” he asked against her lips.
“Maybe I am,” she replied, sliding back, taking him deep in one quick motion, her heart singing when she heard his rushed exhalation, blown out as though forced from his lungs.
Then she slowed, suddenly not wanting to hurry, taking her time as she rose and fell, savoring each heart-stopping sensation, feeling his body coiling and moving beneath hers. The tension built within, but she was no longer afraid of it, just let it take her to where that golden moment of bliss waited.
Farhan’s hands on her breasts, her belly, pushed her arousal even higher, until she couldn’t maintain her leisurely pace anymore.
“Yes. Oh, yes,” she whimpered, as Farhan reached between them, stimulating her with exquisite finesse, taking her to the edge.
Tonight he lost control first, and she reveled in hearing his orgasm, knowing she’d taken him there. Then the pressure of his thumb increased, and she was flying too.
As, still draped across his body, she came down from her high, two thoughts struck her in quick succession.
She’d never been more confused.
And they’d forgotten to use a condom.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
SARA HADN’T EXPECTED Farhan to be at the airport when she arrived back in Huban, and he wasn’t. He’d slipped out of bed while she was still asleep to go to the airport, and waking up without him beside her had left her feeling lonely and afraid.
She’d hoped to talk to him about what they were going to do next. Yet, in the light of day, her fears regarding Farhan’s reaction had waned, seemed unwarranted. Yes, the revelations of the day before had come as a shock, but did they truly sound the death knell to their marriage? Did they have to?
Even the thought of her grandfather’s story getting out didn’t frighten her the way it perhaps should. Yes, she was the only one in love, but they’d grown so close, was it unreasonable to hope one day he might love her in return?
He himself had said arranged marriages were traditional in his family, and that was what they had. Couldn’t they, somehow, make it work? Even his assertion that he didn’t want children didn’t deter her from her optimism. If, i
n time, he changed his mind, or even if he never did, Sara knew Farhan was the one man for her. The night before she had been resigned to leaving him. Today all she wanted was to stay, forever.
If that made her contrary, so be it.
“Crown Prince Farhan is still in theatre, Your Highness,” Kavan said, as he ushered her to the black SUV he usually drove. “He’s asked me to take you back to the palace, and inform you he might not be home in time for dinner.”
“Thank you, Kavan,” she said, wondering why Farhan hadn’t texted as much.
“And King Uttam has requested you meet with him at four o’clock, in his office.”
That was new, and she doubted Farhan knew about it, since he definitely would have texted.
“I’ll be there,” she told Kavan, who informed her he would advise the King’s aide-de-camp Joseph Malliot.
No doubt King Uttam wanted to discuss her finding her grandfather, and she only just stopped herself from nibbling on the side of her fingernail, as she wondered what he would have to say.
It was obvious that while Anupam Raj had been a respectable man, he was definitely not royalty. Perhaps Uttam would resent mingling her blood with the royal line, now that they knew for sure who her mother was.
When she got back to the palace and was greeted by a wriggling ball of brown fur, she knew her hopes for a future with Farhan weren’t misplaced. For him to have had Coconut brought to Huban for her spoke volumes about his character and, she thought, how much he cared about her happiness.
Later that afternoon, when Joseph ushered her into King Uttam’s office, she found it empty, a red macaw in a cage the only occupant. As the bird seemed to try to attract her attention, Sara noticed the French doors opening into a private garden were ajar, and she walked over to look through them.
There was her father-in-law, seated on a bench, smoking a thin cigar. He saw her in the doorway, and waved her over.
“Please don’t lecture me,” he said, his stern lips twitching at the corners. “I used to smoke these things all day, every day, but have cut down to one a week.”