Page 37 of Seduced By the Sheikh

“I… I…” stuttered Soraiya, trying to figure out how she could avoid answering such a direct question.

“How far?” repeated Zak’s mother.

“Nearly three months.” It was a relief to tell someone, just to make her baby real.

Zak’s mother blew out a stream of smoke and offered a sickly sweet smile completely devoid of genuineness. “How lovely. I assume my son is either thrilled or aghast. He always was a boy of extremes. Which one is he?”

Soraiya shook her head, wishing his mother would go away. “I can’t stay, I can’t?—”

“You can’t, what?” Sheikha Alishaba came toward her and sat opposite, tugging her abaya into place.

“I can’t stay. I have…” she trailed off. She really didn’t want to tell her what her plans were.

“You have a flight to catch,” she said, taking a drag of the cigarette. “I know. Off to see your not-so-doting Papa?”

Soraiya swallowed. “That’s none of your business.”

“Au contraire, it is exactly my business.” Her eyes flashed with anger. She gestured to the surrounding palace. “This is my home, Soraiya. Mine. I’ve been forced out of it by my sons.”

“You’ve been forced out of it because you stole from Sirun.”

Soraiya’s angry words seemed to hang in the air. Surprisingly, they stopped his mother for a few moments, as she gazed at Soraiya over a stream of smoke, with narrowed eyes.

“I’m sorry to have met you in such circumstances,” Sheikha Alishaba said at last. “I think you and I might have got along. You have a fire in you, an intelligence. And you love my son, I can see that. And yet you’d leave him. I like that. You’ve put him first. Of course, I’ve never felt that kind of love, nor that sense of duty, but I respect it.” She rose. “I envy you.”

And in those three words, Soraiya suddenly saw the woman’s grief at a loveless marriage and how the avarice must have at first seemed like revenge on her husband. And how the bitterness had taken over her life. She suddenly felt sorry for her.

“Now, I’ll leave you to it. Your taxi must be arriving soon.”

Soraiya watched her walk away. She wanted to say something to show that she understood in some small way the pain that this woman had suffered.

“Oh,” said the mother over her shoulder, “and in case you’re interested, Aabid has just received a message from the French delegation that the agreement is off. They’ve learned things which make such an agreement ‘untenable’.” She gave an unhumorous laugh. “Never underestimate a mother scorned.” She glanced at Soraiya’s stomach. “You’d do well to remember that.”

The nascent shreds of sympathy Soraiya had felt for this woman immediately disappeared. She glanced at her watch. Time to leave.

Zak wasn’t surprised when he awoke to find himself alone in bed. He knew Soraiya had had a restless night, and small wonder. But he could hear her music coming from the adjoining room. He decided to give her a little space before he met up with her to talk things through.

As he showered he imagined how she must be feeling. It surprised him that that was his first thought. He knew that all their work on the French agreement, all their hopes for an increase in trade and wealth to flow into Sirun would disappear. Her father would jump at an excuse to make sure she didn’t inherit the land. But there would be other ways of bringing wealth to Sirun. Other opportunities. But there wouldn’t be another Soraiya. His vizier had been right. He did have feelings for Soraiya. But he’d never called them love, either to himself or to her. The thought was disconcerting at best.

It was only after he’d emerged from his dressing room and she still hadn’t appeared that he frowned and began to wonder what was keeping her. He knocked on the connecting door to her suite, but there was no answer.

“Soraiya,” he called, as he opened the door. The music grew louder and he realized the room was empty. She wasn’t there. It was also eerily tidy. He had a sudden impulse to check the side table where she kept her documentation. It had gone. He poked his finger around the few objects there, but he could see her passport was no longer there. He pulled open her jewelry drawer, noting a few key pieces were missing. He quickly walked over to her dressing room. She had so many clothes that to anyone else it would have been impossible to see if anything was missing. But he’d noticed her preference for certain items and they’d all gone. He glanced across to see a suitcase was also missing.

A surge of adrenalin saw him running out the door, even as he pulled out his phone. He stopped, looked around, and called his office. He soon got his answer. He glanced up as a plane soared high overhead. And he felt a depth of loss which took his breath away.

“Where is she going?” stormed Zak, as he entered the office. He glared from one official to the other, as if they were guilty of kidnapping his wife. He no longer cared who knew what about his personal life. It seemed the worst had happened and news of Soraiya’s birth had been splattered across the tabloid papers and everywhere on the internet. There was little point in trying to appear as if everything was normal. Because it wasn’t.

Aabid coughed. “Your Royal Highness, your mother is waiting for you in your office.”

Zak didn’t hang around any longer to interrogate his staff, but stormed through to his office, knowing that he’d get the bare, unvarnished truth from her, who no doubt knew a whole lot more about everything than he did.

She must have been sitting there for some time because the room was full of smoke. He opened the windows wide and stood, hands on hips, with the morning sun full on his back.

“What the hell have you done, mother?”

“Me?” She smiled. “Not so much. It was a stroke of luck that I discovered the truth about Soraiya’s birth. I had a Private Investigator working for me”—she waved her hand as if it were insignificant—“another subject entirely. But, in the course of checking some DNA facts on a family website, he discovered some interesting facts. Facts which I decided to use to my own advantage.”

“Do you take pleasure in destroying things?”

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