by Sophia Lynn
Next to her, Halil mumbled, still deep in slumber, and after a moment, she laid a gentle kiss on his forehead, smiling at the way he stirred before he went still again.
My God is there going to be a lot to unpack there.
She slid out of bed and took a shower, but then she was stumped. The only intact piece of clothing she had left was her bra. She had lost the dress and the panties after her late-night activities with Halil, and when she poked at the dress, she couldn’t resist a slight blush at how very thoroughly she had been loved.
For a moment, Myriah was afraid she was going to have to stick with one of Halil’s T-shirts and possibly a large scarf turned improbable skirt, but then one of the other bedrooms provided a solution.
The first thing she felt when she opened a closet and found a rack of gorgeous dresses was a stab of jealousy. What woman had access to the Sheikh of Ealim’s penthouse to casually keep such gorgeous clothing here?
Then she pulled out one of the dresses and shook her head at her own foolishness. The clothing was gorgeous and kept in perfect condition, but there was no denying how old-fashioned the dresses were. The cuts, the prints, the styles . . . all of it suggested an aesthetic that had gone quietly out of fashion some twenty to thirty years ago.
Well, whoever left these clothes here, she probably isn’t going to come back for them. I can always clean them and send them back, and it isn’t like I have any other options . . .
She chose a maroon dress that hung down to her ankles, the bodice snug and decorated with delicate gold embroidery. It fit her well, and for a moment she twirled in the skirt, smiling to see it flare out.
Didn’t I see a pastry shop across the street from the hotel? It must be open by now, right?
She decided that it was always better to face the morning with some sweets on hand, and slipping on her shoes, she opened the front door.
Myriah blinked at the two men opposite the door, dressed in black and as impassive as stone.
“Um . . .”
“Good morning, miss,” said one of them courteously. The other only nodded. “Do you or the sheikh need anything?”
“Um, I was just going to nip out for some danishes or something? I saw a shop across the way.”
“Oh, there’s no reason for you to go. Here, tell me what you want. I will run fetch it for you.”
It was on the tip of Myriah’s tongue to tell him that he didn’t need to do this, that she was absolutely more than capable of making her way across the street to grab something sweet, but then she saw the implacable look on their faces. They were polite, they even might be kind, but the message was clear.
She wasn’t allowed to leave.
“Sure,” she said, aware that her voice was more than a little high. “Sure. I mean . . . something with fruit in it for me, and something more savory for Ha- I mean, the sheikh. And, um, why don’t you get yourselves something as well? Something expensive. And put it on my tab.”
It only took one of the men a few minutes to come back with something that smelled utterly amazing wrapped up in a paper bag. She gave them their share, then retreated into the penthouse again, her smile fading away.
She knew she should be hungry, but she couldn’t do much more than pull something that looked like a passion fruit doughnut to bits on her plate. It was an amazingly delicious pastry, but at the moment, she couldn’t seem to muster up the ability to eat it.
Instead, her brain was full of images of bars, of birds in cages, of Halil having a shocking amount of authority and power in this country; something she had never guessed at.
It both took forever and was utterly no time at all before she heard the shower in the bedroom turn on, and then it was only a little later when Halil came out, dressed casually in linen trousers and a light linen shirt.
“So this is what you look like when you’re at home,” Myriah found herself saying.
Halil tilted his head at her. There was something more cautious and restrained about him this morning, but after their charged encounter the night before, she could hardly blame him.
“How do you mean?”
“Back in London. You always looked . . . so bright and shiny and new. And don’t get me wrong, it was a good look for you.”
Halil smiled a little.
“Thank you for the compliment. But was I doing something wrong?”
“You weren’t. And honestly, I think I was the only one who ever noticed, if there was really anything to notice at all. But you wore those clothes like you did a costume. It looked fun to wear them, and you knew you looked good in them . . . but they weren’t real, were they? Not like the clothes you are wearing now are real.”
Halil shrugged.
“I like a good Western suit sometimes. It’s flattering, and there are some places where people don’t trust men who don’t wear them, as if it has anything to do with what I’m offering or what I want. But yes. These are the clothes that I would much rather be wearing. There have been versions of these clothes around in Ealim for almost three hundred years”
“So your ancestors knew what worked and stuck with it?” asked Myriah with a smile, and Halil grinned.
“That’s a good way of looking at it.” His grin faded, but Myriah had some hope when she saw that the humor and affection in his eyes were still there.
“Myriah. We must talk.”
“Yeah. I know. Have some of the pastry that your guards got us though. It’s good.”
Did Halil wince a little?
“Ah. You met them.”
“Yes, I did. Tell me, Halil. What would have happened if I had tried to leave?”
He gave her a level look. “Were you going to try to leave?”
“Honestly? All I had in mind was going to that pastry shop across the way. I didn’t think about running from you or this conversation that we need to have—not until I saw the men who had been standing guard for most of the night, apparently.”
Halil’s face went quiet and stern. She had known him as a ball of fire, a reckless young man who would do almost anything in the pursuit of a good time. This must have been how he looked when he was ruling his country, and she felt a chill go down her spine. She didn’t know who this man was anymore, and she was coming to realize that her impulsive act of following him home the night before might have more consequences than she originally intended.
“They were there for protection, yours and mine,” he said.
“Can you tell me how either of us was in any danger?”
“You had just told me that you bore me three heirs. I didn’t want to take the least chance that you might choose to leave before I understood the situation better.”
There was plenty to say about the fact that he wanted to prevent her from leaving, but it was the words three heirs that rang in her mind like a bell.
“Three . . . heirs? Are you serious?”
Halil’s face was positively stormy, but he didn’t come any closer to her. In the back of her mind she wondered if he was fearing his own reaction to her news the night before. Paradoxically, however, she wasn’t afraid of him at all. She had never feared anything about Halil, and she wasn’t afraid that he might get a little rough with her, because this man had never once hurt her.
“Yes, Myriah, I am very serious. The children you bore, since they are my children, are heirs to the throne of Ealim, even if we are not married.”
“Even if I’m a foreigner? Even if they are girls?” asked Myriah. It felt as if the world were tilting gently to one side, as if she were going insane.
Halil grinned, and there was something almost shockingly bright about it.
“Of course. Ealim is not like its neighbors in many ways. We have a long tradition of sheikhas who have ruled just as well and oftentimes better than their brothers or cousins could have hoped to do. The blood is the key and the path. This what our old stories tell, and it has largely led us right.”
Myriah was already shaking her head.
“No. No. It
can’t be. They’re just little girls. They’re . . . they’re tiny. You don’t understand. you can’t be talking about blood and sheikhas and have it mean anything to them . . .”
“I was once a child too, Myriah, but it was also important for me to be brought up to take charge of my kingdom, of the world that made me. Our daughters . . .”
For some reason, his words made her lurch to her feet. She stood looking at him wide-eyed.
“Our daughters . . .” The phrase was so foreign to her. Before this moment, there was no one who had ever laid claim to her girls like this, absolutely no one.
She stared when she saw a look of hurt flash over Halil’s face. It was pain and grief, there and gone to be replaced with something far more stern and resolute.
“Yes, Myriah. Whether you like it or not, you have told me something that I cannot ignore. I do not even want to ignore it. You told me that I have daughters out there, children that I have never cared for, loved, or even learned about. That is unacceptable.”
“And you are the one who decides what is acceptable and what is not?”
The grin that crossed his face was as sharp as tiger’s tooth and brittle as an eggshell.
“I am, Myriah. I am the sheikh, and even if I might curse some of the problems it brings to my door, it also comes with powers and privileges. And I tell you, I will not be without my children any longer.”
Halil’s words sent a chill of pure ice through Myriah’s body. It felt as if all of the vague fears that she had nursed over the previous three years had come home to roost, and they were ready to take her babies away from her.
“They aren’t yours—” she began, but Halil cut her off with a short gesture.
“We can find the truth of that very easily, can’t we? Paternity tests are among the easiest things to ask for in the courts, and believe me, Myriah, you do not want to get the courts involved. Do you think you have any chance once lawyers are involved?”
Myriah felt a sudden surge of fury that was just as quickly doused by a feeling of intense despair.
“No,” she whispered. “Halil . . . you are not a monster.”
For a moment, it looked as if he were wondering what he wanted to say. To her surprise and relief, she saw a look of regret come across his face. No matter what he was, no matter who he wanted, she could almost sense the reluctance in him to do harm; the natural kindness of a man who had helped her without thinking last night and who would refuse to harm her even when three heirs were on the line.
“Do not push me, Myriah,” he said at last, and she was aware of iron under his words. “Do not force my hand. You must understand. This country is my life, and if I have children, that changes everything. Do not force me to do something we will both regret.”
Myriah swallowed hard. There was a time in the not-so-distant past where she might have railed at him, might have tempted just the dark fate that he was hinting at. Right now, though, she knew that there was no way she could act as if she were alone; she had three little girls to care for.
“Then what?” she asked, holding out her hands wide. “What do you want? What are your demands?”
He snorted. “I am not some kind of movie villain, Myriah. I’m a sheikh, and apparently, from what you have told me, I am a father. I want to meet my daughters. I want to see what I have missed out on, and I need to think about what this means for the succession in my country.”
“You can’t be serious, that one of my daughters—”
“One of our daughters,” he said, his words soft but implacable. “And yes. Will one of them certainly sit on the throne? That is impossible to say at this moment. But that is a possibility, a very real one, I should say.”
Myriah swallowed. It was still early, but she felt as though she had gone three rounds in the boxing ring with a heavyweight champ. To her surprise, she felt Halil take her hand gently. There was a part of her, a proud part that hated being forced into anything, that made her want to flinch away, but the comfort and warmth he was offering were real.
“Believe me, Myriah. Believe in me. I don’t want to hurt you, and I don’t want to hurt your- our-girls. Let me do what is best. Please.”
It was the please that did it, she thought. In it, she thought she could feel the ache and the grief of a man who wanted to know his children, a man who had changed from the one she had known.
She was utterly still for a moment, and then, feeling as if she were dangling on some kind of precipice, as if she was taking a step that would launch her into the unknown, she nodded.
“All right.”
Chapter Eight
Myriah
In the end, they did not simply fly to Boston that morning as Halil suggested they do.
The look he had given her when she said she wanted to finish the work she was doing for her firm was incredulous, but he was appeased when she pointed out that after she made her report, she would be off of work for a while.
“If I had known that you were carrying my children, you would not have been required to—”
“I don’t care,” she said sharply. “I like my work. I like my job and the people that hired me. I’m not . . . some kind of seventeenth century princess that needs to be protected from the world. I do really well, for me and for the girls.”
He subsided at that, perhaps even looked a little bit proud, but there was still a restless light in his eyes, as if he were convinced that everything might have been easier, might have been less trouble, less awful, if he had known about the girls.
Hell, he was probably right. The months after the triplets were born, when it felt as if she could get tired just getting up to warm up some formula, when the winter seemed to stretch on forever, when Rose was the only one she had in her corner, having just another warm body around would have been nice, let alone what a man with Halil’s resources might have been able to accomplish for her.
Before she died of cancer when Myriah was nineteen and Rose was seventeen, their mother had always told them that it was important to move forward, to keep from spending all their time looking back. It was good advice, and Myriah knew that it would have to serve her well now. She had to keep on going, and looking back at what might have been or what should have been or what could have been would not help any of them.
Instead, she worked to the point of collapse to get all of her work taken care of in twenty-four hours, and then she put herself in Halil’s hands for the trip back to the United States.
She had expected first class, but what she got was a private jet. She got on the plane with a feeling that she should not have been touching anything, and when she took her seat, a smiling young man offered her a sweet drink and some food. She declined, but she found herself watching Halil as he took both with an easy smile.
“You don’t even really see it, do you?” she asked him.
He glanced at her. “What do you mean?”
“Any of this. Not the jet, not the service, not the things that appear just when you’re hungry or when you’re thirsty. This is . . . just the way things are for you.”
Halil gave her an amused look.
“Yes and no. When I was in London, I was largely on my own there. That was the thing that struck me so quickly, you know. Not that there was no one to cater to my whims, but that I was all alone there. I wasn’t used to it.”
Myriah refused to let the pang of pity she felt for him show on her face. So he was lonely. Most people were. Most people didn’t return home to a legacy of wealth and privilege, either.
“So . . . you never told me what you were doing in London.”
“You were certain it was organized crime.”
She shrugged off his attempt at a joke, frowning a little.
Then the plane began its ascent and they were silent for a little bit. When she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, she could see how very relaxed he was, how much private flying was simply a matter of everyday convenience for him. It still felt incredibly fancy to her, and she lean
ed back in the plush seat a little.
When the plane leveled out, Myriah wondered if she should let it go. There was something reluctant about the way that Halil was speaking about the matter, but she decided that if she didn’t get to keep her secrets, he didn’t get to keep his.
“Halil? You’re the Sheikh of Ealim. I have some idea about how wealthy you are. I knew to some degree even then, though of course I had no idea the extent of it all. Why were you living in a nice apartment on the East End?”
Halil was silent for so long that she wondered if he would answer her at all, but then it looked like he came to a decision.
“I was there because my father had asked me to leave the country.”
She blinked.
“Like . . . for school?”
Halil’s laugh was slightly caustic, but if there was any mockery there, it was most definitely pointed at himself.
“Certainly not. By that point, I had already been kicked out of the some of the most prestigious universities in the world. No. I was running wild, and my father feared, quite rightly, that I might ruin the respect the people were supposed to have for me as a member of the royal family.”
Halil said it all as if it was the most normal thing in the world, but Myriah stared at him.
“So . . . your father sent you away because you were being . . . what, an embarrassment?”
Myriah had never thought that she would see Halil evidence any amount of shame, but there was a flicker of something old and sad across his eyes just then.
“If you don’t want to put such a fine point on it, yes. But I think you don’t quite understand, Myriah. It was . . . it was something he was doing for the entire family, for the way the country saw us, and for my own future rule. If the scandal sheets were full of my exploits as a young man, the people might never respect me as a sheikh. It might have been disastrous.”
Even as Myriah’s heart went out to him, she could feel a warning chime in the back of her own head. Was this the fate that waited for her own three beloved girls? Would any hint of scandal mean that they would be sent away or split up? She couldn’t tolerate that; even the idea on its own made her want to run mad. She knew that women were too often held to a higher standard than men were. Would her girls be banished to some . . . some convent or all-girls boarding school for an innocent kiss?