The Sheikh's Hidden Heir: Secret Sheikh, Secret Baby / The Sheikh's Claim / The Return of the Sheikh

‘She doesn’t look well,’ Garth said, and privately Felicity agreed with him. Helen was standing by the bed, assessing her new midwife, and Garth was concerned for his wife and trying to tell himself he was imagining things. ‘Mind you, it’s been a while…’

Felicity nodded, worried that there was no tightening. She looked over to the CTG to confirm her findings. Jessica wasn’t having a contraction, although clearly she was in pain.

‘Helen?’ She gave that wide-eyed smile that was familiar to nurses the world over, which meant help was required, and then smiled back to her patient, who was opening her eyes now that the pain had passed, two hands on her stomach now, both Felicity and Helen, assessing the odd situation.

‘I’m paging Dr Habib now…’ Helen said—not that Jessica noticed. She was vomiting again, and her blood pressure was low as Felicity checked it. Far from being supernumerary now, she laid Jessica down and applied oxygen. She tried to comfort Garth too as she inserted an IV, and Helen urgently typed in the message to be sent directly to the doctor’s pager.

‘What’s going on?’ Garth was taking deep breaths, trying to stay calm, and all Felicity could do at this stage was answer him honestly. ‘I’m not sure, but Dr Habib is on his way.’

‘Is it the baby?’

Felicity’s eyes flicked to the foetal monitor, to the strong, regular heartbeat, and swallowing a fraction she shook her head. ‘The baby seems fine. Dr Habib will be here soon.’

In moments in fact, and Dr Habib was instantly concerned. He examined his patient and it was clear his excellent reputation was well earned. He didn’t dither. Instead he told Helen to summon the on-call surgeon, and Felicity’s heart tightened several times as she heard the word Karim.

He must have rolled out of the on-call bed instead of his undoubtedly more luxurious one at the palace, because he was there in a matter of moments, dressed in navy theatre scrubs. Instantly he commanded the room. And yet in an unexpected but very kind touch he nodded to Garth and very briefly shook his hand, explaining who he was, before he palpated Jessica’s abdomen.

‘I’m Karim Zaraq—the surgical consultant on call.’

Whether Garth knew of his title was irrelevant to him and irrelevant to Karim at this hour. Felicity watched as a very calm surgeon assessed a very ill patient and came to a rapid decision.

‘Your wife has to go straight to Theatre. Till I get her there I cannot be sure, and there is no time to confirm my diagnosis with ultrasound, but I believe your wife has an intestinal obstruction. I need to operate—along with Dr Habib.

‘Ring Theatre and alert them.’ Karim nodded to Helen, who was already on it as Felicity prepared a trolley for the urgent run to Theatre. ‘I need you to sign a consent form,’ Karim said to Jessica’s stunned husband, scribbling on paperwork as he spoke. Calm but concerned, he explained that though he had a provisional diagnosis until he operated he could not know exactly what was wrong—and that it was better in this case to act rather than wait and investigate. He held the man’s eyes as he offered the pen, and added that he would do everything he could to save Garth’s wife and his baby. Garth didn’t hesitate.

Felicity and Helen both dashed with the patient to Theatre. Jessica bypassed Reception and was moved straight through to the operating room. Felicity and Helen pulled on shoe-covers and caps, and helped the porters and theatre staff to move the patient to the operating table as the rest of the theatre staff methodically and rapidly set up. The anaesthetist was lovely—Felicity caught a waft of an American accent as she chatted to her semi-conscious patient—and then it was all under control. Jessica was Theatre’s patient now. An anaesthetic was about to be administered; her stomach was being prepped. Felicity and Helen were politely thanked, which meant they must leave, because—as the theatre charge nurse said—‘We’ll take it from here.’

Felicity wasn’t looking for him, but her eyes found him. She saw him scrubbing up at the sink, washing each nail in detail. He glanced up and for a second held her eyes. With her eyes she wished him all the best for the operation, told him that she missed him, that she needed to talk to him, and his eyes told her the same.

And then he was back to his nails, back to doing what surgeons did—saving lives.

Jessica got the little girl she was hoping for. She was a gorgeous baby too, bonny and pink and covered in vernix. The baby was soon returned to the labour ward, where Garth met his daughter and spoke to Dr Habib, and then came the arduous task of waiting for news on his wife.

She had had an intestinal obstruction, Dr Habib explained, and considerable adhesions which had been caused by the tummy tuck. It would be a complicated procedure but, Dr Habib added, ‘Her surgeon asked me to pass on that he is quietly confident that your wife will be fine.’

Felicity watched as Garth blew out his breath and she did the same. She was so grateful, as she popped in regularly on father and daughter, that Karim hadn’t kept this man waiting. He had been aware of the agony of waiting and had offered some much needed hope.

It took a couple of hours for hope to be formally delivered.

Karim, tired but elated, smiled as he walked into the nursery, where Felicity was checking the baby’s temperature as Garth watched anxiously on.

‘Your wife is fine.’ He got straight to the point. ‘It was a difficult operation because there were a lot of adhesions. I had to remove some bowel, but I achieved a healthy anatomises—’ He frowned and checked himself. ‘A good union. There is no colostomy.’ He carried on with the good news as Garth stood, tears streaming down his face, and then Karim moved onto the not so good—which, after all Jessica had been through, sounded like a walk in the park. ‘She will stay in Recovery for a couple more hours and then she will be looked after on my surgical ward by my team. Of course she is postnatal, and has had a Caesarean section, but I would prefer that my team watch her. They know my ways, know the things I like to be called for…’

Helen was here now, telling Felicity to go on her break, and Karim didn’t hang around—as Felicity moved off, so did he. Her respiration rate increased as she walked towards the staffroom, her heart pounding as she felt his eyes on her, heard footsteps behind her. She paused as he called her name.

‘Felicity…’

She went to turn round, and it was at that point it all caught up with her: yesterday’s shocking news, her sleepless night, the warmth of the theatre and Karim’s black eyes waiting to meet hers. She was drenched in cold sweat, could feel it running between her breasts, breaking out on her forehead. Leaning against the wall, she was glad to see Helen over his shoulder, hear the question in her voice as she took in Felicity’s grey face. But Karim was already on it, seizing her arm before she fell, breaking her fall as the floor slammed up to meet her.

He somehow guided her to a side room with only the minimum of fuss. Not that Felicity cared by then. She was completely out of it. She came to at the horrible plastic smell of an oxygen mask, and saw Helen’s kind, worried face as she let down a blood pressure cuff.

‘Low!’ She smiled at her colleague. ‘My fault for not sending you for your break earlier.’

‘I’m fine.’ Felicity tried to sit up, but Helen pushed her down.

‘It happens to all of us—the food, jet lag. Rest there…’ She stopped talking then. Chatty, effusive Helen was suddenly silent. Karim had come back from wherever he had been.

‘I have spoken with the nurse co-ordinator—you are to be moved to a side ward. Staff health—’

‘I’m fine.’ Embarrassed now, Felicity sat up, but Helen pushed her down, her eyes warning Felicity to be quiet. ‘It was a simple faint. I really don’t need—’

‘I have said what will happen,’ Karim broke in. ‘You are to be admitted.’

‘I don’t want to be admitted,’ Felicity argued. Helen’s eyes widened in horror, but she didn’t care if she was arguing with a surgeon—or a prince, come to that. All Felicity cared about was not being admitted. Because there were many reasons for her to faint, but she knew the real one. ‘I just want to…’

‘Excuse us, please.’

She saw the dart of confusion in Helen’s eyes at his request to be alone with Felicity, but Helen took her own advice and didn’t argue. She slipped out of the area and they were alone. Felicity wanted him to scoop her into his arms, wanted him to hold her, to say that he had missed her, to say anything at all. All he did was stand there.

He gave nothing away—could not smile, could not hold her. Couldn’t because if he did he would surely snap. He had operated throughout the night on what was meant to be his last ‘on call’. The operation had been long and intense, yet he had loved it. He had stood under the lights and performed in his theatre as only a surgeon could. His choice of music playing, his team—the team that he had individually chosen. They had worked together for the very last time and then he had walked out to Recovery to speak with his patient—a halal butcher from the main street of Zaraqua, a man who had held his hand and thanked him not as a royal prince but as a doctor.

Unusually for a consultant, he had stayed at the hospital, had lain on the bed where he had slept as an intern, deciding he would hold onto his pager till nine—because he just couldn’t stand to let it go.

At seven fifty-five he had been summoned.

He had run through the hospital with adrenaline chasing his heels, had walked into crisis and felt calm, had seen Felicity there, reassuring husband and patient. If there was one day in surgery he could capture this would be it…

This was it.

And now he had to walk away. He stared at her pale face on the pillow, knew he could drag her in deeper—or let her walk away.

He chose to give her no option.

‘Tell me now why you do not want to be admitted.’

‘I don’t want any tests.’ Her eyes were blinking rapidly.

‘Because?’ His mouth that had been wet was suddenly dry. He wished that she would answer, wished that she would prove his mind wrong.

‘Because I’m pregnant.’

He heard the prison doors slide closed, heard the turn of the key not imprisoning him but her, his child. And he couldn’t stand it. His mind flashed to Kaliq—to the frail babe he had held in his hand, the tiny babe who should have lived to be King. How proud Karim had been of his nephew as he had slipped from this life to the next.

No, he would not tolerate prison for his child, so he refused to even consider that it was his. She had to leave, had to go away—and he had to ensure that she did.

‘Don’t.’ His voice was like ice. ‘Don’t even try it on me, Felicity. Don’t even think of playing games with me.’

‘It isn’t a game…’ Her voice was bewildered, reaching out to him, and he couldn’t stand to see the pain on her features. ‘Karim—I found out yesterday. I know we were careful…’

‘Careful!’ Karim breathed, angry now, in fact enraged—because she had to be lying, because this couldn’t be true. ‘I am more than careful! Do you know how precious my seed is? I don’t go to the local chemist for protection. Do you think I would take risks with a whore like you?’

She couldn’t believe the brutality of his words. The sexy, tender lover who had won her heart so easily was un-recognisable now. Each word spat a warning, each growled sentence told her not to even attempt to argue. ‘Did you find out who I was, Felicity, at that introduction day? Use your little sob story, your ways, your wiles and pretend to be a virgin?’ It was so much easier to loathe her than to love her, so much easier to send her away than to claim her now.

‘I am…’ she sobbed. ‘I was.’

‘Please!’ Karim sneered. ‘There was no evidence…’ He shooed her away with his hand, dismissed her sobs, her story, as easily as he would swat a fly. ‘There is no place for your sort here in Zaraq. I could have you arrested.’

This was a different man—a completely different man from the one who had held her. ‘Karim, please. If you will just listen—’

‘No. You listen.’ He was standing directly over her, his menacing face silencing her. ‘I will not let you smear my name with these lies. Because I know the consequences a woman in your position faces, you will be admitted tonight under my care. I will arrange for your contract to be broken. Your things will be packed and you will fly home tomorrow. A car will collect you. I will arrange your ticket.’ He stared down at her and forced himself to say it. ‘You will be generously remunerated for your services that day.’

‘Karim!’ she begged.

He was unmoved by her pleas. Whether or not she was telling the truth, in time she would realise he was actually doing her a favour. ‘Enough—you do not argue with me. Tomorrow, Felicity, you leave Zaraq. If you choose to stay, then you deal with this dilemma alone.’

CHAPTER TEN

THIS wasn’t the first woman who had lied to Karim.

And by the time he hit the changing rooms he had convinced himself she was a liar.

Because all women lied, Karim told himself as he showered and dressed.

His mother, who had kissed him goodbye as he left for school and said that she would see him that afternoon, had lied.

His father’s lovers, who’d feigned interest in the young Prince only to discard him when his father summoned them.

And later his own lovers.

They swore he was their first, or that they understood it was just sex—they too lied, because always they wanted more from him.

And now Felicity.

Sweet, virginal Felicity, the most precious of his memories, tainted now. She had no doubt been pregnant already and looking for a father. Who better than a royal prince?

Did she think he was a fool?

It was so much easier to be angry, so much easier to not believe.

All this whirred in his head as he marched through the hospital with his entourage. Khan, Karim’s senior royal aide, had told him that the King had asked to see him.

He visited his father daily, but this time he had been summoned.

His father had asked that the nurses and the aides all leave, and seeing his gaunt, strained face, Karim fleetingly wished for the problems of a moment ago—how much easier they were to deal with than this was surely going to be.

‘I have spoken with my surgeon.’ The King’s once strong voice was now thin and reedy, and Karim stood, his back straight, his face an impassive mask, as the news was delivered. ‘At this stage surgery is not an option.’

‘Surgery is your only option.’ Karim’s voice was strong, his bedside manner steadfast and absolute—as it would be for any patient facing the appalling truth. A strong doctor, a strong man was needed to give bad news. The only indication that it was his father he was talking to was a flicker of muscle in his taut cheek. ‘To live you need surgery. The tumour is getting bigger.’

‘My heart is too weak. If they operate now I will die on the table.’

‘I will arrange another opinion—’ He stopped then. There had been so many opinions, and Karim trusted only his own. ‘I will operate.’

‘Karim!’ There was some strength still in the King, and he used it now. ‘You are to stop this nonsense. You are a surgeon, but you are not a god. You cannot make miracles. I will not let you operate; I will not give you the guilt that will come when surgery fails. I am to rest, to be built up, given medication, and if my heart is strong enough then there will be surgery.’

‘You might die waiting.’

‘Karim, this you cannot control.’

‘That is not your teaching—’

‘It is the truth.’ The King’s response was direct. Two proud, strong men were facing the future and did not like what they saw. ‘Karim, I am not scared of death. I am scared for my people, for my sons, for the turmoil I am leaving behind.’

‘There is no turmoil,’ Karim lied.

‘Please—there is no time for lies or sugar-coating the truth. Hassan and Jamal—well, since Kaliq…’ His voice faltered then, and both men remembered the tiny scrap of a baby who had lived only two days, the weak offspring Hassan had produced, too fragile to carry the hope of the nation. ‘There is still no sign of a baby—which means after Hassan there is no heir, no hope for the people. I know you do not want to be King, but that is why I have pulled you back from your work. You, my son, will have to step in. I have spoken with Hassan, and reluctantly he agrees that for the people of Zaraq there must a strong ruler, one who can produce heirs. Not him.’

‘Then don’t die yet.’ Karim said, because to him it was simple. ‘Just refuse to.’

‘I will try not to,’ the King said, ‘but I will rest easier if I know that my affairs are in order, that the people have a future. You must marry, Karim. Your playboy ways end now—this very day. You will take a bride, you will produce children. Hassan will step aside. Even though he begs not to, he knows he must step aside…’

‘What if Hassan did produce an heir?’

‘We know that is not going to happen—again Jamal weeps this month. The people need to know that if their King dies the Zaraq line will go on.’

Karim was never swayed by emotion. He stared out of the tinted windows at the vigil that was being held, at the people who had no idea what the future might be without their strong King. An idea was forming in his mind, a germ of an idea that was growing even as he stood. It wasn’t a new one either. A conversation like this had taken place years ago, but the strategy had been discounted. Karim resurrected it now.

‘What if I told you there will be an heir?’

‘I have said already—Jamal cannot—’

‘There is a woman,’ Karim broke in. He could not stand to picture her face as he said it, so he stared at his father—his King, his ruler. ‘She says she is having my child.’

There was just a beat before his father answered. ‘Then marry her, Karim, and Hassan will step aside.’ To the King it was simple.

‘What if it is not mine?’ Karim challenged, hoping it would terminate the conversation, that somehow he could set her free. But the King on his deathbed would settle for a lie if it meant that his people had hope.

Oh, it had been done before. The pure bloodline the people of Zaraq were so proud of was littered with hidden secrets. There had been affairs everywhere. Even his own brother Ahmed, so much fairer, so much paler than the rest…though doubts had never been uttered.

Karim could never raise a child that wasn’t his own. But Hassan could—if it meant he would be King.

‘You will do right by the people. I know that, Karim.’

Karim didn’t answer straight away.

What if it was his?

Hassan would step aside, and Karim would be a better King, perhaps, with Felicity by his side. No woman had taken him to the heights she had, and he could have that again and again. There would be no need to stray. He could groom her to be a suitable wife, could teach her, make love to her…And as for their child…He leant against the window, because letting his mind go there brought him no peace at all. He couldn’t even allow himself to think of that—couldn’t allow feelings to enter into this at all.

He paced for a moment and then stilled, rested his gaze on the south-facing window, away from the people and the ocean to what mattered most…

The desert. It would not change in his lifetime.

Oh, the sands lifted and swept and moved in a blink—yet the constants remained.

He stared at the canyons that would remain for his lifetime.

He was a constant.

It was better that it wasn’t his.

There would be a test soon, to confirm that fact. Felicity would see reason. What poor single mother wouldn’t want a kingdom for her child?

Maybe his father would live, Karim thought for a wild moment. But without the peace Karim must administer to him now it was surely impossible.

‘You have to do the right thing for our people.’ The King broke into his thoughts. ‘I cannot rest till I know that the future of Zaraq is safe.’

Karim watched a small sandstorm settle—a regular event in the desert, blinding, paralysing, but temporary.

He stared at the canyons unchanged, at his grief that didn’t matter in the scheme of things, and then he headed for a different window. Karim watched a wave pull back into the ocean, saw the swirl of a turning tide, and in that second his fate was sealed.

‘Then rest,’ Karim said simply. ‘I will take care of everything. Rest and get strong, Father, knowing that whatever happens our people, our ways, are safe.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

SHE’D told him.

Whatever his response, Felicity felt a certain relief that she had done the right thing—had given him the opportunity to be a part of his child’s life and he’d declined it.

Maybe it was better this way, she thought, choking back tears as Helen came to see her early the next morning.

‘Your things were packed last night…’ There were tears in Helen’s eyes as she spoke, but she was trying to smile. ‘I grabbed a change of clothes for you. I figured you wouldn’t want to sit on the flight in your nurse’s uniform.’ And then she was serious. ‘You should have told me,’ she said. ‘I could have helped.’

‘You know?’ Felicity blinked.

‘Well, most people don’t faint and then leave rapidly in the first few weeks unless they have good reason. It is lucky that Karim dealt with you—he’s spent enough time in London not to judge.’

Helen gave her a final cuddle, and it dawned on Felicity that it would never enter Helen’s head there had been anything between herself and Karim.

‘Here—I got these from the safe on the ward.’ She handed over Felicity’s paperwork. ‘You wouldn’t have got far without them.’

Another nurse wheeled her to the lavish hospital entrance, and to the limousine waiting to take her to the airport.

Her things had, as Helen said, all been packed for her. The driver told her they were in the rear of the limousine as she stepped out of the wheelchair the hospital had insisted on and climbed into the cool air-conditioned vehicle. She craned her neck for a last glimpse of the hospital, realising that in a few hours she would be gone from Zaraq.

But at least she would be on her way home.

Just another single mother-to-be, another father who didn’t want to know. She hadn’t been here for very long—no one would miss her.

Especially not Karim.

Zaraqua really was stunning, and Felicity watched it speed by for the last time through tear-filled eyes. Vast freeways sliced through the edge of the desert. How she would have loved her year here, Felicity thought, wondering about the sights she would now never see. She stared at the deep blue sky, the harsh landscape. This was her child’s home. She tried to imprint it on her mind, so that one day she could tell her child about its origins—because its father clearly wouldn’t.

She hadn’t remembered the journey from the airport taking this long, and it was twenty minutes later that concern started to register.

The road signs were in Arabic, but there were pictures of planes to indicate the way. The driver seemed to have ignored them, turning off the main road and heading towards the glittering ocean.

Perhaps this was a quicker way? Felicity told herself. But, no, there was another sign for the airport indicating left. The driver was going straight ahead.

‘The airport,’ Felicity said, unsure if he could hear her through the glass partition. ‘How far is it to the airport?’

On he drove. Felicity caught him looking at her in the rearview mirror, and suddenly she was nervous. She banged on the glass, demanding his attention, but still he drove on, and somehow, even before the white building loomed into view, even before they swept into a vast drive with the blue ocean glittering in the distance, Felicity knew where he was taking her.