academic and professional ideal.
That this interruption of her plan, this detour, shouldn’t be allowed to matter so much.
For the first time, her brain was losing the argument.
She reached into the crib and picked Aden up. He squeaked, burrowing into her chest, the little noise making her heart lift. What was she doing? She wasn’t mother material. She knew nothing about a functional mother-child relationship.
And she wasn’t his mother.
You’re the only one he has.
That her brain knew and agreed with. There would be no nurturing from Sayid. There would be nothing from his uncle, no affection, no kissing scraped knees. There would be staff.
The thought of it chilled her, down to that deep, indefinable part of herself that was made up of pure, raw emotion. The part that transcended logic and reason. Trumped it completely.
She couldn’t allow it.
Certainty spread through her, a certainty that had been growing, steadily and surely, since the moment Aden was born.
She didn’t want to walk away from her life in Portland. Didn’t want to put her dreams on hold.
But she could.
The one thing she couldn’t do was walk away from Aden.
“Sayid, I need to speak with you.”
Sayid looked up and saw Chloe standing in the doorway. She was wearing black slacks, a white button-up shirt and a suit jacket. The buttons on the white top gapped at her breasts and the jacket was left unbuttoned, likely too tight for her post-baby figure.
He needed to have his dresser get her a new wardrobe that would accommodate her curves, but he hadn’t had the time. Especially because he’d been so busy avoiding her. Doing necessary work, of course, but avoiding her had been a perk.
“It’s far too hot for that outfit,” he said.
“Yes,” she said, wiping a hand over her forehead, “but appropriate for a meeting.”
“You’ve called a meeting with the sheikh, have you?” He pressed his palms flat against the cool surface of the desk. “Ambitious. But I am very busy.”
“It concerns your king,” she said, her tone icy enough to leave frost on his desk in spite of the desert sun that blazed outside. His body reacted to it, a visceral response that went deep. His attraction to her was completely unexplainable. He liked women unchallenging and biddable. Liked women who wanted a couple hours and orgasms of his time and nothing more.
Sex was perfunctory for him. Another need that he saw was met. It wasn’t this. This… desire that was turning itself into an ache. That filled in the cracks that were starting to break open inside of him and forced them deeper, wider.
“Then speak, but be quick.” He curled his fingers in slowly, making fists, using the tension to help combat the tightening in his gut.
“Six months is no longer agreeable for me,” she said, clipped.
The desire that had been pooling in his gut, wearing a gully through the stone wall that blocked his emotion, turned into rage. It was far too late to stop the flow by the time he realized what he’d allowed to escape.
“Cutting into your study time is he?” Sayid asked, keeping his voice measured, keeping his emotions in check. He couldn’t credit what made him so angry about her announcement. Couldn’t credit why he’d allowed himself to feel it.
Everything was in place for Aden’s care. Chloe was an incidental. An incidental that was popular with the people, but an incidental nonetheless. He didn’t need her and neither did Aden.
Yet the idea that she could be so callous as to abandon her baby… No. Not her baby. Rashid and Tamara’s baby. Chloe had no reason to stay and he would do well to remember that.
“Not in the least,” Chloe said, her answer surprising him.
“I will not argue with you, Chloe. You were the one who asked to come, if you would like to leave now, the door is wide-open. Aden will want for nothing. Considering the experience, or lack of it, that you bring to the table, I doubt Aden will miss you too terribly.”
“Is that what you think?” she asked, her tone thick.
“I do.” He looked back down at the paperwork on his desk. “Shall I ready the private plane to take you back to the States?”
He heard her take a deep breath in. “No, actually, what I was trying to tell you was that six months is no longer enough for me. I need more.”
“What more do you need?” he asked.
“It’s never going to be enough,” she said. “Ever. I thought it would. I thought if I waited, then I would really start to long for the future I always imagined I would have. And I still want it, it’s not that I don’t, it’s just that… it’s not the most important thing anymore, and no matter how hard I try to make it the most important thing, I can’t.”
“What exactly do you mean?” His patience was getting short.
“Aden,” she said, her voice raw. “I don’t know what I’m doing with him, but at this point, I know one thing. I can’t… leave him. Not in six months, not ever. I tried to be rational about it, and tell myself that he’s not my son. Tell myself I’ve worked too hard for too long to compromise my position in graduate school but I…”
“What are you proposing?” he bit out.
“That I stay.”
“For how long?”
“For… for forever?”
“You intend to stay here in the palace—in Attar—forever?”
“It’s not ideal, I grant you that. I’m much more suited to the climate in Portland, and I was going to school there. And I miss trees, dammit. But… but not nearly as much as I’ll miss Aden if I leave. I can’t leave.”
“This is what you want?”
She shook her head, looking down at the floor. “I don’t know what I want anymore. I spent most of my life wanting one thing, and now it just doesn’t mean what it did anymore. Now I don’t know what I want. All I know is what I can live without, and what I can’t.”
“And how is it I’m to explain to the world that Aden’s life-saving nurse can’t bear to leave him?”
“Sounds plausible to me,” she said. “You know how we women are with our emotions, and other nonsense sheikhs just don’t bear.”
“There’s a chance it will cause suspicion and that’s one thing we can’t have.”
“Why?” she asked, weak. Pitiful. She was showing her vulnerability. He could crush her now, emotionally, as easily as he could crush her if he wrapped his fingers around her soft, lily-white throat.
The showing, so artless, so genuine, sent a shock of anxiety through him. Didn’t she know what people could do with such an open expression of emotion? How much power it gave to others? She had just given him a weapon capable of destroying her, one that would enable him to manipulate her into doing whatever he chose.
She had revealed her biggest weakness to a man who had been trained to exploit weakness in others. To use it with ruthless precision. He both rejoiced in it, and feared for her.
Now the decision he had to make was what he would do with it. If anything.
“You know why,” he said, keeping his tone calm, collected. “It’s not just to preserve the memory of Rashid and Tamara, it’s so that Aden’s right to the throne is never contested. DNA testing is fine and good, but can you imagine what the more traditional citizens of my country would think about you carrying the sheikha’s child? If he is perceived