The Sheikh's Destiny (23 page)

Collapsing where she stood, she wept until she felt herself coming apart.

The moment he had what he wanted, he’d thrown her aside. Just like her mother had prophesized.

But he wouldn’t do it yet. Not before he sat on that throne that meant everything to him.

Like she meant nothing.

* * *

The day of the
joloos
had come.

Rashid hadn’t.

When Maram had said he hadn’t come to the rehearsal ceremony, Laylah thought he’d show up at the last moment. He hadn’t. Nobody knew where he was, or what had happened. According to everyone, he seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth.

She was going out of her mind.

Something terrible must have happened. There was no other explanation for why he’d miss the most important day of his life. And if something had happened to him...

Another storm of weeping wrung her out as she prayed, again and again and again.

Let him be okay, let him fulfill his destiny. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t love me. I love him. I always will...

“Laylah.”

The deep voice hit her like a blow to the heart.

Because it wasn’t Rashid’s.

It was Haidar’s. Jalal was with him.

She staggered around to them, her eyes and hands rabid as she clung to them, shook them. “Did you find him? Is he okay?
Tell me!
”

Haidar scowled down at her. “What do you care? Don’t you hate him now?”

A huge sob tore out of her. “I—I could never hate him. I will always love him...no matter what...”

“That isn’t what you’ve made him believe. He believes you hate him so absolutely, he’s self-destructing in despair.”

Horror mushroomed inside her. “You—you mean...”

Jalal exhaled. “You need to sit down when we tell you this.”

And she wailed.
“Laa...laa...ya Ullah...laa...”

“He
hasn’t
hurt himself.” Haidar’s assertion broke the rising wave of panic. It rose again as he exchanged a look with Jalal as if agreeing on divulging something terrible before pushing her down firmly on the sofa. “Though he swore us to secrecy, at peril of some creative retribution, you need to know everything.”

As they sat down, her soul seeped down her cheeks with the terror of anticipation.

“You know why Rashid joined the army,” Jalal started.

He’d joined to pay off his guardian’s debts. The army in Azmahar had been offering top recruits lucrative salaries and educational opportunities. Rashid had calculated he’d repay those debts in five years, get a better education than the one he’d been able to afford, and become a soldier, a career he’d always admired.

Haidar and Jalal had tried to dissuade him. Hostilities had been brewing between Azmahar and Damhoor and they didn’t want him joining the army in time to be sent to war. But he’d made up his mind. And war had broken out.

On one mission, his squad leader had led his troops astray in the desert. They would have perished if not for Rashid. Using what he’d learned alongside Haidar and Jalal in the harshest survival methods, he’d led his squad to safety. Laylah remembered those weeks when she’d nearly gone mad fearing for him. Zohayd and Judar had mediated peace. But that hadn’t been the end. She’d continued to go insane with worry as he’d fought in more armed conflicts.

But Rashid had survived them all, done all he’d set out to do, obtained one degree and promotion after another. Then he’d disappeared.

Haidar continued as if reading her thoughts. “You remember when he seemed to disappear? He’d started working in intelligence. And he discovered the threads of our mothers’ conspiracy.”

Her heart, having expended all its force, flailed feebly as she realized that the coming revelation would be worse than anything she’d imagined.

“He went undercover to get proof, told me he got a promotion and would be under the radar. Thinking he didn’t want to see me again, I told him I didn’t care if I never heard from him again.”

A skewer twisted in her chest. How hurt Rashid must have been at the apparent lack of caring from his lifelong friend.

Jalal exhaled. “But though we
both
treated his choice like brats who only cared they couldn’t have their friend around all the time, he was hoping that he was wrong about our mothers. Knowing what we do now, I’ll bet he considered
you
more in his efforts to find proof
against
the conspiracy. Instead, he only found incontrovertible proof against our mothers. He still decided to give us a chance to do something about it first.” Jalal dragged his hands down his face. “But on his way to see us, he was attacked and abducted.”

She fell back in a nerveless mass. She’d been right. That first night
had
been like déjà vu for him.

Haidar carried on. “His kidnappers were our mothers’ flunkies. They tortured him for the information he’d uncovered as well as for intel he had that our mothers’ needed to perfect their plans. At one point, he managed to call me. He was in such bad shape I thought he was drunk. He told me where he thought he was, begged me to help. I rushed over, but found nothing at that address. It was another of our mothers’ contingency tricks. They instructed his kidnappers to text me from that phone and apologize for calling me while drunk, before they destroyed it so that I couldn’t trace it.

“Rashid thought I didn’t come to his rescue because I, and Jalal, were in on the conspiracy. Even though he was almost broken in mind and body, that agonized him so much, he struck back. He killed his captors and crawled across Zohayd’s desert to Damhoor’s border. The injuries those monsters had carved in his body—which were sliced open every time they started to heal—were so badly infected, he almost died. After spending weeks between life and death, he was stabilized, but no surgery could fix the scars. And I think his psychic scars ran deeper.

“He couldn’t do anything about the conspiracy, since he’d lost all the evidence. When our mothers were exposed, he thought
we’d
pretended to abort their conspiracy so we could plot another day. Meanwhile he’d become friends with King Malek of Damhoor, and using his IT knowledge and intelligence techniques, Rashid developed an impenetrable defense system for him. King Malek offered him a ministry, but Rashid preferred to take his payment in hard cash to start his own business. And to pursue what had become his major goal—punishing us, by ‘assimilating our ill-earned achievements.’ He said he considered this a worse injury than exposing us, but I believe he was still unable to hurt us
that
badly. He’s far more mushy-hearted than any of us thought possible.

“Then the chain reaction happened in Azmahar, and he was pitted against us for the throne of what he considered
his
kingdom. He decided he would do anything rather than let either of us take it. The rest you know.”

Agony too great to find physical manifestation cleaved into her soul.

Rashid...Rashid...all this time...

“There’s more.” Her gaze slid sluggishly to Jalal. How could there be more? “There’s a reason he didn’t make it to his
joloos.
”

She’d forgotten about that. She wished she could forget who she was. The daughter of the woman who’d mutilated the one man she’d ever loved.

“He suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. He’d said it was under control, but he called us just now to say it’s back, making him unfit to be king. He told us to toss a coin to decide who will sit on the throne and who will be crown prince.”

Jalal stopped, looking uneasily at Haidar.

There could be nothing worse than what they’d already shared.

Haidar let her know there was always worse. “He said he should have never come back, should have died in one of those wars or in the desert, that it would have saved everyone endless trouble. He also said he understands if you don’t want him near his child and he’ll abide by anything you decide.”

Desperation drove her to her feet.
“Where is he?”

Haidar’s face twisted. “The place that means the most to him.”

She jumped on that. “I heard he bought his old family home.”

Jalal shook his head. “We thought that at first, but we realized that’s not where he’s been happiest.”

“Then
where?
” she cried out.

Haidar exhaled. “His Chicago loft.”

* * *

During the trip to Rashid’s loft, Laylah sank deeper in despair. What if Haidar and Jalal were wrong about his whereabouts? What if they’d been right, but he’d already left? She couldn’t dare believe their rationalization of why he’d go there. After all she and her family had put him through, how could he consider the place where they’d started their relationship to be the place where he’d been happiest?

She’d come alone. She couldn’t bear for anyone to come with her to the one place
she’d
been her happiest. Where she’d been Rashid’s. Before the world had intruded and almost destroyed everything.

A few steps into the vast loft had her battered nerves jangling. With that familiar pleasure that burned through them.

Rashid
was
here.

Then he materialized out of the darkness at the mezzanine.

After staring down at her for an eternity, he started down the stairs. “You didn’t have to come. I’ll grant you the divorce and anything else you ask for.”

“I—I’m not...I’m here to...” She swallowed the jagged lump of agony in her throat. Then she blurted out, “They told me everything.”

Harshness replaced the blankness on his face. “I will make them regret telling you.”

“
You
should have told me.”

“You should never have known any of this.”

“I had a
right
to know. It’s my
mother
who did this to you.”

His face hardened more. “You had enough spoiling your memories and soiling your psyche where she is concerned. There was nothing to be gained if you knew more, and so much to be lost.”

He’d been protecting her.
When he should have used this to hit back at her, at least to defend himself.

“What she did to me were the misdemeanors of an overbearing mother who didn’t know when to let her daughter breathe on her own. What she did to you was an unforgiveable
crime.
”

The turbulence in his eyes ratcheted up. “And that’s why I didn’t want you to know. So you wouldn’t feel like this. I never wanted to add this to your disillusions.”

And she couldn’t bear being away from him for one more second. “Rashid...”

He jerked away from her. “Don’t. Don’t touch me, don’t even come near me. It’s not safe. I’m not safe.”

A sob hacked her chest. “
Ya Ullah ya,
Rashid...I’m so sorry...”

“Don’t...” he gritted. “Don’t pity me. Just don’t.”

She lunged at him, hugged him with all her strength even as he tried to push her away. “It’s not pity...
ya Ullah...
it’s rage and regret and pain so fierce it shreds my heart with every breath.”

Trying to undo her frantic hold, he groaned, “No, Laylah. Don’t feel bad about it. You had nothing to do with this.”

She clung harder. “It’s still my mother who did this to you.”

His arms fell to his side, surrendering to her embrace. “It’s in the past. Let it go. I have.”

She raised her face, seeing him blurred through the tears. “It’s very much in your present, in your future.”

“I swear to you, it’s not.”

“I know about your PTSD,” she sobbed.

His headshake was adamant. “Memories of that ordeal are no longer what’s fueling my instability.”

Tears slowed down. “What is then?”

His shrug was forced. It told her he was going to lie. Then he did. “I guess it’s self-perpetuating now.”

And she had to know. “Is that why you never slept with me?”

His nod was difficult. “It’s why I don’t have anything around me when I sleep. I used to wake up with things broken, with sheets shredded and mattresses gutted with the shards.”

He’d been killing his abusers over and over in his nightmares.

“I couldn’t risk lashing out at you as I wrestled with my demons, even when I thought I had my condition under control. Then it was no longer under control, and I even had episodes while awake. I can no longer be around you.”

“If memories aren’t why your PTSD flared, what is? Was it the stress of seeking the throne, the fear of losing it?”

He closed his eyes. When he opened them, he let her see all the way into him for the first time. “It was the stress of seeking
you,
of having you yet not having you, and the fear of losing even that much of you. And I managed to fulfill my fears. I literally became
Majnun
Laylah, making it imperative to inflict your loss on myself. But then I lost you irrevocably that day you discovered my original plans. I only kept telling myself I might get you back. It was when I faced that I never would that my PTSD crashed back a hundredfold. You were the one who started me on the path to true healing and losing you has plunged me into worse than my worst days.

“I thought everything inside me was long dead. But you resurrected it all, made me discover hopes, emotions and needs I never knew I had. I suddenly found myself dependent on another human being. It was glorious, yet scarier than any mortal danger I had ever been exposed to. Then—everything went to hell. Knowing I’d lost your respect, your love, that I had broken your faith and your heart, being unable to heal you, is something I can never heal from.”

And she charged him, deluging him in tears and kisses and pledges. “You never lost me or my love. You never will as long as I’m still alive, since that’s all I am—love, for you. I was stupid and hurt and trying to protect myself. But I made that deal with you so I would still be with you, in hope that you’d love me someday, if only a fraction as much I love you. I’ve loved you forever,
will
love you forever.” She pulled away to look into his eyes, her heart twisting. “But how can
you
love me, after what my family, after what
I
did to you? You
should
hate me.”