curtsied and then hurried out of the room, closing the door behind her with one last fearful glance at Sheridan.
* * *
After a long day sorting through national problems, including one between two desert tribes arguing over who owned a water well, Rashid was glad to retire to his quarters. These rooms had once been his father’s, but he’d gotten the decorators to work immediately so that they no longer bore any resemblance to the man who’d lived in them for thirty-seven years.
Gone were the ornate furnishings and narcissistic portraits, the statuary, the huge bed on a platform complete with heavy damask draperies. In their place, Rashid had asked for clean lines, comfortable furniture, paintings that didn’t overwhelm with color or subject matter and breezy fabrics more in fitting with the desert. Certainly the desert was bitterly cold at night, but he didn’t need damask draperies for that.
The palace had been modernized years ago and had working air and heat for those rare occasions when it was needed. Rashid slipped his headdress off and dropped it on a couch. Then he raked his hand through his hair and pulled out his phone. He stared at it for a long moment before he punched the button that would call up his favorites.
Kadir answered on the third ring. “Rashid, it’s good to hear from you.”
“Salaam, brother.” He chewed the inside of his lip and stared off toward the dunes and the setting sun. It blazed bright orange as it sank like a stone. He’d debated for hours on whether or not to call Kadir. They weren’t as close as they’d once been, and he found it hard to admit he needed people. “How are you?”
Kadir laughed. “Wonderful. Happy. Ecstatic.”
“Marriage agrees with you.” He tried not to let any bitterness slip into his voice, but he feared it did anyway. Still, Kadir took it like a blissfully happy man would: as the uninformed judgment of a bachelor.
“Apparently so. Emily keeps me on my toes. But she forces me to eat kale, Rashid. Because it has micronutrients or some such thing, she says it’s good for me.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.” It sounded horrible.
“She makes a healthy drink for breakfast. It’s green. Looks disgusting, but thankfully doesn’t taste as bad as it looks.” He sighed. “I miss pancakes and bacon.”
Rashid was familiar with pancakes, though he’d never developed a taste for them during the brief time he’d spent in America. He almost laughed, but then he thought of Daria cooking meals for him and swallowed. She used to make these wonderful savory pies from her native Ural Mountains. He’d loved them. He’d loved her.
Rashid swallowed. “I want you to build a skyscraper for me, Kadir.”
He could practically hear Kadir’s brain kick into gear. “You do? Is this a Kyrian project, or a personal one?”
“I need a building for Hassan Oil in Kyr. I want you to build it.”
“Then I am happy to do so. Let me check the schedule and I’ll see when we can come for a meeting.”
“That would be good.”
Kadir sighed, as if sensing there was more to the call. “I will come anyway, Rashid, if you wish it.”
He did wish it. For the first time in a long time, he wanted a friend. And Kadir was the closest thing he had. But a lifetime of shutting people out was hard to overcome. He’d let in Daria, but look how that had turned out.
“Whenever you can make it is good. I’m busy with many things since you left.”
“I’m sorry we didn’t make the coronation. It was my intention, and then—”
“It’s fine.” He pulled in a breath. “Kadir, there is something I want to talk about.”
“Then I will come immediately.”
That Kadir would still do that, after everything that had passed between them, made an uncomfortable rush of feeling fill Rashid’s chest. “No, that is not necessary. But there’s a woman. A situation.”
“A situation?” He could hear the confusion in his brother’s voice.
Rashid sighed. And then he told Kadir what had happened—the sperm mix-up, the trip to America, the way he’d given Sheridan no choice but to return with him. Kadir was silent for a long moment. Rashid knew his brother was trying to grasp the ramifications of the situation. At any rate, he couldn’t know half of why this unnerved Rashid so much. Rashid hadn’t hidden his marriage to Daria, but he’d been living in Russia then and the information hadn’t precisely filtered out.
And the baby? He did not talk of that to anyone.
“So she might be pregnant?”
The ice in his chest was brittle. “Yes.”
“What will you do? Marry her?”
Rashid hated the way that single word ground into his brain. Marry. “I will have to, won’t I? But once the child is born, she can leave him here and return to America.”
Kadir blew out a breath. Rashid wondered for a moment if he might be laughing. But his voice, when he spoke, was even. “I don’t know, Rashid. The American I married would put my balls in a vise before she agreed to such a thing. In fact, I think most women would.”
“Not if you pay them enough to disappear.”
Kadir might have groaned. Rashid wasn’t certain, because his blood was rushing in his ears. “You could try. It would certainly make it easier with the council if she would agree to disappear afterward. If she’s pregnant, they will have to accept her. But they won’t like it.”
Rashid growled. “I don’t give a damn what the council likes.”
And it was true. The council was old and traditional, but there were lines he would not allow them to cross. He was the king. They had power because he allowed it, not in spite of it. They wanted him to marry a Kyrian. But if he wanted to marry a dancing bear, he would. And if he wanted to marry an American girl, he would do that, too.
“At least be nice to the woman, Rashid. You are being nice to her, yes?”
“Of course I am.” But a current of guilt sizzled through him. He could still see her eyes, so wide and wounded, looking up at him today when he’d told her there was no reason for them to spend time together. No reason to know each other.
And perhaps there wasn’t. But the days were ticking down and they would soon know if she were pregnant. And then he would have to take her as his wife.
It made him want to howl.
“We will come for a visit soon,” Kadir said. “Perhaps it would be good to have Emily there. The poor woman is probably confused and scared.”
He didn’t think Sheridan was all that scared. He could still see her standing up to him, spitting like a wet cat when he’d told her he would take the child and raise him in Kyr.
“I am nice to her,” he said defensively. “She is my guest.”
Kadir
