Shaheen stiffened. “This is all I need to top off this day. Father.” He turned to her. “Please, wait in our room. I’ll sort this out, whatever it is, as soon as I can.”
She could only nod and turn like an automaton to do his bidding.
In minutes, she was sitting on the edge of his bed—theirs for now—every nerve in her body jerking at each sound as she documented the cavalcade’s movements, the voices she distinguished to be Shaheen’s and his father’s rising, then the sound of urgent footsteps up the stairs, coming nearer and nearer.
The door to Shaheen’s bedroom burst open.
Shaheen stood behind his father looking like he might shove the king out of the way. Then King Atef, in full royal garb, advanced into the expansive room, dismissing his son’s protests.
She rose from the bed, feeling she was about to receive the ultimate blow. Then the king delivered it.
“Is it true, Johara? Are you pregnant with Shaheen’s child?”
Nine
Shaheen stared at the back of his father’s head, the question reverberating in his mind. His gaze moved to settle on Johara’s frozen face. Her eyes were holding his father’s, shocked denial filling them.
Then she quavered, “No, I’m not.”
And he got his confirmation.
Johara was pregnant.
He felt his heart spiral inside him, as if he were plummeting down a never-ending roller coaster.
From the moment he’d found her gone, he’d wondered if there’d been consequences to their surrender to passion without a thought for precautions. Thinking she could discover her pregnancy while she was alone had exacerbated his misery at her disappearance. But she’d said nothing since they’d been together again, making him certain she wasn’t pregnant. Then after that first time when she’d stopped him from using precautions, making him believe she’d taken her own, they’d made love again and again through the past two weeks, and he’d believed there was no chance of their passion bearing fruit.
But she hadn’t taken precautions because she was already pregnant. And she hadn’t told him due to her seemingly unwavering decision to never compromise him or impose on him with demands she believed she had no right to make, and that he’d be incapable of meeting.
From what felt like the bottom of an abyss he heard his father’s voice, thickened with regret and apology.
“I’m sorry, ya b’nayti, if I’m relieved to hear that. I couldn’t wish for a better woman for Shaheen, but as king, the last thing I can consider are my wishes. With the current situation and Shaheen’s commitment to defusing the brewing unrest, I am forced to consider only that, at whatever cost to myself and my family.”
Shaheen saw Johara nod, her golden hair a gentle wave of resignation around her face. And he moved, pushed past his father.
He stopped before her. Unable to touch her as his emotions mushroomed, he heard a bass rumble bleed out of him. “You didn’t believe me. When I pledged that we would be together, that I am yours and will never be anyone else’s. And this is why you never told me. You were planning on leaving me ‘to my destiny’ without telling me. You planned to have our baby on your own.”
She cast her eyes down, as if to misdirect him from the knowledge now coursing through his blood, as if he needed to look into her eyes to see through to her soul. “I s-said I’m not pregnant.”
He touched her then, just a finger below her chin, bringing up those eyes that he needed to look into to feel alive now. “Yes, because you’re terminally heroic and misguided and want to sacrifice yourself for my so-called best interests and those of Zohayd. Your eyes are still promising me freedom, when my only freedom is to be yours.”
His father advanced, confusion and foreboding warring over his weathered, noble face. “So, is it true?”
Johara held Shaheen’s eyes, the attempt to hide the truth trembling for one last moment before it fractured. And it came flooding out with a cascade of beseeching tears. “I’m sorry …”
He snatched her into his arms, crushed her to him. “Be sorry only for hiding this from me, for thinking of denying me not only you, but our child, too. Don’t you understand I’d rather die than be without you?”
“I would, too.” She sobbed in his chest. “But I never wanted to cause you trouble. Now I’ve caused you nothing but. Oh, Shaheen, I shouldn’t have come to that party …”
He held her away to scowl his exasperation down on her. “And what am I? A boy with no will of my own, who didn’t realize the consequences of my actions? Everything I did, I’d do again in the exact same way. The only thing I’d change would be to tie you to my wrist so you wouldn’t leave me for my ‘own good,’ so I’d be there to celebrate the discovery of your pregnancy with you.” Anger at her efforts to protect him frothed on a new surge. “You slept in my arms every day, told me everything … but that. Would you have ever told me?”
“No.” Her eyes melted with entreaty. “I never wanted to keep this from you, but I can’t think beyond the moment with you, can’t imagine a time when you’ll no longer be part of my life or that you won’t be part of our baby’s. All I know is that my pregnancy will do what the king is saying it will. I can’t even imagine the damages if people know you have an heir on the way.”
“And the damages to us, to our baby? You didn’t imagine those?”
A rumble penetrated their cocoon of agitation. Shaheen turned to look at his father, winced at the mess of love and regret and finality that congealed on his face.
Then in a voice heavy with them all, the king said, “I am beyond happy that you have a woman you want—”
Shaheen interrupted him. “I love Johara. Always have, always will. There will be no negotiations about that.”
His father continued, a king who wouldn’t let even his son, or his pain on his behalf, stop him from seeing his duty through. “That this woman is Johara makes it infinitely better. But there is no stopping the chain reaction this will set off.” He turned to Johara, gaze heavy with the remorse of being unable to put her before everything. “News of your pregnancy came to me through servants, so it must be all over the region by now. All we can do is rewrite history and hope for the least possible consequences.”
Johara darted a look into Shaheen’s eyes before her gaze went back to his father. “What do you mean?”
His father exhaled raggedly. “I will announce that you’re already married in a zawaj orfi. Even if it is a secret marriage and frowned upon—and in royal circles in Zohayd, unprecedented—it remains binding. We’ll say this is why you followed Shaheen to Zohayd after such a long absence. It will legitimize your baby, and we’ll have a marriage ritual to make the marriage public and fully legal.”
Shaheen felt Johara tremble in his arms, saw hope quiver on her face before doubt snuffed it out again. “What about the marriage of state Shaheen is required to enter? How will this affect your negotiations and peace in Zohayd?”
His father’s shoulder slumped lower. “I’ll try to convince any tribe to consent to giving their daughter as a second wife.”
Shaheen had known what the condition to his father’s damage control solution could be. It still outraged him to hear it. “They can consent all they like. I’m not taking a second wife.”
“Don’t be so quick to dismiss this option, Shaheen.”
“I never intended to marry anyone but Johara. I was only biding my time until—” Shaheen stopped. He’d almost blurted out the reason he’d appeared to be going along with the negotiations “—until I found a way out with the least repercussions. But now that I’ve seen the price I could have paid for not confronting this, I’m no longer pretending.”
“What choice do we have, Shaheen? If you don’t meet them halfway at least, there will be fallout into the next century. I would have given anything apart from the kingdom’s peace for you to have Johara. But no matter what happens now, you’ll at least have your child, raise it as your own, and not be deprived of it as I was deprived of Aliyah
until lately.”
“Are you even listening to yourself, Father? You sacrificed your one true love and ended up thinking your daughter was your niece, and only because Ammeti Bahiyah rescued her from a life of anonymity. But what did your sacrifices ever gain you, or the kingdom? You’ve been battling one potential uprising after another ever since, the last one two years ago when only Aliyah’s and Kamal’s marriage defused it at the last moment. And here they are, threatening another, and you think sacrificing me will appease them? For how long? They’re like tantrum-throwing brats and the more you give them the more they’ll demand and the louder they’ll scream for it. You can never placate them. So I’m marrying Johara now, not later as I was determined to. And not as a damage-control measure, but because being with her is the one thing I’ve ever wanted for myself. And I will be with her for the rest of my life. You and the rest of the tribes must deal with it.”
Johara clung to him. “I can’t let you do that to yourself and your father and kingdom, Shaheen. Not on my account—”
“It’s on all our accounts—yours, mine and our baby’s. Trust me, ya joharet galbi. I will resolve this.”
Her fingers dug into his arms, her eyes unwavering with determination. “Then promise me … if you can’t, you’ll let me go.”
“I promise I never will.”
Before she could protest more, his father spoke, his voice like a knell of doom. “Don’t make promises you can’t afford to keep, Shaheen.” Before Shaheen could interrupt, his father forged on. “Now you will come back to the palace with me. Your marriage ceremony must be arranged at once.”
“My deepest admiration, Johara, from one master manipulator to another. You’re the very best I’ve seen.”
Johara stiffened at Amjad’s drawling sneer. Shaheen gave her a bolstering squeeze before he turned to his brother.
It was Harres, who’d met them at the palace’s main entrance, who answered him. “It was I who recommended you be one of the two witnesses to the marriage, Amjad. I can easily replace you with Father. Or anyone off the street.”
“And deprive me of the pleasure of handing Shaheen over to the lioness he’s so eager to be devoured by? Can you be so cruel?” Amjad put his arm around Shaheen’s shoulder, looked Johara in the eyes. “So how do you think Johara leaked the info about her pregnancy? She must be rubbing her hands in glee that it created the desired scandal and results. You aren’t the only one who can’t wait for you to marry her now. Everyone—including me—is shoving you at her.”
Shaheen looked heavenward before leveling pitying eyes on him. “Do you drink two cups of hot paranoia first thing each morning?”
Amjad cracked a laugh, gave him a hard tug before letting him go. “I bet they have better taste and effect than the cups of insipid sentimentality you’re guzzling down nonstop.”
“Then how about you try a sip of common, if rare to you, sense?” Shaheen said. “The palace is crawling with aides whose favorite pastime is to monitor the palace’s inmates, and who have nothing but sex scandals on the brain. A female versed in signs of early pregnancy must have guessed Johara’s condition and put the same ‘his and hers’ together that you did and spread the word. Father’s kabeer el yaweran thought the rumor too dangerous to ignore and relayed it. Happy now?”
“Ecstatic.” Amjad folded one hand on top of the other over his heart in mock delight. “I’m going to be an uncle!”
Shaheen grimaced. “In theory. In practice, I’m not letting you near your niece or nephew if you don’t revert to being human.”
“You mean I ever was one? Flatterer. But I’ll leave humanity to you. With all the associated stupidities of the condition. Which, I admit, have most entertaining facets. It was very enlightening to learn that you don’t care about sending the region to hell in a handcart as long as you have Johara and your impending offspring. Such a relief to know you’re not perfect after all, Shaheen. I was beginning to really worry about you.”
Shaheen only gave him a serene look. “So, any new accusations for Johara and her father, Amjad? Get them all off your chest.”
Amjad shrugged his shoulders, which were immaculately draped in a navy silk shirt. “Oh, just variations on the old themes according to the developments.” He turned his gaze to Johara. “She’s full of surprises, isn’t she, our Johara?”
Harres punched him in the arm, pointed two fingers to his own eyes. “You keep your eyes here, faahem?”
Amjad massaged away his brother’s punch, his grin goading. “I understand. You’re now one of Johara’s lackeys.”
Harres narrowed his eyes. “I can order my special forces to take you someplace where you can stew in your poisonous brew until the ceremony is over.”
“You think they’d obey you and not their crown prince? I’m almost tempted to let you see where their loyalties lie.”
“I’ll say it’s on grounds of insanity. You’ve paved those, so it won’t be hard to convince them to cart you away.”
“But-but … mo-om!” Amjad did a spectacular impression of a sullen boy and it only made Johara think she’d never been in the presence of someone more dangerous. Or more … lonely. “I’m the only fun one around. What would this party be without me?”
Harres shook his head, intense fondness mixing with exasperation and even regret. “I swear, sometimes I feel you’re the youngest, not the oldest.”
Amjad’s provocation rose another notch. “But you remain stuck in the middle either way, bro.”
“You said you’d defer to my opinion. I should have known you would only if it coincided with yours.” Harres turned to Johara with long-suffering apology in his eyes. “I told Amjad that his theories of you being behind the jewel conspiracy and creating a scandal to force Shaheen to marry you cancel each other out. If the conspiracy bore fruit, Shaheen wouldn’t be prince. Why sabotage the status Amjad thinks you’re marrying him for?”
Amjad raised his hand in another impression of an overeager student in class. “I know that one!” Johara turned reluctant eyes to him. The man was electrically charismatic even when he insulted her with every breath. He met her eyes, and still talked about her as if she wasn’t there. “It’s a win-win situation for her. If the conspiracy works, she gets paid off big-time, Shaheen loses the title but retains his wealth and power as a businessman and sheikh, and she retains her chokehold on him in every way. Then, once she has all power in her hands, she negotiates the return of the jewels, at whatever price, through a third party, and has it all.”
Harres gave a hearty snort. “Sheesh, Amjad. You actually live with that thing you call a brain inside your head?”
“You envy me because you live with nothing inside yours? That must be how our head of homeland security and secret service got to be so trusting. I almost feel compelled to report this to the council. I bet they’d expel you from your post and toss you out on your ear if they got a whiff of you being such an oblivious romantic.”
Shaheen grinned at him. “Crown prince or not, Amjad, we outnumber you. How about we throw you out on your ear?”
Amjad swept his brothers a bedeviling smile, so secure in his power that he couldn’t be goaded into posturing. “Chill, boys. Haven’t you ever heard of the esteemed position of devil’s advocate?”
“You mean devil’s assistant.” Harres tsked. “Now of all times. You’re sick, Amjad.”
“I’ll live. But really, when better? Afterward, I’ll have to forever hold my aggression. And with Shaheen thinking with body parts that don’t include his brain, you were my last hope of someone seeing beyond the star-crossed drama unfolding here.”
At that moment the king called Shaheen and Harres away, leaving Amjad alone with Johara.
She waited until they were out of earshot. Then she pounced.
She grabbed Amjad’s forearm, dug her fingers into it with all her strength. She heard his surprise in the sharpness of his indrawn breath, saw it in the pupils that jerked to full expansion, engulfing the uncanny emerald of
his eyes.
“Listen, Amjad,” she hissed. “I’m not in any condition to listen to more of your delightful theories about my cunning and long-term treachery. I’ve loved Shaheen since the moment I laid eyes on him, even before he saved my life. I thought living with my hopeless love was the worst thing that I’d ever feel. Then I came back into his life and realized he’s loved me as long and as fiercely, and my pain became agony. I feel like I’ve fallen into a nightmare, getting my impossible dream of having Shaheen, but in this terrible way. All I have to look forward to is a few months with him, if that, then a life without him, when he’ll love and need me and our baby as much as we do him, but be forced to live without us.
“So thank your demons that you’ve never loved like this and evidently can’t love anyone. You’ll never suffer the agonies and ecstasies of our soul-deep connection, or the despair I’m anticipating when I have to leave him. And I’m not letting you add to his troubles. So, to quote Shaheen, from now on, Amjad, shut up!”
She fell silent, glaring up at him, trembling with the emotions tearing through her, and thought if stupefaction took human form, it would be Amjad now.
When he remained silent, she let out the air in her lungs on a choppy exhalation. “Now take your mind off of me and concentrate those formidable powers of yours on the most important thing. The jewels.”
He shook his head, as if to wake up from a trance. Then he finally drawled, “It has always paid for me to think the worst and make amends later if need be. So I will do anything I can to atone for my attitude when—and if—I become convinced you are innocent.” He bent closer, as if to give her a mind and psyche scan. “So just answer me this, Johara—if you and your father are innocent, why didn’t you recognize the fakes?”
“I know why.” Johara jerked around at Shaheen’s declaration. He and Harres reached her and Amjad’s side again. “Berj has been sliding into depression, and his inability to focus on his job—and therefore his failure to notice the fakes—is the reason he’s retiring. Johara hasn’t been near the jewels since she left Zohayd twelve years ago.”
Desert Jewels & Rising Stars Page 74