bit out an epithet. She didn’t have to know Arabic to understand the emotion behind it. “I love Farah, but she’s a very dramatic, impressionable person who overstates things at times without realizing it.”
“Nevertheless, she was right about this, wasn’t she? You and I want something that can’t be. I’m going to have to do what my grandmother did. Somehow she found the strength to leave King Malik and never come back. Now it’s my turn to do the right thing.”
“No,” Rafi declared. “That’s not the right thing for either of us. My nation has come out of the Dark Ages, Lauren. I’ve been doing everything possible to modernize our way of life and keep up with the new advances, particularly in technology.
“Change has been inevitable and will continue to happen. The point is, I’m not a product of another era. I was born into this one. Some traditions from the past are good and important. Yet I have a different view of many things to make life better for our people.
“Certainly I haven’t grown up being in favor of archaic marriage traditions, but until I met you, I was willing to go along with my father’s expectations. Now everything has changed. I refuse to be like my grandfather who was so strong in his own beliefs, he gave up the great love of his life and sent your grandmother away. That decision left them no joy.”
When Rafi would have kissed her mouth, Lauren hid her face from him. “Then I’ll have to be strong for both of us.”
“Why?” he cried.
“Because King Malik was my grandfather, too.”
Silence shattered everything.
As the revelation computed, his arms tightened around her. “Say that again?” he whispered into her hair.
With tears in her voice she said, “We both have the same grandfather. My grandmother went home not realizing she was pregnant with my mother. Their daughter.”
His hands tightened in her curls before sliding to her upper arms. He eased her far enough away to look into her eyes. “But that’s impossible.”
“No. It was very possible, Rafi. They were lovers for a fortnight … i-in the garden suite.”
Rafi’s skin took on an ashen color.
“Though she never admitted it to me, I’m positive she wanted his child when she realized she couldn’t have him.”
Unspeakable pain turned his features to a facsimile of his former self. “I don’t believe you.”
“A DNA test would provide definitive proof, but I have something else that will convince you.”
His eyes impaled her. “What proof?” In them she saw grief so profound, she had to look away.
“It’s even stronger evidence than the medallion. I’ll show you. In my wallet there are some pictures of my mother.”
She watched the struggle he was having to swallow. “Let me see them.”
Lauren moved out of his arms and reached for her purse. Inside her wallet she kept a packet of pictures. She pulled out the three she’d put in of her parents. The first colored photo she handed him showed a full-length picture of Lana holding Lauren outside on the deck of her grandmother’s apartment. At five months Lauren’s golden hair had come in curly and gleamed in the sun.
Rafi took the photo in his fingers and looked at it, then at Lauren. “But this is a picture of Samira!”
“It’s an amazing likeness of her. When I met your sister, I could see my mother in her. But if you’ll look closely, you’ll notice Lake Geneva is in the background and she’s holding a blonde baby. That’s me at five months.”
“No,” he moaned the word.
Gaunt with shock, he looked at the other two pictures she handed him. Both of them showed her blond father holding Lauren, with his arm around her mother.
A lifetime seemed to pass before a haunting groan came out of him filled with soul-deep anguish. He caught her to him. They clung with a desperation that racked them both.
“Tell me this is a nightmare and we’re going to wake up,” he begged.
“I wish I could,” she whispered, her agony beyond tears, “but you had to hear the truth. Celia named my mother Lana, an Arabic name. Our grandfather never knew. Neither did my mother. Celia told her that the man who was her father was just a man she’d met. Ships passing in the night.
“She claimed she never knew what happened to him, but it wasn’t important because she and Lana had each other. That was all they needed.”
A pulse throbbed at the corner of his mouth. “How could she have kept that news from my grandfather?”
She studied him through glazed eyes. “You of all people should know the answer to that question. His betrothal had taken place years before. He sent Celia away so there’d be no scandal. She loved him too much to cause him any distress.
“My mother had to accept the explanation and let it go. A few minutes ago when I realized who you were, don’t you think I wanted to die? Now I’ve got to let you go the same way.”
When she eventually found the strength to ease away so she could look at him, she didn’t recognize the man; he seemed to have aged ten years.
“Lauren—”
She forced herself to smile through the tears. “You have a phrase for everything. ‘It is what it is.’ That’s what we have to say now.”
“But it isn’t what it is—” he fired back in pain. “I won’t allow it to be.” He shook her gently. “No one knows about this but you and me. We’ll forget everything because I’m not losing you!” He crushed her mouth beneath his.
For a time she responded, losing track of time and place because she couldn’t help herself. But then the reality of what they were doing took hold. Much as she wanted to kiss and be kissed into oblivion by him, the truth was between them and she couldn’t keep this up. It was no use.
As soon as he allowed her breath she said, “I could wish you’d told me who you were that first day. Then I would have closed my heart off to you, or broken down and told you we had the same grandfather. You always talk about fate. I’m afraid this time it had something else in mind for us.
“If only you could undo our history, Rafi, you truly would be a god, but you’re still mortal and that means I have to go. Every minute I stay here, it’s making it that much harder to leave.”
“I won’t let you.” He tightened his arms around her, kissing her with refined savagery.
“We have no choice,” she half sobbed the words. “Don’t you see?” She caught his face between her hands. “We have two strikes against us. Even if we weren’t related, I can’t remain here another second and jeopardize the life you were born to no matter what you say. You’ll be king one day. Princess Azzah will be your queen. It’s written!”
Finding her inner strength, she escaped his arms and flew out of his office.
