The Secret Heir Of Alazar

‘The results of the test were conclusive.’ The doctor, a dour-faced man who had been medical consultant to generations of royalty, lowered his head. ‘You are infertile.’

Malik’s expression did not change as the words reverberated through the emptiness inside him. ‘Infertile,’ he repeated tonelessly. The doctor looked up.

‘You had a sustained high fever while you were out in the desert. It is a situation that can unfortunately, in rare cases, cause infertility.’ He lowered his head again, as if waiting for Malik to pass sentence.

But there was no sentence for him, only for Malik. A life sentence, or lack of one. He was the only heir to the sultanate of Alazar, and he had no heir to succeed him. No way of getting an heir in the future. His engagement to Johara Behwar, a young woman of virtue and suitably elevated background, had just become a pointless sham. And the stability of his country, a country that had teetered on the edge of civil war for the last ten years, was once again in jeopardy.

Underneath all those political concerns was a deeper, more personal sense of loss that he could not bring himself to probe. Malik turned away from the man to compose himself and gather his thoughts. ‘You are quite sure?’ he asked after a moment, the words clipped and terse.

‘Quite sure, Your Highness.’

Briefly Malik closed his eyes. He’d spent two weeks with the Bedouin in the bleak and arid deserts of Alazar’s interior, trying to unify and encourage his people, and keep the peace that had threatened to topple into chaos and destruction. He had succeeded, but the cost had been high. Too high.

In truth he barely remembered the fever that had stolen his future from him. He’d been delirious, kept in a rough tent and administered to by a Bedouin Hakim, whose knowledge of local herbs and natural medicine had not been enough to lower the fever. Eventually the Bedouin had moved him to a nearby settlement where his grandfather had arranged transport to a medical facility in Teruk. By then he’d had the fever for four days. Long enough, it seemed, to render him infertile.

For a second, no more, Malik allowed himself to experience the grief of knowing he would have no children. No heirs. No children to follow him, no hearts and minds to shape.

The second passed and Malik steeled himself. He had no space in either his life or heart for such useless sentiment. He hadn’t for a long, long time. Love was weakness, and he could not afford to be weak.

‘Thank you for telling me,’ he said with a nod of dismissal. The doctor left, and Malik strode from the room. He would have to tell his grandfather.

He found Asad in one of the smaller throne rooms, dealing with some paperwork. For a moment Malik stood in the doorway, noting the many wrinkles in the old man’s weathered face, the way his hands shook a little as he handled some papers. Asad was eighty-six years old and he showed every year in his body and on his face.

Over the last ten years Malik had assumed more and more responsibility for the running of Alazar; Asad had been unable to cope with the travel and diplomacy that the country’s wavering instability had required. Malik had spent much of the last decade on horseback or in a helicopter, travelling through arid deserts and unforgiving mountains, living in rough conditions and negotiating with people who had the power to cause major civil disruption. Slowly but surely he was dragging Alazar into the twenty-first century while still attempting to respect the old ways and traditions. His marriage to Johara, along with his future heirs, would have cemented his power and the security of the sultanate as well as the whole of the Arabian Peninsula.

But now? How would the traditional Bedouin who controlled much of the country’s desert and mountain regions react to an infertile sultan, the line of succession passed to some distant relative who had no training or reputation? His stomach cramped just thinking about it.

‘Well?’ Asad demanded as Malik came into the room. ‘What did the doctor say? You have not been adversely affected by the fever?’

Malik took a deep breath, steeling himself for a conversation he had no desire to have. ‘As it happens, I have been affected.’ He shoved his hands into the pockets of his Western-style trousers; unlike his grandfather, Malik saw the necessity of adopting Western ways and bringing Alazar into step with the rest of the world. He kept his voice even as he clarified, ‘I’m infertile.’

Asad’s mouth worked for a moment, shock making his eyes bulge. ‘Infertile? But how...?’

Malik stared at his grandfather’s pale face and felt nothing. But then he hadn’t felt anything in years. He’d been completely focused on his country and his duty; he’d had to be. There had been no room for entertainment or pleasure or relationships. He hadn’t wanted them. ‘Apparently a prolonged high fever can cause infertility.’ He shrugged, the movement negligent, as if it were of little consequence even though they both knew it was not. ‘The how does not matter so much, does it?’

‘I suppose not.’ Asad was silent and Malik wondered what the old man was thinking. Where did they go from here? Azim was dead; Malik was the only heir. If he had no son, the sultanate would go to a cousin in Europe who had spent very little time in Alazar. Someone who could not be trusted to maintain the country’s stability. Someone who had not been working towards ruling since he was a boy, who had not, out of necessity, cut off pleasure and leisure and love as Malik had.

Asad sat back in his chair, his face drawn into a frown, his gaze distant. ‘This presents a problem,’ he murmured, almost to himself.

Malik let out a harsh laugh. ‘Thank you, Grandfather, for stating the obvious.’

Asad looked up, his narrowed eyes gleaming with familiar malice. ‘As it happens, there is a solution.’

Malik stared at him evenly. ‘Which is?’ He could not imagine any solution. He could not magic a child out of nowhere, much as he might want to, and he did not think his grandfather would try to put him aside for some unknown relative. Not after ten years of tireless work and effort.

Asad took a slow, steadying breath. ‘You have a son.’

Malik stared at him blankly. ‘What on earth are you talking about? I would know if I had a child.’

‘Would you?’ Asad asked shrewdly, his gaze both knowing and sly. Malik didn’t even blink. Yes, he would know. He’d had a mere handful of one-night stands over the last ten years, matters of physical expediency rather than lasting pleasure, and he’d always been careful with birth control. There had been only that one time...

Malik stilled, suspicion icing in his veins, disbelief coursing through him. ‘What are you saying?’ he asked, a command rather than a question, each word savagely bitten off and flung out.

‘The girl in Rome.’ Asad pressed his lips together. ‘She was pregnant.’

The girl. Gracie. He hadn’t let himself think of her at all in the last ten years, not even for a single, bittersweet second. At first it had been a form of extreme mental self-discipline, bordering on torture, not to allow himself so much as a thought, a tempting fragment of memory to tease his senses and awaken the old, restless ache. After a while the pain had lessened and she’d been like a ghost, sometimes haunting his dreams but never his waking thoughts. She belonged in his past, with the naïve, hopeful boy he’d been then. She had no place in his present, and certainly none in his future. Until now.

‘Pregnant,’ he repeated, his tone silkily dangerous. His hands clenched into fists at his sides and he forced himself to relax. ‘She came to you, I presume, with the information? Looking for me?’ He could picture it.

‘She sent an email to a government address and it was brought to my attention. I met with her in Prague.’

‘For what purpose?’ Rage choked him, made it hard to speak or even breathe. ‘You didn’t think to tell me any of this?’

‘You didn’t need to know.’

‘I should have been the one to decide that.’

Asad shrugged, unrepentant. ‘You know now.’

Malik forced himself to breathe evenly. He knew from far too much experience that arguing with his grandfather served no purpose. There were other ways to best the old man. ‘So what happened in Prague? You sent her away, I presume?’

‘I bought her off. Fifty thousand dollars.’ Asad’s mouth twisted in contempt. ‘She took it readily enough.’

‘Did she?’ Malik could not assess how he felt about that. He had not thought about Gracie in so long he didn’t know how he felt about any of it. She’d been pregnant. And she’d had no compunction about not letting him know.

‘She cashed the cheque the next day,’ Asad continued. ‘And she had the child. A son. I checked.’

Malik turned away to hide the betraying emotion he was sure would be on his face. A son. He could not even fathom it. Gracie had been raising his son for ten years. ‘How could you keep this from me?’ he demanded in a low, raw voice.

‘Don’t be a fool. Of course I had to keep it from you. The publicity would have damaged your reputation as well as the stability of the kingdom. The boy is a bastard, his blood is tainted.’

‘He’s mine—’ The words rose up in him, a raw, primal howl of possession that shocked him with its ferocity. He’d never felt anything like it before.

‘He is your heir,’ Asad agreed coolly, cutting him off. ‘Now. And for that reason you must secure his future and bring him back to Alazar. Let us hope he has not been too weakened by his lax upbringing. There is time to shape him yet.’

‘And what of his mother?’ Malik demanded.

Asad’s mouth twisted. ‘What about her?’

‘She might not agree.’

‘She will have to. In any case your heir cannot be a bastard. You will have to marry the woman.’ Asad spoke with distaste, even as Malik felt a pulse of—what? He could not identify the emotion. Excitement, perhaps. Desire. Even after all these years. He pushed the feeling away. He had no time for it now. Any marriage he contracted would be one of expediency, not emotion. He would not be controlled by feelings the way his father had, to his shame and destruction.

‘The people might not accept an American bride and heir,’ Malik observed.

‘Then you will have to put her away somewhere remote.’ Asad flicked his fingers in a dismissive gesture. ‘Keep her in purdah in one of our distant palaces. Whatever the cost, you must do your duty.’

‘You do not need to remind me,’ Malik answered, ‘or tell me what to do.’ He straightened, giving Asad a long, level look. ‘I will make my own choices,’ he said, and walked out of the room.

Alone in his private office Malik stared unseeingly out at the domes, spires and flat roofs of Teruk’s old city. He had a son, a child he’d never, ever been aware of.

A shudder escaped him, and he turned from the window. He could hardly believe his grandfather had kept something so monumental from him, even as he acknowledged Asad’s actions, their innate coldness and cruelty, would never surprise him.

And what of Gracie? For a moment he allowed himself to picture her, the tumbling brown hair, the glinting golden-green gaze, the wide, ready smile. Then he closed his mind to her and all the what-ifs that had ended a decade ago. He could not think of Gracie that way now. He would not. No matter what Asad had done, she had wilfully kept his child from him. The only purpose or role in his life now for her was as the mother of his child...and as his convenient wife.

* * *

‘What’s the capital of Mongolia?’

Gracie wrinkled her nose as she considered the answer and then came up with nothing. ‘Sorry, Sam, I have no idea,’ she told him cheerfully. ‘But I’m sure you’ll tell me.’

‘Ulaanbaatar,’ he said triumphantly, and Gracie suppressed a smile. Her son had an insatiable knowledge for facts and was constantly begging her to quiz him. When she ran out of questions to ask, he started quizzing her and left her both amazed and humbled by his knowledge.

‘Teeth and bed,’ she said now, and with a dramatic sigh Sam rose from the table in their small kitchen. For the last ten years Gracie had been living in the converted apartment over her parents’ garage. A tiny kitchen, living room, and two bedrooms and a bathroom were all it comprised, but it was homey and hers and she was grateful to her parents for giving her the opportunity.

Ten years ago, when she’d told them she was pregnant, and by a near stranger at that, they’d been shocked and, yes, disappointed. But they’d rallied around her and Sam, and she’d never once regretted her choice. If she occasionally wished for some way to flee the sometimes stifling confines of her life—well, that was normal, wasn’t it? Everyone longed for adventure once in a while. It didn’t mean she wanted out.

And there was no out, because she needed her part-time job as a classroom assistant at the elementary school, just as she needed her parents’ support, even if it came with the occasional sigh or frown, and the knowledge that out of six children she was known as ‘the Jones screw-up’. The girl who’d gone to Europe and come back pregnant—a warning to any other dreamy teens who might hope for adventure the way she had.

While Sam got ready for bed, making a ton of noise as he did so, Gracie tidied the kitchen, humming under her breath. From the window over the sink she could see the white clapboard house she’d always called home, with its bowed front porch, American flag, and neat flower beds of begonias and geraniums.

Her parents had been incredibly thoughtful about giving Gracie her own space, but the reality was she was living in her parents’ backyard. It wasn’t exactly where you wanted to be when you were staring down the barrel of thirty years old.

Still, Gracie reminded herself as she wiped the table and turned on the dishwasher, she was better off than some. She had a job she enjoyed, a home for her and her son, a few friends who she went out with on occasion. If life felt a little quiet, a little dull, well, so be it. Plenty of people felt the same.

She’d just put Sam to bed when a gentle knock sounded at the front. ‘Gracie?’ Jonathan called.

‘Hey, Jonathan.’ Gracie opened the door to see her brother standing on the top step of the outside staircase, a worried frown on his usually smiling face. ‘Is everything okay?’

‘There’s someone here to see you.’

‘There is?’ Gracie didn’t get too many visitors at home. Since her apartment was so small, not to mention so close to her parents’ house, she tended to meet her couple of girlfriends in town. ‘Do you know who it is?’ she asked. Everyone pretty much knew everyone in Addison Heights.

Jonathan shook his head. ‘I’ve never seen him before. But he’s kind of scary-looking.’

‘A scary-looking man is here to see me?’ Gracie didn’t know whether to be amused or alarmed. She supposed Keith at the service station was a little bit scary-looking. He’d asked her out last week and she’d firmly rebuffed him. She wasn’t interested in dating, and certainly not Keith, not with Sam to consider. She didn’t think the mechanic would actually come to her house, though.

‘Well, I’d better go see who it is,’ she said lightly, and rested a reassuring hand on her brother’s shoulder. At twenty-seven, Jonathan lived at home and worked part-time bagging groceries at a local supermarket. He also spent several afternoons at a care facility for adults with disabilities, and, while he was more than content with his life, change or uncertainty made him nervous. And the last thing Gracie wanted was for Jonathan to be nervous.

They walked across the yard just as dusk was beginning to fall and the crickets started their incessant chorus. It was early June and already hot, although the twilight brought some needed cool. Gracie came around the corner of the house and then skidded to a complete halt when she saw the man who stood, or really loomed, on her parents’ front porch.

Malik.

He looked incongruous amidst the begonias and white weathered wood in his dark suit, expensively cut and tailored. Utterly forbidding. His face was unsmiling and severe.

He turned to look at her, and for a single second the whole world felt suspended, transformed. Gracie felt as if she’d catapulted back in time a decade; she could almost hear the buzz of a moped, the tinkle of water as they stood by the Trevi Fountain and Malik threw a penny over his shoulder...

Then she landed back in reality with a thud so hard it left her breathless. No, they weren’t in Rome, caught up in an impossible, ridiculous one-night romance that hadn’t been real anyway. They were in Addison Heights, and it was ten years on, and everything had changed, even if for a few seconds she’d felt as if it hadn’t.

But why was he here?

‘Malik...’ she whispered, and found she couldn’t say anything else.

‘You know him, Gracie?’ Jonathan asked. He was looking at Malik with unabashed curiosity. Yes, she acknowledged distantly, Malik was kind of scary-looking now.

Malik’s gaze snapped to focus on Jonathan. ‘This is your brother. Jonathan.’

His voice was the same, a gravelly husk, and it reached right inside Gracie and squeezed. And then came an even more painful realisation: he remembered. How...? Why?

‘Yes,’ she managed, her voice barely a breath. ‘Malik, what...what on earth are you doing here?’ It felt strange to say his name, and she saw the answering awareness flare in his own eyes. Memories tumbled through her, painful and sweet and shockingly fierce. Laughter and kisses, dancing in starlight, holding hands... Gracie took a deep breath. ‘I never expected to see you again.’

‘So you hoped.’

She blinked at the cold remark. What...? And then she realised. He knew about Sam. Of course he did. And she had no idea how she felt about that.

Jonathan tugged on her sleeve. ‘What’s going on, Gracie?’

‘This is just...just an old friend, Jonathan. We, ah, need to talk in private.’ Gracie tried to smile at her brother, but her face felt funny and stiff. If Malik was here because of Sam...what did he want?

She watched as her brother eyed them uncertainly before climbing the weathered steps of the front porch and disappearing inside.

Gracie looked back at Malik, her eyes memorising and remembering him at the same time. Those long, powerful legs. The broad shoulders. The silvery, intense gaze, the kind smile... Except he wasn’t smiling now. He hadn’t smiled since she’d seen him here. His face was as inscrutable and unyielding as a statue’s, beautiful and so very cold.

‘We can’t talk out here,’ she said.

‘Is there somewhere private?’

As reluctant as she was to invite him into her tiny home, Gracie couldn’t see any other option. She couldn’t leave Sam alone for too long. ‘I live around the corner,’ she said. ‘We can talk there.’

Malik inclined his head in a terse nod and Gracie turned to head back to her apartment. Malik followed, pausing only when she reached the front of the garage.

‘You live in a garage?’

‘Above it. There are stairs around the back.’ She led him to the outside staircase that ran along the wall. Her hands were shaking so much she fumbled with the knob before it swung open and she breathed a sigh of relief.

Malik stepped into her cosy kitchen, his tall, broad form making the small space seem even tinier. He looked so out of place amidst the colourful riot of houseplants, the cheerful yellow walls. Gracie retreated to the sink, its edge pressing into her back. She had no idea what to say, to think, to feel. Malik...here. It felt impossible, ridiculous. Exciting, too, which annoyed her. There was nothing to feel excited about, even if seeing Malik again made her remember so much. Want so much, even if it was foolish. He pushed you away, she reminded herself. He told you to go.

Malik folded his arms, the movement seeming one of forbidding judgement. ‘You should have told me.’

‘About what, exactly?’ She folded her arms and met him with as challenging a look as she could muster. She wouldn’t be cowed by this cold, haughty attitude. ‘Maybe you should have told me you were a sultan.’

‘Heir to the throne,’ he dismissed, and she let out a laugh that sounded a little too high and wild.

‘Oh, okay, then.’

Malik arched an eyebrow in an eloquent gesture of silent incredulity. He was so different than she remembered. Yes, he was just as devastatingly attractive, but he was colder now. Sharper, too, and more hidden. Remote and unreachable, without the warmth and friendliness, the tenderness that she’d once revelled in. Except that had all been an act, she reminded herself. This was the real Malik. He’d shown his true colours when he’d kicked her out of his bed.

‘Don’t play me for a fool a second time, Grace. You know what I’m talking about. My son.’

The Grace hurt. She was Gracie. He knew that. And as for his son... Sam was hers.

‘I never played you for a fool,’ Gracie replied. Her voice thankfully came out cool, if not as cold as his. ‘If anyone was tricked, it was me.’

‘With fifty thousand dollars in your pocket?’

Colour and heat flared in her face. So he knew about the cheque Asad had thrust at her. He must have learned everything, no doubt from Asad. But why? His grandfather hadn’t wanted Gracie, cheap tramp that he’d thought her, in Malik’s life. Why tell Malik now? Or had he discovered it on his own? And why did she now feel guilty for taking that money?

When Asad had found her in Prague just hours after she’d sent a desperate email to an anonymous government address, she’d been both shocked and afraid. He’d bundled her into his blacked-out sedan and told her point-blank to get rid of the baby. When, horrified, she’d refused, he’d handed her the cheque with the stipulation that she never contact anyone in Alazar again.

Gracie had been so overwhelmed, so frightened, that she’d signed the paper he’d waved in front of her nose and taken the cheque. And yes, she’d cashed it. She’d considered it eighteen years of child maintenance payments. And she’d needed that money, for both her and Sam’s independence. It had enabled her to stay at home with him until he’d started school.

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