Tears welled up again as the certainty she’d needed seeped into her bones. “I—I can’t find words to thank you.”

He grimaced. “Then don’t go in search of any.” He tapped her plate with his fork. “Now eat. You need to be stocked up on as many calories as you can to be there for Ryan in the coming time.”

She ended up finishing a three-course meal.

But taking a leaf from his repertoire, she specified a reward in return. Letting her see Ryan as soon as she was done.

He’d finally succumbed, telling her she drove a hard bargain.

She’d been standing for what felt like hours behind the glass partition in pediatric ICU, gowned for the sterile zone, watching Ryan sleeping in a cot that looked like a space pod, her tears streaming. Ones of pure relief.

Even though it drove a hot lance through her heart to see Ryan’s little body hooked to leads and invaded by drips and tubes, she knew one thing beyond a doubt: he was all right.

Fareed had been sharing the poignant vigil in silence.

He finally inhaled. “And Ryan invalidates my worries again. He looks as if he’s sleeping in complete contentment.”

“H-he probably is,” she whispered. “He must feel how much care he’s receiving, must have felt how much you’ve done for him. He might be relieved for the first time in his life now you’ve corrected h-his problem.”

“Everything’s possible, especially with a child as sensitive as Ryan.” He turned her to him, wiped a tear that was trembling on her chin. “Now go say welcome back to your baby.”

She gasped. “Oh, God…really?”

He nodded, his smile a ray of delight illuminating her world.

She streaked into the ICU. He followed at a slower pace.

He stood back patiently, let her fondle and coo to the sedated Ryan until she turned to him with tears mixing with unbridled smiles. Then he checked Ryan, discussed his management with his ICU staff, before escorting her out.

He took her to a suite on the same level as his office. The sitting room overlooked the same view that had stunned her from his windows, from a different viewpoint, with the magic of the capital now shrouded in another dawn. She could barely believe it had been just a day since she’d set foot in Jizaan.

He took her by the shoulders. “I recommend another fourteen-hour sleep marathon. Or at least eight. Don’t wake up sooner on Ryan’s account. I’m keeping him in ICU for twelve more hours.”

“But you said you’d let him out in a few hours!”

“And the concrete numerical value of ‘a few’ is?”

He was teasing her again. But now she knew in her bones Ryan would be all right, she found herself attempting to tease back.

“The world doesn’t know how lucky it is that you decided to use your inexorableness for good. But even though you’ve benevolently steam-rolled me on every decision and I’m now forever in your debt, this—” her gesture encompassed the superbly decorated, all-amenities, expansive suite “—is going too far. Between here and the guest apartment at your place, you’ll spoil Ryan and Rose so much that I might have to find us a new place when we return home.”

Interest flared in his eyes. “Where is home? We never got around to talking about that.”

She almost kicked herself. She’d just given him an opening to delve deeper into her life and everything she wanted kept hidden at all costs.

Panic surged. If she told the truth, he’d put things together sooner rather than later. If she lied, rather than omitted the truth, as she had done so far, apart from when she’d had to lie about Ryan’s father, those same powers of observation would see through her. But she had no choice.

A lie was potentially less catastrophic than the truth.

Feeling it would corrode her on the way out, she opened her mouth to deliver it…and his pager went off.

She almost sagged when he released her from his focus.

Then her breath caught. He was frowning at his pager.

“Is it Ryan?”

He raised his eyes at her question, gave a lock of her hair a playful tug. “No, Gwen. Ryan is fine and will remain fine. It’s just another emergency. Now have mercy on me and sleep. I’m exhausted already and it’ll be a while before I get any rest. Don’t add to my burdens. I’ll know if you’re not sleeping.”

Without waiting for an answer, he turned away.

The door closed behind him in seconds. But she still felt his presence surrounding her, making her world secure, and life no longer a setting for anguish and struggles.

She could offer him nothing in return for the gifts he’d showered on her and her own. A chunk of her life wouldn’t suffice. But he’d asked her to make his easier by taking herself off his endless list of worries. Complying with his request was all she had to offer for now.

She found the bedroom, and with a moan, sank into the bed’s luxury, into the depths of thankfulness. For him, for Ryan’s cure. And for being saved by the pager.

She prayed she’d never be forced to lie to him outright again, until he discharged Ryan.

Once he did, she’d run, disappear, and he’d never know.

And she’d never see him again.

The joy that had begun to take root inside her drained. Tears flowed again as she prayed.

Let his obligations keep him away for as long as she had to remain in Jizaan. Let his loss start now.

Only that would save her from sustaining further injuries.

Seven

She should have known.

That anything she hoped for would happen in reverse. With the record of the past years, how had she hoped otherwise?

Apart from Ryan’s healing at a breathtaking rate, blossoming under Fareed’s comprehensive care, everything else was going wrong. Terribly wrong.

For the week they stayed in the center, Fareed was constantly present. She knew this wasn’t true, that he disappeared for hours but he came back so often, in her amplified awareness of him, it felt like he was always there, giving her no respite.

After dreading being in his place, where everything echoed with his feel and was soaked in his presence, she couldn’t wait to go back there. She hoped that with him at work during the day, and hopefully returning home exhausted, she’d see less of him. But for the following four weeks, the opposite again happened. He came home too often, too unpredictably, so she couldn’t brace for his appearance, worsening her condition at every exposure.

Everyone in the center had told her he made them feel he was omnipresent. She could well believe it. After the endless hours in the O.R., consultations, follow-ups and administrative chores, not to mention his duties as a prince, which he said he’d lately limited to steering the kingdom’s health system, as if that wasn’t huge enough, she couldn’t figure out how he had time for her. Not to mention had a life. A private life…

Her throat tightened as it did each time that thought forced its reality on her. It was ridiculous to feel that way, but still…contemplating the horde of glamorous women who no doubt pursued him, of whom he took the most voluptuous and beautiful to bed…

Peals of laughter, masculine and childish, wrenched her mind away from the images, only for different ones to superimpose themselves. The images that would be engraved in her mind, seared into her soul forever. The sight of Fareed and Ryan together, bonding, reveling in each other.

But as painful as the sight was, it was also incredible. And worth any future suffering to live through.

Fareed was sitting with Ryan on the floor, in the middle of his mansion’s family room, wrapped up in their game, caressed by the warm, golden lights of polished brass sconces that illuminated the expansive space. The French doors leading to the massive terrace were wide open and the gauzy cream curtains were billowing in the desert’s cool evening breeze. The unpolished sand-colored marble floor was spread in hand-woven kilims and scattered in huge cushions covered with the same designs and vivid hues. Fareed had said those were the Aal Zaafers’ tribal patterns and colors, intricate combinations of stripes and rhomboids, in vibrant crimsons, gold and greens. He’d also said the room had never been used. Until them.