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“I bet that waking up is hard,” she said.
“No, I started sort of coming out of it by hearing you and Mom talking. What’s going on? How did you push Bahan away?”
“I just…you crashed and I was so worried.”
“But he loves you.”
“He married me to keep his kingdom. You know that.”
“But he’s doing so much to help me anyway, and I saw the way he looked at you at the ceremony. That’s real, sis. Don’t let it go.”
***
“You’re miserable, my son,” his father said, wheezing through his oxygen tubes.
He looked up, startled to see his father rolling into his room with his portable tank on his lap. “Father, you should be resting.”
The old man winked at him. “My son, soon I will be able to do nothing but rest. I’d like to be able to do some good works before my time.”
“Don’t say that,” he said, stepping away from his desk. Who cared what the markets were doing when his father was awake and up to talking? “You have time yet.”
“Perhaps,” he said, wheezing a bit. “Or my specialists may yet be right about my COPD. My point is that you’ve been miserable for weeks, ever since you came back from Paris without your blushing bride.”
Bahan gritted his teeth and tried to push away his hurt and frustration with Jennifer. “She didn’t feel like she wanted to come back with me. In fact, she was quite vocal about it.”
“Yet you dutifully check on her sister’s progress more than daily.”
“How did you know?”
His father smiled and shrugged. “I have my little birdies as well, Bahan. My question is, what are you going to do about it?”
“She promised to stay married to me long enough to keep the kingdom intact.”
“I don’t give a toss about the kingdom,” his father said.
Bahan frowned. All of this had only started to keep his idiot cousin from ruling Yemen, because he was desperate to preserve his father’s legacy. How could the old ruler say now that it didn’t even matter? “But the country…”
“I love our country, and I would loathe seeing my brother’s foolish offspring rule it. However, that doesn’t matter nearly as much to me as making sure my sons will be alright after I’m gone. I know that Fareed is strong.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Bahan said.
“But,” his father continued, wheeling his chair back a bit, “you’re different. Fareed is happy with his figures and his building plans, but I know you have a heart that feels deeply. I wanted to see you with a wife because I wanted you to truly enjoy what I’ve had with your mother for decades.”
“Jennifer was a means to an end. Nothing more,” he said, trying to be stern as he said it, as if it were no more interesting a fact than saying the sun set in the west. The words felt hollow on his tongue. From his father’s smirk, he was able to tell he had convinced no one at all. “What?”
“I think that if she meant nothing, you’d have just referred to her as ‘Ms. Wilde’ or been disinterested. I know your heart, son, and I know that she’s captivated it.”
He began to pace, no longer easy under his father’s scrutiny. “Maybe so but she does not want me.”
The older man shook his head. “Then, my son, you merely have to convince her. You’re a good planner, just figure out how to win her back.”
“But…”
“I know you can.”
With that, his father wheeled back out of the office, leaving Bahan dumbfounded.
Chapter Twelve
