could be, what might have been. If she’d been different. If her life had been different.
If could never really be her life. Not really.
She took a deep breath, fighting the wave of exhaustion that grabbed her by the throat and started shaking her hard.
Sayid’s face remained impassive, his eyes the only tell, showing a hint of hard, bitter regret. “I am sorry for your loss.”
“And I’m sorry for yours.”
“Not just mine,” he said. “My country’s. My people’s. Aden is their future ruler. The hope of the future.”
“He’s a baby,” she said, her voice hollow in her ears. Aden was so tiny, so helpless. Robbed of his mother, his real mother. The one who was prepared for him, who was ready to give everything to raise him. The one who was capable of it.
All he’d had for the first six weeks of his life was her. She’d never held a baby before he was born, and now she was fumbling her way through caring for one round the clock. She was exhausted. She wanted to cry all the time. She did cry sometimes.
“Yes,” Sayid said, “he is a baby. One who was born into something much bigger than he is. But then, you and I both know that was the purpose behind his birth.”
“Partly. Rashid and Tamara wanted him very much.” That much had been clear, the desire for a child pouring from Tamara’s every word when she’d made her impassioned request.
“I’m certain they did, but the only reason a blood bond was so important, the only reason adoption could not be considered, was the need for an heir that was part of the al Kadar line.”
She knew that. That day seemed like an eternity ago. Tamara had come for a visit, but this time, her dark eyes weren’t glittering with laughter, but tears. Tears as she told Chloe of her most recent miscarriage. Of how she kept losing her babies. Of the depth of her desire for a child of her own, of her need to give birth for the kingdom.
And then she’d made her request. So big. So altering.
You’ll be compensated, and of course, once the child is born he’ll return to Attar with us. But you’ll be a part of bringing your nephew into the world. More family. For both of us.
And Chloe ached for family. For a web of support like she’d never had before.
And so she’d convinced herself that being pregnant for nine months really wouldn’t be a hardship. And that at the end of it, Tamara and Rashid would have everything they needed and that Chloe would have helped bring a new life into the world. And that a whole lot of her financial problems would be solved.
It had seemed an easy thing to do. A small thing for the only family who seemed to care about her at all. Simple.
Of course, once the morning sickness had hit the “easy” thing had seemed a long-ago, laughable thought. Then there had been the weight gain, the sore breasts, the stretch marks. And of course, labor and delivery.
Nothing about it had been easy.
But in the peaceful quiet just after giving birth, that brief surreal moment in time, before she’d found out about Tamara and Rashid’s deaths, as she’d looked down at the tiny, screaming baby in her arms, all of the fragmented pieces in her life had seemed to unite, to create a clear and beautiful picture. As if she’d done what she was here to do. As if Aden was her finest, most important achievement. Now or ever.
That was before the world had broken apart again, before things had been smashed, destroyed so utterly and completely that she had no idea how it would ever be fixed again.
She’d been a zombie for six weeks. Caring for Aden, caring for herself when she could, studying, sort of. Slipping beneath the surface, certain that she was going to drown.
Sayid’s appearance was both a salvation and damnation rolled into one.
“I know. But right now he…. What do you want to do with him?”
“I intend to do what was always meant to be done. To take him back to his home. To his people. His palace. It is his right, and it is my duty to protect those rights.”
“And who will raise him?”
“Tamara had hired the best nannies already, the very best caregivers in the world. After I announce that he is… alive, everything will go as it was meant to.” There was a strange sort of calm to his voice, one that made her wonder what was going on beneath the surface.
“When did you find out?” she asked.
“Yesterday. I was going through my brother’s safe, his most private documents, and I found the surrogacy agreement. For the first time in six weeks… some hope.”
“You really did find us quickly.”
“I have sources. More than that, you aren’t very well hidden.”
“I was afraid,” she said, her voice a choked whisper.
“Of what?” he asked.
“Everything.” That was the honest truth. Her life had been marked by gut-churning anxiety and fear since Tamara’s death. Every day felt temporary, and like an eternity. “I was afraid you wouldn’t want the competition. That you wouldn’t want to lose your new position.”
Sayid’s dark eyes hardened, his lips thinning. “I was not raised to rule, Chloe James, I was raised to fight. In my country, that is the function of the second born son. I am a warrior. The High Sheikh must have compassion and strength. Fairness. I was not trained to have those things. I was trained to carry out orders, to be merciless in my pursuit of preserving my people and my country. Which I will do now, at any cost. This is not about what I want, it is about what is best.”
She believed him. The evidence of the truth was there in his voice, in the flat, emotionlessness. He was a soldier, a machine created to carry out orders with swift, efficient execution.
And he wanted to take Aden with him.
She blinked, feeling dizzy. “So, essentially, you’re the ax man of the al Kadar family?” It just slipped out. She wasn’t prone to speaking without thinking. Thinking was her stock-in-trade. But she felt off balance now, not sure what to say or do. There was no textbook for this situation, no amount of studying that could have prepared her for it. No amount of reasoning.
“My path was set from my first breath.”
“And so is Aden’s,” she said, her lips numb, cold shock spreading through her. She’d always known that the little boy sleeping in the bassinet in her bedroom was meant for greatness, greatness that had nothing to do with her. But these past weeks… they had been out of time. Something so different from anything else she’d experienced. Miserable, and beautiful. Temporary. And in them, it had been easy, necessary even, to ignore the reality of his destiny.
“He needs to come back home. Your life can go back to the way it was. To the way you planned for it to be.”
She could finished school, get her doctorate. Take a teaching position at a university, or maybe get a job at a research institute. A girl and her whiteboard. It
