He disappeared before Raed could formulate a goodbye, which was good, because he could not keep his eyes off Lise.
“You’re still stunning,” he managed.
“And you’re a prince.” She held her champagne glass tightly, shooting stealthy glances at the people around them. “Somehow, you didn’t mention that when we met before.”
More than anything, he wanted to touch her. If he could just run his hands down the line of her waist, if he could just brush his lips against hers, Raed was sure things would fall back into place. The cold tug between them would turn into something hot and alive. But Lise stood ramrod straight, her gaze steely.
“When we met before,” he said carefully, “I had no idea how things would turn out. I didn’t know how I’d think of you—” The admission threatened to overwhelm him. “I’ve thought about you a lot. Those two weeks we spent together were...transcendent.”
Lise snorted, looking away. “So transcendent that you never thought to look me up? So transcendent that you kept your identity a secret? Who does that?” She dropped her voice to just above a whisper. “Who doesn’t mention that he is a prince?”
“The heat of the moment was intense,” Raed reminded her. “We were in Paris, we were in Scotland, we were all over each other—” He could almost feel her body against his now, the way she’d moved, the sounds she’d made. They’d been music to his ears. They’d been so warm and wanting and so unlike anything he thought he’d have as a prince. Raed had spent his life preparing for an arranged marriage. If it wasn’t handled by his parents, his business circumstances would dictate his choice. Raed’s wife would be a partner in his royal goals, but romance wouldn’t enter into it. But now, looking at Lise...
“We were all over each other, that’s true.” Lise pressed her lips together and looked him up and down. “But you can’t relive the past, Raed. You can’t go back and be honest now.”
“I wasn’t trying to—”
“Mummy!” The toddler’s voice was high and clear, and Lise’s head turned, her face lighting up in a little smile that Raed knew instinctively. Her child. A little boy in a puppy mask came toddling through the crowd, followed closely by a maid. He ran fast on his chunky legs and collided with Lise’s knees. “Mask off!” he cried. “Off, off.”
She bent to him, helping him untie the party mask he’d been wearing. “Better?”
He reached for her, and Lise picked him up. Then Raed saw his face.
His own face, made smaller and younger and more perfect than he’d ever seen it. His own face, on a child. The noise of the party dropped away, a rushing filling his ears. Like being at the seaside, only worse. It clouded his thoughts. There was nothing but the little boy in Lise’s arms, nothing, nothing, nothing.
“What the h—” He put a hand to his mouth, then dropped it away. “You never told me that you—that we—have a son!”
“How could I?” Lise met his gaze without flinching. “You never even told me your real name. I—”
Raed held up a hand, desperation replacing the whoosh of his blood in his head. “We can’t talk about this here.” Not here, not at the garden party, with people watching. They’d be tracking his every move. They’d be listening in for gossipy tidbits. They’d already said too much, and Raed could feel the scandal coming like a dark cloud on the horizon. A son. He had a son. “I’ll be in touch.”
And before she could answer, Raed turned on one heel and signaled his advisors. They could stay or come with him. He had to get out of here.
2
Lise took Jake’s hand as they stepped out of the university’s main office and beamed down at her boy, who grinned back up at her, chewing furiously at the piece of candy she’d given him part way through the meeting with the head of the school. It had gone well, she thought, even though they hadn’t gotten around to discussing her actual plans for the project. The head of the school had been called away half an hour in. She’d had a chance to lay out her plans and get one appreciative nod in that time. So she didn’t know how the man felt about her plan for teaching. What she did know was that people in Qasha, and at the university in particular, liked to know the whole person. So it had worked out that she didn’t quite have childcare for her son figured out. It had all worked out.
“You did a great job at the meeting,” she told Jake. “Want to go get a drink?”
“Yesh,” he said around the candy. It would be gone by the time they got to the cafeteria on campus, which was in another building across the courtyard. The entire place was gorgeous. Sandstone buildings with graceful archways dotted the edges of a massive, green courtyard. They wandered past a garden in bloom, flowers in shades of pink and red and orange. Jake squatted by the raised edge of the garden and stroked one of them with his fingertips.
Lise took a deep breath. Enjoy the moment. Don’t rush. That’s what all the parenting books had said when she was pregnant with Jake. Rushing only made things worse. So why was her mind rushing toward Raed again and again and again? Raed—she’d known him as Bahir. A man named Bahir had swept her off her feet and across Europe and lit up every nerve of her body with an intensity that seemed to linger even now. Focus on the flowers, Lise. Focus on your son. Her son with Raed’s eyes and Raed’s fall of dark hair. Jake stood up from the garden and toddled a few steps down the path, and she caught his hand up again.
This trip to Qasha had turned out to be so different from what she’d expected. And her friend Tali was married to her son’s uncle. She’d known that Tali had married the ruler of Qasha, of course. Lise had been planning to surprise her once she arrived here, but Tali wasn’t in town. Raed was, though. His name banged around in her mind until it seemed like the only sound in the world. Lise shook her head, forcing her thoughts away from him. The sun was gloriously warm this morning, the birds singing, the campus alive with students moving from one building to the next.
And her son’s chubby hand in hers, waiting for his drink.
She pulled open the door to the cafeteria building, which had the same sweeping lines as the other buildings, but with modern-looking glass windows in the front. A burst of air conditioning cooled her hot cheeks. An attendant at a check-in desk took Lise’s credit card for one lunch ticket—eight dollars—and it felt so delicious to be in the clean, white space that she didn’t mind the cost. She had to buy a lunch ticket, rather than just drinks, so they might as well eat.
Lise took Jake to a snack stand, where a man in a green uniform served them a plate with a brownie on it, and then to the next station, where she got a hot slice of pizza. Last stop—the drink machine. She filled up a small cup halfway and the two of them sat in a sunny table, Jake snugged up to her side in a chair pulled close to hers. Lise settled into the routine of cutting the food and gathering preemptive napkins while her mind wandered.
Raed had left the party so abruptly, signaling for his advisors and stalking toward the garden gates. She couldn’t blame him, really, after the shock of learning that he had a son. Still—Lise had a right to her feelings, too. He hadn’t bothered to tell her his real name. Lise rubbed at her forehead and supervised Jake as he worked his way around the edges of the brownie. It had been so humiliating to try to get his details from the school’s office. She’d been careful not to think of how awful it had been when the school had no information. Neither did the internet, and now, learning that Bahir had been a code name, a nickname—