* * *
“Tell me how the Dahab treated you.”
Lauren had just finished her dinner when Zafir came back into the tent.
One glimpse into his face told her he was serious. “I was brought meals and snacks at regular intervals, called when Salma needed attention.”
“Did you agree to accompany them?”
“Yes. Salma...lost a lot of blood. Ahmed refused to leave my side so I said okay.” His frown deepened and fresh anxiety trickled in to her veins. “I’ve been thinking about that. Didn’t Farrah get their message?”
His jaw set like concrete, he shook his head. “There was no message. You vanished and there was nothing.”
“Wait, why wouldn’t they—” She paled. If they hadn’t relayed her message, that means Farrah or Arif or Zafir hadn’t known where she was. “Why wouldn’t they tell you?”
“The Dahab hate me, Lauren. And what Dahab believes, the other tribes follow. They figured out who you were and brought you along to send a message to me.”
Fear fisted her throat but she spoke through it. “They were nothing but courteous to me.” Shaking inside, she realized why he’d been so angry back in the tent, why he had held her like that... He’d been worried about her?
No, she couldn’t be foolish enough to think he’d been worried about her.
His unborn child was a different matter. “They hate you...why?”
“I represent their disgrace, their shame.” He clutched his nape, a show of vulnerability she didn’t think he was aware of. “My mother was from this very tribe. She defied their rules and lived with my father while he was married, became his mistress and bore me out of wedlock. Which turned all the tribes against the state.
“I spent the first twenty years of my life thinking I was a mutt the sheikh took pity on. Suddenly, Crown Prince Tariq, who had been my friend for as long as I could remember, hated the very sight of me.”
“He’d discovered the truth?” she added, her chest aching. He sounded matter-of-fact yet she knew the scars were bone deep.
“Yes. But it took my brother’s abuse of power, utter ruin of tradition and duty that finally forced the sheikh’s hand.” Bitterness carved lines into his beautiful face.
“Rashid, the sheikh, very cleverly, reared me into a faithful, dutiful pawn of his and there I was, to the shock of the nation, the new heir, blood of my father.”
“Then why were you in New York?” She understood the truth the moment she asked. Finally understood his anguished wait.
“Because Tariq didn’t like all the power being snatched away from him. He put Rashid in a coma, bought off half the High Council and exiled me under penalty of death. Attacked the Dahab again and again, making their very mode of life untenable. Threw the nation into civil war and riots.
“I was waiting for the right moment to take back control of the city.”
“Your mother...did you know her?”
He shrugged, a hardness that she hated settling into those angles. His answer when it came sent a painful exhale through her, so unexpected it was. “I don’t remember her, if I ever knew her. Apparently, she was weakened after I was born and died soon after.
“The Dahab didn’t want me and my father, for reasons of his own, had Arif put it out that I was an orphan he picked up off the streets.
“And you...” He uttered something raw in Arabic. “You got in the middle of it all.”
“All I did was...” Lauren searched for the right words, “do my duty. I might not be the ruler of a nation, but I owe it to anyone who needs medical attention.”
The words came automatically, as the horrific reality of her actions dawned on her. He hadn’t known his mother or father growing up and she had hidden the knowledge of his child from him.
Suddenly, Lauren could see beneath the power and duty that he wore like a second skin, to the loneliness, the dark anger, the self-imposed isolation around him. And the hard man he had become to overcome everything his childhood had imposed on him.
Would he ever forgive her?
She’d betrayed him at the deepest level with her ignorant actions. And that guilt made her raw, defensive, unbalanced. “How would I know, Zafir? How would I know what I’m stepping into if you treat me like a prisoner, a mistress, and now a brood horse? Unless you accept that I have a role in your life, as much as you’d like to put me in a box and lock me there?”
His gaze stayed on her, thoughtful, almost open.
She pressed on, feeling as if she was taking a step into some unknown, without seeing a way forward.
Her relationship with her parents had always been transactions. If Lauren was a good girl for the summer at her aunt’s, they would let her visit them in Morocco. If Lauren got good grades, then she could spend Christmas break with them in Paris.