Page 56 of Sheikh's Unexpected Triplet Babies

Chapter Nineteen

Life settled into a kind of rhythm, but Bedelia knew there was a darkness to it. No matter how good their days were, no matter how pleasant their nights were, there was a shadow hanging over them. It followed her as she did her exercises, as he escorted her to her doctor's appointments, even as she lay in his arms at night.

This isn't permanent, she told herself, and the echo that occurred in her head said, This isn't real.

What she and Jahin were doing was no different from two children playing house and pretending it could last forever. The truth was that the future was looming, and she didn't know how to prevent it from eating them alive, all of them, her, Jahin, and their triplets.

It was like a curse, she thought. If she spoke about it, she would break the fragile peace that had grown up between them. If she didn't speak of it, it would continue to spread, creating an insidious blight over the future that she could not see.

When she was with Jahin, it was possible to be happy, to enjoy her time with him, to feel the love that bubbled up out of her as naturally as water came up from an underground spring. When she was apart from him, Bedelia could feel her doubts circling viciously, waiting for the right moment to attack, to make her aware of how tenuous this life truly was.

They lived as if there was no tomorrow, and slowly it was wearing her away. She could feel herself growing tense and tired, and more than once, she worried about what it was doing to her children growing inside her.

Once, Jahin walked in on her crying softly in the morning. He held her in his arms until she stopped, and then as she washed her face with a cold cloth, he came up behind her, his hands on her shoulders.

“Are you all right?” he asked. “Whatever that was, it looked hard.”

“Just hormones, I guess,” she said with a slight smile, but her smiles were getting harder these days.

Still she hung on. Bedelia felt as if she was swinging from moment to moment with Jahin. When she was with him, she lit up like a Christmas tree. When she was without him, she felt as if she were in the dark. Something deep inside her was telling her that there was a long period of darkness coming, but she couldn't look at it.

In fact, Bedelia did such a good job of avoiding the darkness that she was completely blindsided when she found an article online about Jahin and the princess of Idira.

It had been a quiet afternoon, and after her exercise, she was reading the news. Jahin's name leaped out at her, and she read the headline almost casually before she realized what it was about. She could feel her heart beating faster and a light sweat breaking out on her forehead, and she read it again.

SHEIKH JAHIN ABDUL KATTAN ENGAGED TO PRINCESS ALLIYA AL-MUZZIN OF IDIRA!

Bedelia suddenly felt dizzy, the way she felt when she hadn't eaten much lately. She wondered half-frantically when she had eaten last, because it was better to think about that than to focus on what she was looking at. She couldn't take it in. The article’s words and letters swam in front of her as if they were fish, and she was trying to catch them, trying to make them stay still on the page so that she could read them properly, but they refused.

Abruptly, Bedelia felt as if she was feverish...her entire body was tingling, and her blood was rushing in her ears. Shaking a little, she took a sip from the glass of water next to her, but it spilled on the floor, making her cry out with frustration and shock.

Of course, it was just then that Jahin entered the penthouse, a newspaper tucked under his arm and whistling a tune under his breath. She spun around to face him just as he registered her distress, and then he was right next to her, one arm around her shoulders, the other trying to ease her down to the chair.

“Bedelia, what's the matter...?”

“You...you're getting engaged,” she said miserably. “The...the paper said...”

He barely glanced at the paper before turning his gaze back to her, a slight frown on his face.

“That piece of nonsense? Bedelia, I told you. You need to ignore this. It isn't true. I have been introduced to the princess exactly once, and that was some weeks ago. I am not getting engaged to her.”

The expected rush of relief from his statement didn't come, and suddenly, Bedelia couldn't stand to have his arms around her. She shook her head hard, and somehow, she managed to push him away. She left one hand on the chair for support, and she rounded on him angrily. The fury seemed to come from some deep and hidden part of her, one that had been closed off and left to fester. Now that it was coming out, there was no end to it, and distantly she knew she was no longer able to control it.

“You've told me? Yes, you've told me over and over again. I need to ignore this, I need to overlook it, and now you need to tell me, Jahin, what the hell should I be looking at instead? You've told me that we should live in the now, and my god, I have tried. I live in the now, and I never look forward. Well, let me tell you something, sheikh of Muneazil. I have three children inside me, and I'll be honest, that's a lot of future! It's your future because they are your heirs, but it is my future too because I am their mother...”

She paused, and stunned, he reached for her. Bedelia knew she couldn't take that right now, however. She knew she couldn't let him touch her because if she did, she would simply crumple again, like she had before. His touch, his words, they would all conspire to weaken her and keep her looking only where she was rather than where she might be. Where she would be when these children were born.

“No, Jahin. I am not going to ignore this. Not when I feel about you the way that I do. Not when we are going to have three children and when the world feels this uncertain to me. I can't. Don't ask me to.”

She didn't understand the look he was giving her. He looked as if he had been struck by lightning, his eyes wide and his mouth slightly open. When Jahin found his voice, she did not expect what he said.

“What do you mean, the way that you feel about me?”

Bedelia couldn't stop herself from laughing incredulously.

“My god... That is what you focus on? All right then, Jahin. I love you. I have for a long time, and what we are doing, it hurts! It hurts every day, and I cannot do it any longer. I'm sorry I thought I could, but I can't and...”

At some point, her words had gone distant and tinny. There was a pit in her stomach, and for a moment, she thought she was going to be sick, but that was all very removed. She felt as if she was a hundred miles from her own body, and even Jahin was looking very far away, as if she was gazing at him through a long, dark tube.

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