by Amy Ruttan
She crossed her arms. “Your fiancée is the one who helped my family leave. She said that you knew and she gave me a check to take care of my costs.”
Maazin saw red. “Meleena knew?”
Tears filled Jeena’s eyes and she worried her bottom lip, nodding. “She did.”
“I wasn’t engaged to Meleena then,” he said, but he was angry.
He knew that Meleena was manipulative, but he hadn’t known this. It made sense now why she’d supposedly found the letter that Jeena had left.
“I’m aware of that and I always wondered if she was trying to get me out of the way so she could have you. I guess she won.”
“She didn’t win,” Maazin said, shaking her head.
“You’re engaged to her.”
“No. No, I’m not.”
Jeena’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
“She’s ended it and my father has kept it secret. There are some things to work out, but Lady Meleena ended it and I was quite relieved.”
Jeena sat down slowly, looking a little pale.
Frankly, he was feeling a bit ill. Meleena had manipulated them both.
Still, that didn’t bring back Ali or his wife. They were gone and Maazin still blamed himself for it all.
“So you really didn’t know?” she whispered.
“No. I didn’t. If I’d have known...” He trailed off, because he didn’t know what to say. What if he had known? He would have gone after her? Of course he would have. He wished he had, not only for Jeena’s sake but also for Ali and Chandni. But even if he hadn’t gone out to that party, and Ali and Chandni hadn’t died, he knew that the future for him, Jeena and their unborn child would still have been fraught with uncertainty. Would his family have accepted her? Would she have wanted this life? Would he have wanted his son to have the same life he’d had?
He wasn’t sure.
But none of it mattered anyway. Ali and Chandni were dead, and he had to live with the guilt. Jeena and Syman had built a life in Canada that did not include him. And he had to accept that too.
It was too much to process and he felt awful. He hung his head.
“I think I need to rest,” Jeena said quietly, her voice breaking slightly as if she was grappling with the same amount of emotion he was. “It’s been a lot today.”
He nodded. “I know.”
She got up and left.
He didn’t follow.
* * *
Maazin tossed and turned all night. It was all he could do not to go and see Jeena. He wanted to make things right, but he wasn’t sure that he knew how.
It was early morning when finally he gave up any pretense of trying to fall asleep and got up, showered and dressed. When he got downstairs he found Jeena waiting calmly in the hall. She was dressed as well, in her now clean clothes. Her hair was braided back and she looked like she was ready to flee.
Again.
“Jeena?” he asked in surprise. “What are you doing up so early?”
“I need to get back to work. My team has been working all night and I’ve been lounging about here.”
“You were hardly lounging about on purpose. We had to wait to make sure that neither one of us was infected.”
“And we’re not. We would’ve had symptoms by now, so I need to go back to work. My phone is dead, though, my charger is in my gear back with my team and your phone line is dead so I couldn’t call a taxi to come and take me back to the makeshift hospital.”
“The phone lines on this side of Huban are still out of order, but you wouldn’t have been able to order any cab to come here and take you to the southeast district. No cab driver is equipped to handle that road. Only medical personnel and the army have permission to even try to traverse the roads.”
Jeena sighed in resignation. “Will you take me, then?”
She didn’t seem to want to rely on him. Not that he could blame her, he’d been hardly reliable in the past, but that was the past. This was different.
The only thing that wasn’t different was that Ali was dead and he was responsible. That was his burden to bear.
The past is the past.
He nodded. “I’ll drive you, of course.”
“Thank you.”
Maazin came down the rest of the stairs and grabbed his keys. He opened the door for Jeena while he finished locking up his home. He wasn’t sure when he would get back here again and until the roads were open outside the city he wasn’t sure when his small staff would make it back here.
They drove away from his home and back toward the southeastern district in near silence. He didn’t know what to say. She’d had his child and he hadn’t been there. He hadn’t known about it.
Unless Syman isn’t yours?
No. Syman was his. He knew that without a doubt.
It was one of the things he’d adored about Jeena when they’d first met. She had been so different from all the women in his social circle. She had been honest and good.
Or at least he’d thought she was until she’d left him.
One thing he did know, he had to get to the bottom of this. After he’d made sure that Jeena got back to the makeshift hospital and was reunited with her team, he was going to head straight to the palace and demand some answers from his parents.
“Have you heard from...?” He trailed off because it was hard for him to even think about the fact that he had a son. A son he knew nothing about.
There was so much he wanted to know about him but, then, there was so much he was afraid to know, and then there was a part of him that felt that maybe it would be better that Syman didn’t know him or anything about this life.
Syman was currently free and he envied the boy that. Still, he was Syman’s father and he wanted to know him.
You don’t deserve to know him. You cost Ali his life. You don’t deserve to have a child.
And he had to keep reminding himself of that.
“Syman?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“I haven’t heard from him since my phone died and I’m sure he’s worried that he hasn’t heard from me. I know my parents will worry.”
Maazin nodded. “Well, they’ll certainly be relieved when you tell them that you didn’t contract dysentery.”
She smiled. “Of course.”
He hated that there was this awkwardness between the two of them, but he was the one to blame for that. He’d foolishly believed that she’d written that letter. It was clear now she hadn’t. He hated that the both of them had been manipulated by Meleena.
At least Jeena hadn’t destroyed anyone’s life. She started a new life in Canada and prospered. He’d wallowed in self-pity and had caused his brother’s death.
“So, why did you agree to marry Meleena?” she asked.
He almost lost control of the car. “What?”
“Maazin, clearly you loathe her or rather loathed her. Why did you agree to marry her?”
He sighed. “I didn’t loathe her. I didn’t particularly care for her but ‘loathe’ is a strong word.”
She cocked her head to one side, studying him. “Fine. So why? Why get engaged to her and then let the engagement go on for so long?”
Because I couldn’t get over you.
“It’s my duty to marry and...” He had been going to say “produce an heir,” but in reality he’d already done that. Illegitimacy aside, Syman was his heir.
Jeena’s cheeks flushed with crimson. “I get it. You need a legitimate heir and, believe me, that’s not why I wanted you to know about Syman. I don’t need anything from you, Maazin. I haven’t needed you.”
That cut him to the quick.
I haven’t needed you.
And he deserved it. He truly did.
No one really needed him.
Only his patients, which was
one thing he never took for granted. His patients needed him, his people needed him and he would keep that promise he’d made all those years ago when Jeena had left and Ali had died, his promise to dedicate his life to his work and making sure everyone in Kalyana was taken care of.
Properly.
“Well, it doesn’t matter now. It’s done. The past is in the past,” he said quickly.
He was done talking about this.
There was no point to discussing it further. The truth was out and even though Meleena had ruined a life with his son, it had been his own actions that had killed his brother and sister-in-law. Jeena was right. She didn’t need him in her life, and he truly deserved it.
That was karma for you.
CHAPTER FIVE
I WISH I had never said that to him.
It had been a couple of days since Jeena had last seen Maazin and had said those hurtful words that she was now regretting, even if they had been the truth.
She hadn’t needed him in Canada. There were times she thought she did but, no, she didn’t really need him. She was raising Syman to be a capable man.
And she’d learned that from the moment she’d walked through the doors of that first hospital in her intern year. A single mother in a foreign country. She’d had to rely on herself. Jeena had learned to rely only on herself.
Still, it wasn’t his fault. He didn’t know she had been pregnant. They had both been manipulated, but he didn’t say whether he would’ve come to her aid. He’d trailed off, which made her believe he didn’t want the responsibility.
Or that he was afraid of it.
And they weren’t married. A prince had to produce a legitimate heir.
Still, she shouldn’t have said that to him and she was regretting her words. She’d forgotten herself. When she’d been studying to be a doctor there’d been so many times that she’d had to really fight for her education. To be heard. Especially because she was a woman and she was a woman of color and an immigrant to Canada to boot. She’d had to become tough and fight for what she wanted and sometimes she was more brusque than she needed to be.
And that had been one of those times.
Maazin hadn’t said much to her. He’d dropped her off so she could get checked out by her team and rejoin them in their relief work and then disappeared.
She would catch glimpses of him, but he was busy doing his work and wouldn’t even look in her direction. He was acting like she wasn’t even there.
It’s for the best and what you wanted. He knows about Syman. You’ve done your part.
Which was true. From the moment she’d known she’d be returning to Kalyana, she’d been terrified about running into him again, but now that it hadn’t been as bad as she’d thought it was going to be, she liked being around him.
She’d forgotten how charming he could be.
His charm is why you got into trouble in the first place.
And as she watched him across the hospital, checking on his people and being so tender and gentle with the sickest and poorest of the Kalyanese people, it warmed her heart. This was a different man from the playboy who’d swept her off her feet.
He seemed at ease and he was putting the poorest of the poor above himself.
He cared about something. He seemed passionate about something, instead of just coasting, like he had before.
Maybe he had changed?
How much could a member of the Kalyanese royal family change, though? They were bound by protocol and restrictions. They had everything, yet they weren’t free. Maazin had told her that many times when they’d been together.
He was bound by duty and Jeena was very aware of the security personnel that surrounded the hospital. She didn’t want this kind of life for Syman.
“So, you’re the other Canadian Kalyanese doctor I’ve been told about.”
Jeena startled and turned to see the bright smile of a beautiful woman, one who she recognized from photographs that had been plastered everywhere when Crown Prince Farhan Aaloui had wed his Canadian bride, Dr. Sara Greer.
“Your Highness.” Jeena gave a small curtsey in deference to Sara.
A blush stained Sara’s cheeks. “You don’t need to do that.”
“I do. I may be Canadian now, but I am Kalyanese and you are the Crown Princess. You will be my Queen one day.”
“I’m really not used to all this bowing and scraping,” Sara admitted. “I would like it if you just called me Sara.”
Jeena nodded and smiled. “I would like that.”
“Good,” Sara said, relieved. “I was hoping that I was going to have a chance to run into you.”
“Oh?” Jeena asked.
Sara motioned for them to head over to a quiet area, out of earshot of any patients, and now Jeena wondered if she knew about Syman too.
“I was wondering how long your team was planning on staying here? I asked, but couldn’t get any definitive answers from anyone.”
Jeena relaxed. “Oh, well...our work visas have been cleared for us to remain for at least two weeks minimum, but given the state that Kalyana is in after this cyclone it could be longer.”
“That’s what I was hoping for.”
Jeena raised an eyebrow. “You were hoping we’d stay longer?”
“Well, not for that reason. I have been speaking to Farhan about the need to promote women in STEM programs and encouraging Kalyanese women to pursue STEM as a career. Especially in medicine, but there’s no university here so young people have to study abroad, and a lot of families can’t afford to send their children off-island for education.”
Sara was right. Jeena had always had an interest in science and medicine, but her parents hadn’t been able to afford to send her to a school to study abroad, which had been the only option.
Even though they hadn’t wanted to go to Canada at first, it had worked out and Jeena had got her education.
“How do I fit in?” Jeena asked.
“I thought we could get together and work on a proposal to support young women in studying medicine abroad and returning to practice here. I’d also like to explore the possibility of Kalyana having its own university. As someone who grew up here, I would love to pick your brains. And maybe then we could speak to young women and inspire them. Let them know there are options for them. Both of us are successful Kalyanese doctors.” Sara smiled brightly. “It’s all just a bunch of jumbled hazy thoughts in my head, but I would love your input.”
Jeena smiled. “I think that’s a great idea.”
“Right?” Sara crossed her arms. “I knew that I would like you. You think like me.”
“I appreciate that. I don’t find many people who think like me. Of course, living in Alberta I was the only one from Kalyana.”
“I understand that. Where I grew up in London, Ontario I didn’t really run into people from our country either. Of course, I was adopted and for a long time didn’t even know that I was Kalyanese.”
“That’s a shame,” Jeena said, and then quickly corrected herself. “Not because you were adopted, but that you didn’t know anything about Kalyana. It really is a wonderful country and I’ve missed it.”
“Can I ask something else?”
Jeena knew what was coming and she wanted to say no, but she couldn’t. “You want to know why I left?”
“Yeah, it’s obvious you love it here so much.”
“I do. I love my parents more and my father had an opportunity to make his dreams of becoming a tropical flower farmer a reality. There wasn’t enough land to fulfill his needs in Kalyana, so he moved to Canada when the opportunity came. I’m their only child and I wanted to become a doctor. As you say, there isn’t really opportunity here in Kalyana for young women to do that, so I went with them. I haven’t regretted it and I’m glad to be back here and helping the country of my birth.”
It was all a lie, but Sara didn’t need to know the sordid details.
Sara smiled. “That’s lovely.”
“Your Highness?”
Sara spun around to see a security guard waiting. She bit her lip and then turned back to Jeena. “I have to go. It was wonderful to meet you, Dr. Harrak.”
Jeena bowed her head. “The pleasure is all mine, Your Highness.”
Sara left with the security guard and Jeena let out of a sigh of relief that she hadn’t even known she was holding. She was so worried that Sara had been told about her past, that Sara knew about Syman that...well, she didn’t know what.
She was just so worried that others would find out about her and Syman. No one needed to know that Maazin was Syman’s father.
Jeena had the feeling that someone was staring at her and she glanced over to see that Maazin was looking at her with curiosity.
Don’t think about him.
She turned back to her work. He had made it clear that he was mad at her and she’d said something she completely regretted, but maybe this was for the best.
He leaned over, his breath on her neck making a tingle run down her spine. “I see that you’ve met Sara.”
“I thought you weren’t talking to me, Your Highness?” she replied.
“Yes, well I was curious when I saw Sara come in and introduce herself.”
Jeena sighed. “Look, about what I said...”
He held up his hand. “I don’t want to talk about that. What did Sara want?”
“She wanted me to help with her initiative to promote the STEM programs to young women in Kalyana. I told her that I would back her on that. Help her with her ideas for her proposal. Talk to other young women interested in the sciences.”
“You’re not here for long, how can you?” he asked, crossing his arms. “For that matter, why did she ask you to participate in this?”
“She asked me because I am Kalyanese and even though her heritage is Kalyanese, she was born in Canada and feels that I would have a better perspective of the needs here, as I grew up here.”
Maazin cocked an eyebrow. “I can see that.”