Fareed saw the question, the hope in his eyes as Emad took in the situation. Fareed gave a slight headshake letting him know she wasn’t the woman they’d been looking for.
But she was the woman he’d been looking for.
After preparing the table in front of them, and with disappointment and curiosity filling his eyes, Emad left.
For the next hour Fareed discovered new pleasures. Coddling Gwen—to her chagrin, before she succumbed, ate and drank what he served her, delighting in her resurfacing steadiness, in the banter that flowed between them, the fluency of appreciation.
Then Emad knocked again. This time he ushered in a woman carrying a child. Gwen’s child.
Fareed couldn’t focus on either. He only had eyes for Gwen as she sprung to her feet, her face gripped with emotions, their range breathtaking in scope and depth. Anxiety, relief, welcome, love, protection and so much more, every one fierce, total.
He heard the child squeal as he threw himself into her eager embrace. He registered the elegant, classically pretty redhead in her late forties, who Gwen introduced as Rose Maher, a distant maternal relative and Ryan’s nanny. He welcomed her with all the cordiality he could access, filed everything about her for later analysis. Then he turned to Gwen’s child.
And the world stopped in its tracks.
Four
Fareed hadn’t thought about Gwen’s child until this moment. Not in any terms other than his being hers.
He hadn’t had the presence of mind to formulate expectations, of the child, of his own reactions when he saw him. Had he had any mental faculties to devote to either, he would have thought he’d feel what he felt for any sick child in his care.
Now he knew anything he could have imagined would have been way off base.
She’d said Ryan didn’t have a father. He could almost believe that declaration literally now. It was as if he was hers, and hers alone. Even the discrepancy in age and gender, the almost-bald head, did nothing to dilute the reality that he was a pure part of her, body and soul.
But that absolute kinship and similarity between child and mother wasn’t why the sight of Ryan shook him to his core. Ryan, even though no more than nine or ten months old, was his own person. His effect wasn’t an echo of his mother’s, but all his own.
Ryan looked at him with eyes that were the same heavenly blue as his mother’s but reflecting his own nature and character, inquisitive, intrepid, enthusiastic. His dewy lips were rounded on his same breath-bating fascination as he probed him as if asking if he was a friend. Then he seemed to decide he was, his eyes crinkling and his lips spreading.
“Say hello to Dr. Aal Zaafer, Ryan.”
Fareed blinked as Gwen’s indulgent tone cascaded over his nerves, such a different melody from any he’d heard from her.
It had an equal effect on Ryan, who smiled delightedly up at her. Next moment, his every synapse fired as the child turned back to him, encompassed him in the same unbridled smile. Then he extended his arms to him.
He stared at the chubby hands closing and opening, beckoning for him to hurry and pick him up.
Gwen moved Ryan out of reach. “Darling, the adorable act works only on me and Rose.” Fareed’s eyes moved from Ryan’s crestfallen face to her apologetic one. “I didn’t think he would ask you for a ride. He doesn’t like to be held much, even by me. Too independent.”
She thought his hesitation meant he didn’t want to hold Ryan? She didn’t realize he was just … paralyzed? Everything inside him wanted to reach back for Ryan, but the urge was so strong, so … unknown that it overwhelmed him.
He had to correct that assumption. He couldn’t bear that she thought she’d imposed on him, couldn’t stand seeing Ryan’s chin quiver at being apparently rebuffed.
“I’m—” he cleared his throat “—I’m honored he thinks I’m worthy of being his ride. He probably fancies one from a higher altitude.”
A chuckle came from his left. His gaze moved with great effort from the captivating sight mother and son made to Rose.
She was still eyeing him with that almost-awed expression in her green eyes, but humor and shrewdness were taking over. “Ryan is a genius, and he knows a good proposition when he sees it. And you’re as good as it gets.”
A strangled gasp issued from Gwen. He didn’t need to look at her to know that her eyes were shooting daggers at Rose.
His lips spread in his widest smile in years. “Ms. Maher, I knew you were a discerning woman the moment I saw you.”
Rose let out a tinkling laugh. “Call me Rose, please. And oh, yes, I’ve been around long enough to know premium stuff when I see it, too.”
He almost felt the heat of mortification blasting off Gwen. And he loved it. Rose was saying the exact things to dissolve the tension, to set him free of the immobility that had struck him.
“I am honored you think I belong on the premium shelf, Rose, almost as much as I was to be considered a desirable ride by Ryan.” He shared another smile with the woman he already felt would be his ally, before he turned to Gwen and held out his arms.
His heart revved at what flared in her eyes. Momentary belief that his arms where inviting her into their depths. And a stifled urge to rush into them.
He let her know he’d seen it with a lingering glance before he transferred his smile to the baby who was already bobbing in her arms, demanding to be released. “Shall we, young sir?”
Ryan squealed his eagerness, reached back to him. Fareed noted his movements, already assessing his condition. He received him with as much care as he would a priceless statue that might shatter if he breathed hard. He looked down on the angelic face that was regarding him in such open wonder and something fierce again shuddered behind his breastbone.
Ya Ullah. That baby boy wielded magic as potent as his mother, and both their brands of spells had his name on them.
“You won’t dent him, you know?” Rose said.
He swept his gaze to her, his lips twisting. “It’s that clear I’m scared witless of holding him?”
Rose let out another good-natured laugh. “Your petrified expression did give me a clue or two that your experience in handling tiny humans is nonexistent.”
“You don’t have kids?”
Gwen’s soft question swept his gaze back to her. She looked … horrified that she’d asked it.
Satisfaction surged inside him. She needed to know his private details as much as he’d needed to know hers. Even though she was clearly kicking herself for asking, she was dying to know. If he had children, and therefore, a wife.
He’d thought his life wasn’t conducive to raising a family, that he didn’t have that innate drive to become a father. Now he knew the real reason why he’d never thought of having children. Because he’d never found a woman he wanted to have them with.
Now looking at her, holding her child in his arms, he did.
He looked down at Ryan, who was industriously trying to undo his shirt’s top buttons, before he looked back at her, giving her a glimpse of what he felt, if not too much of it. She wasn’t ready for the full power of his intentions.
Then he murmured, “I don’t.”
Her lashes fluttered down. But he felt it. Her relief.
Elation spread through him. “But I am an uncle many times over, through two of my sisters and many first cousins, to an assortment of boys and girls from ages one to fifteen.”
Gwen