The Secret Heir Of Alazar

Malik clenched his jaw, hating that his grandfather had caught him out. If Gracie was pregnant... Why had he not considered such a possibility? They’d both been so inexperienced, so overwhelmed by passion.

‘The possibility of her pregnancy is extremely unlikely,’ Malik said with more conviction than he actually felt. ‘But if she is, I am sure she will attempt to be in touch and I will handle the matter then.’

‘How?’ Asad demanded. ‘By parading your bastard child in front of the press? By polluting a thousand years’ lineage of princes and kings with some American half-blood brat?’

‘That is enough,’ Malik snapped. He took a deep breath and released it slowly. ‘I will do what I feel is best.’

‘You do realise how this kind of publicity could affect our country?’ Asad demanded in a low voice. At that moment he looked every inch his seventy-six years, uncertainty and genuine fear flickering in his faded eyes. ‘Our trade agreements, our relationships with the Bedouin tribes...everything is built on the bedrock of a stable monarchy. Alazar is a traditional country. They cannot have a sultan who acts like a Western playboy. If you do anything to make people doubt or wonder...’

Malik nodded, a terse assent of all his grandfather had both said and implied. He knew his duty, and he would fulfil it. He would not shame either himself or his country by chasing after a slip of a woman, even if she had possessed more life and given him more joy than he’d ever known. ‘I will not, Grandfather,’ he said quietly. ‘I will never.’

* * *

Rome had lost its magic. Back at the youth hostel where she’d left her bags what felt a lifetime ago, Gracie showered and changed. She shouldered her backpack and paid for her accommodation before heading out into the sultry, suffocating heat of a summer’s day. What had been beautiful and wondrous a day before now looked dirty and crowded.

A moped sped by her in a gust of diesel and someone pushed her shoulder hard. Gracie stumbled back a few steps before righting herself. Taking a deep breath, she hefted her backpack more securely on her shoulders and started walking towards the Termini rail station.

By mid-afternoon she was in Venice and had secured a place in a new hostel. She wandered along the Grand Canal, wanting to be captivated by the magic of the beautiful, crumbling city with its many canals of blue-green water and yet utterly unable to. Inside she felt both leaden and numb, filled with the memory of how Malik had pushed her away from him, told her to leave, his expression so cold, almost contemptuous...

There had been no connection. He probably used that line on every eager woman he saw. And as for his confession that it had been his first kiss? Laughable. She should have seen through that immediately. He’d kissed her with far too much expertise and assurance to be as inexperienced as she was. He’d known how to touch her from the first.

Added to all that, he was the heir to a kingdom. A man of some significance, he’d called his grandfather. As if. Clearly he’d been doing nothing but amusing himself with an American bumpkin. She was so stupid. Stupid and naïve.

Gracie trudged through another few weeks of travelling, but the joy and sense of adventure she’d had when she’d started out had left her completely. All she wanted to do was hightail it home, to a place where people knew and loved her. But then the thought of all the triumphant I-told-you-sos from friends and family who hadn’t seen the point of her going at all was enough to stiffen her resolve. She would get over Malik al Bahjat, heir to the throne of Alazar. It wasn’t as if her heart had been destroyed. Just her pride, she assured herself, along with her innocence.

Then, in a tiny village in Germany, with rain sleeting down over the Black Forest, she threw up her breakfast. She rested her head on the edge of the toilet, her stomach still heaving, the noisy sounds of the hostel echoing around her. Cold sweat prickled on her scalp and she closed her eyes. The last thing she needed was the stomach flu while backpacking through Europe.

Then she threw up the next morning, and the morning after that, and her breasts started feeling tender, fatigue crashing over her at every opportunity. It took another week for Gracie to realise the appalling, obvious truth: she was pregnant.

CHAPTER THREE (#u2698fde4-632a-5277-a22f-cfb14d50e3bc)

Ten years later

‘I’M SORRY, YOUR HIGHNESS.’

Malik looked up as the doctor entered the examining room and he narrowed his eyes. ‘Pardon?’

‘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.’