by Dani Collins
“Are you okay?” Zafir frowned at her belly.
She chuckled. “As far as personalities go, I think we’ve created another scrapper. Quite pushy,” she pronounced with rueful affection, liking what he’d said about his family and how he’d intimated she had a place in it that was notable and valued.
“Can I...?” His gaze fixed on her belly and his hands came up. He hesitated as he looked to her for permission.
Her nerves jolted like an electric shock had run through her, pushing a flood of tingling warmth into her inner thighs. He hadn’t even touched her!
The strength of her anticipation startled her. Her life had been fairly devoid of human contact before he had taught her how wonderful it could be. Since then, especially in the last few months, she’d discovered some people loved touching pregnant women. Strangers asked to pat her belly. Sometimes they didn’t even ask, but this was different.
This was Zafir. She had been aching for his touch since forever. And it was his baby. Emotions, already amplified by pregnancy, threatened to overwhelm her.
“I— Of course,” she said huskily, quivering with tension like liquid at the rim of a cup. She lifted her hands and waited.
At first he barely grazed her with splayed fingertips, like she was a soap bubble that would burst at the least pressure. The thought made her lips twitch and she covered his hands, showing him how to press firmly enough to find the baby’s shape.
“That’s the bum. And this is where—oh! Did you feel that? Must be a knee, right?”
He choked a breath of laughter. “Doesn’t that hurt?” He explored gently where the nudge had happened.
She shrugged. “Not really. Takes me by surprise. Keeps me awake sometimes. I honestly don’t think either of us will get much sleep if I—”
“Shh.” Discovery of magic played across his face. “It must be so strange,” he said with quiet reverence, shifting the lace on the silk of her slip as he moved his hands around the shape of her belly. “Can you even wrap your mind around it? That’s our child that we made, right there. I can feel it, but I can hardly believe it. Are you scared? About the delivery?”
“Yes,” she admitted, giving him a crooked, sheepish smile. “Not that I have anything to be frightened of specifically. Just apprehensive, I guess. I’ve read too many books on what could go wrong and keep worrying what will happen to the baby if. And Miss Ivy—” Wait. Would he...? “Do you want to come into the delivery room with me?”
He stopped moving his hands, but left them resting on her. His brows tugged up in surprise. He parted his lips without speaking, like he didn’t know how to respond. “It didn’t occur to me— Yes, I do,” he asserted firmly before a rare glimmer of uncertainty entered his eyes. He searched hers. “Do you want me to?”
“I do. Very much.” So much it made her head swim. Her hands found their way onto his and held him there. “I didn’t even think about it until just now and...I would feel so much better if I knew you were there to make it all go well. Please come with me.”
“Of course, Fern.” His smile wasn’t steady, but maybe that was her eyes, blurring with relief and joy. “Of course I’ll be there.” A shaky laugh rattled his voice and he sidled his hands up her waist to where she was more Fern than baby, his touch possessive and tender.
This was how it was supposed to be with a man when you were having his baby. She was going to burst, she was so happy right now.
“But aren’t there classes or something?” he asked. “Men are pretty much useless, I suppose. Nothing to know except how to stay out of the way, but I should learn that much, shouldn’t I?”
Fern laughed. “Miss Ivy was going to them with me. But didn’t you go in with your wife when she had Tariq?”
He let his hands fall away, leaving an impression of coolness where his hands had been. “No. She opted for full anesthetic and caesarian section. But her specialist is world-renowned. I’ll—” He pinched his lips into a frustrated line. “I’d like to call him and ensure he can take you on, if you’re cleared to travel.”
It was hard for him to back off a step and not tell her what he would make happen. She probably wouldn’t have been able to hide her smile over how hard that was for him if she hadn’t heard the greater question in his statement. He was asking if she was coming to Q’Amara.
The mere fact that he was leaving the door open for her retreat was incredibly reassuring. She genuinely didn’t think he would risk her life or that of his baby and something else was niggling at her. His wife had opted for surgery. She wanted to know more about that and his marriage in general.
She wanted to know Zafir better.
It was not something that could happen if she was haunting a different house in another country. And she’d seen tonight how the division in his family still affected him. She couldn’t bring herself to do that to him. To their child.
She nodded. “You should call him,” she agreed. “If I can travel, I think it would be good to have the baby there. So there’s no question of citizenship.”
He nodded slowly, with more than agreement. Pride. His smile wrapped her in a blanket of approval. Cupping the side of her face, he caressed her cheek with his thumb. “This is going to work, Fern.”
She hoped so. She dearly hoped so.
* * *
Zafir was ready to find his mattress.
Last night had been painful in the best possible way. Without any further debate, Fern had slipped into his bed while he was on the phone, leaving him to find her there.
It had been like Christmas morning—a tradition his mother had insisted upon despite his father’s Muslim faith. Zafir had stood for a long moment admiring the ribbon of her red hair, the polka dots of her freckles, the hidden potential in her slumbering countenance.
Eventually he’d gone in search of something to wear to bed. He went naked under most things whether it was sheets, thobe or tuxedo so a simple pair of boxers was a struggle to locate. Then he’d dozed beside her, too aware of her to fall into a proper sleep, mind turning over possibilities while his body ached to pull her across the desert plain of sheets into the pillar of his own.
She’d been equally restless, getting up several times.
“I’m sorry I keep waking you,” she’d murmured when she’d come back at one point. “Do you want me to sleep somewhere else?”
“No. I could find another bed if I wanted to.” He’d rolled toward her, cursing the expanse of the mattress. “Does your back hurt?” He’d done some reading before settling in.
“No, there’s just no room in this body for anything but baby anymore.” She’d yawned, and added in a drowsy whisper, “I keep getting so confused. I wake up and realize you’re here and think I’m at the oasis so how can I be pregnant? But it’s nice to sleep with you again. I missed you.”
She’d drifted off, leaving him thinking, yes. For all the ache of desire coursing through him, it was very nice to have her beside him. He’d missed her, too.
They’d then had a busy morning of appointments and arrangements. Fern was given a complete physical before an official came in to marry them in a perfunctory ceremony witnessed by his mother and grandfather.
His mother could grouse all she wanted about a proper church wedding, but the one thing his father had got right in Q’Amara’s evolution was tolerance of other faiths. Zafir was often criticized for not limiting or outright censoring online content, but his mixed parentage meant neither of the two dominant faiths in his country felt threatened that he would refute one or the other.
Which is why he’d chosen a civil union rather than favoring one religious blessing over another.
They’d followed it with photographs for the press release and he’d approved his mother’s preliminary guest list for a proper reception in the summer. They’d eaten in the air on the way to Q’Amara before
Fern had gone to sleep in his stateroom, leaving him answering emails between fielding conversation attempts by the obstetrics nurse he’d hired to travel with them.
He had timed the release of their marriage announcement so it hit the wires just before they landed. His country’s media stations were barely out of bed and no international paparazzi were among the lenses trying to get a shot of his new wife. Well veiled in the predawn light, she didn’t offer much to scoop for those who’d made it to the airport in time to catch them deplane and travel to the palace.
He ought to sleep now, he knew, before the demand for interviews became too great to ignore and he was tied up for hours.
But sleep was not the reason he wanted to find his bed.
No, after the brief research on his tablet last night, he’d lain awake with a need for confirmation burning a hole in his mind. He’d waited through Fern’s exam with barely controlled impatience, was heartened to hear her pronounced in excellent health and well enough to travel with sensible precautions, and then Dr. Underhill had thankfully been ahead of him.
“And since I expect any groom in your situation would want to know, Zafir, I’ll save you the trouble of asking. Fern, so long as you feel comfortable making love, it should be perfectly safe to do so.”
She’d blushed crimson, of course. Zafir had deflected the conversation to boring topics about transferring her file to the specialist he’d contacted to take her in Q’Amara. He hadn’t said a thing about Underhill’s remark afterward.
But when they’d kissed to seal their marriage, he’d quested for a response and she’d opened as beautifully as desert flowers to rain. He had been quaking inside with wanting her ever since, like a volcano threatening to crack under the pressure of burning lava rising within it.
If he could have locked out the world and seduced her, he would have. But even though he shouldn’t ignore the interview requests, there was one task, one person, he absolutely could not disregard.
“Where is she?” Tariq asked as he charged into Zafir’s private apartment and looked around the empty lounge.
Zafir had left Fern here, suggesting she put her feet up while he fetched Tariq. He’d had quite the father-son chat with the boy before they’d circled back along the second-floor landing to Zafir’s rooms.
The drawback to having an exceedingly mature and intelligent child, Zafir was learning, was the inability to pull any wool over the boy’s sharp brown gaze, even when it meant reflecting a less than admirable light on himself.
You told me before that we were born into families of influence and should never misuse that. Did Miss Davenport know that she didn’t have to be nice to you in that way, if she didn’t want to be?
I believe she did know that, yes, Zafir had claimed, even while a part of him still squirmed under the knowledge that his sophistication and experience well surpassed hers. He might not have coerced her, but he’d taken brazen advantage of her artless joy in discovering passion for the first time.
And was going mad with wanting to do it again.
While she was acting very quiet. His one query, when he’d seen her turning his grandmother’s ring around on her finger and asked if she was all right, had been met with a rueful smile. “As you pointed out last night, I like time to consider things and haven’t really had a chance to sort through all this. Yesterday I was going to rent a flat around the corner from Miss Ivy and raise this baby alone. Not everyone operates at light speed the way you do,” she’d teased lightly.
Which he didn’t think had been meant as a warning that he should put the brakes on his libido, but he’d taken it as such. The guilt he was carrying over thrusting her into this new life was enough to instill some worry in him when they arrived in his rooms and she wasn’t there. Amineh had been anxious to have a webcam conversation, but Fern wasn’t in his adjoining office at his desk or even in the small powder room off that.
His massive bedroom, which anyone could get lost in, was empty. She wasn’t behind any of the marble colonnades, wasn’t in the vast canopied bed, hadn’t entered the dressing room, wasn’t sitting in the reading alcove and hadn’t walked into his small sunken library to peruse his antique books. The sauna, not recommended in her condition, was empty, as was the bathing pool and the grotto shower with the faux waterfall. She hadn’t walked out to his private balcony or followed the stairs down to the pool, either.
Disquiet began to creep into his psyche as he called for her and she didn’t answer. Vaguely he was aware of Tariq calling for Miss Davenport as he ran from corner to corner, but Zafir was far more concerned about her condition than maiden names versus married.
“She probably went to her room in the harem,” Tariq said with snap of his fingers, chuckling as if they should have guessed that first.
Tariq opened doors that Zafir used so seldom he’d forgotten they were there. A piece of modern art sat in the alcove before them, half blocking the ornate wooden panels, but Zafir’s mother had never lived in this palace and Tariq’s mother had certainly never come through them. About once a year, Tariq grew curious enough to wander through them and staff cleaned all nooks and crannies of the palace regularly, but otherwise no one entered this wing.
Pushing through with his son, Zafir feared he had the answer to Fern’s level of comfort with lovemaking if she’d taken herself into this private domain.
The passage from the sheikh’s quarters was short and dim, lit only by narrow slits in the door where it terminated onto a balcony that extended in a circle around the courtyard below, not unlike the main entranceway to the palace.
Unlike the front foyer, it looked down on a communal bath sunk into the lower floor. A glass dome in the roof allowed sunlight to pour onto the tropical plants that were mostly self-sustaining, provided he kept the pool filled and the fountain running. In the four corners, antique gilded cages hung silent, awaiting exotic birds.
Doors led off the surrounding walls into luxurious accommodation reserved for the women in the ruling family: daughters, sisters, mothers. Wives.
Zafir did not find his wife in the opulent suite closest to the shortcut to his rooms, the apartment reserved for Wife Number One. She answered Tariq’s call and stepped out to wave from the furthest room, the one traditionally used by the groom’s mother. She didn’t need to sleep in close proximity to the sheikh.
Sadira had chosen and modernized that distant apartment, Zafir had seen after her death, adding a computer desk and a television console along with a contemporary queen-sized bed. The other rooms still contained the sumptuous, pillow-covered mattresses and silk wall hangings that had been refurbished and replaced for their marriage party eleven years ago. Was it significant that Fern had gravitated to Sadira’s room?
She didn’t look at him as she came toward them. A wide smile for Tariq brightened her face.
Vivienne was not being shy about spending his money on outfitting his pregnant bride, and was doing so very prettily. Fern wore the dress in a silvery moss color that she’d flown it, but her yellow cardigan, abaya and veils were gone. Her low heels clicked on the marble and even though she wasn’t as willowy as when he’d first seen her, and her bump sat high and prominent, the rest of her was so curvy his mouth watered. Her loose hair bounced and shimmied. As she moved into a beam of sunlight, it caught glints of gold and auburn, producing a halo effect, making Zafir catch his breath at how utterly stunning she was.
“Tariq! It’s so nice to see you.” Her genuine warmth wasn’t even for him, but filled Zafir with gladness.
Tariq canted his head at her. “You look...different.”
“I’m sure I do,” Fern said, cutting a glance at Zafir that sent him a private message. He hadn’t been aware of a desire to become one of those couples who read each other’s minds, but he liked the sense they were.
“Has your father talked to you about, um, why I’m here?”
she asked, one hand resting with light significance on her belly.
“Yes. And I wanted to know, do you expect me to call you Mama?” Tariq asked in his forthright manner. He crossed his arms and hitched his hip in a way that Zafir recognized was his own stance when he had already made up his mind about something, but had to suffer through propriety before he could get to the bottom of things.
Fern’s expression blanked. “Oh. I hadn’t...”
“Yes,” Zafir interrupted firmly.
He had thought he’d covered everything with Tariq and leave it to his son to ferret out a fine point, but Zafir found himself loving the idea of Tariq using the title. Fern, at least, would live up to the designation. She already valued Tariq for everything he was.
Fern’s expression flickered and her smile was vaguely apologetic toward Zafir before she returned her attention to Tariq.
No. A cold hand clutched around Zafir’s heart and his pride began to tear down the middle as he realized Fern was going to contradict him. She would not reject his son.
“I would be honored to know you thought of me as your mother, Tariq,” she said with quiet sincerity, and he gave himself a mental shake. Of course she wouldn’t reject the boy. “If your father would like you to introduce me as your mother and call me that in public, then please do. But it would mean more to me if, in private, it was something you chose to do. If...” Fern sent another contrite glance toward him that, Zafir realized, was an apology for challenging his dictate. “If your father doesn’t mind, I’d prefer that you think about it and decide on your own if you’d like to address me as Mother. Until you’re certain, perhaps you could call me Fern?”
And she thought she didn’t know how to get her way, Zafir thought with a quirk of private humor.
“You make a good point,” Zafir allowed, so profoundly relieved it was easy to be magnanimous. He wasn’t used to being gainsaid, but now was as good a time as any to demonstrate to both of them that he would always be willing to take Fern’s opinions into account. “Fern it is, unless you feel differently,” he said to Tariq.