And now it was muddled. Because to have that, she had to push Aden out of the picture. The thought of it sent a sharp pain through her, a spear lodged in her breast, one she couldn’t seem to pull out.
And the thought of abandoning the dream was painful, too.
There was no simple answer. There was just the reality of being caught between two different worlds. Two different desires.
But of course, she couldn’t stay in Attar. Couldn’t be staff at the palace forever.
Which still gave her her dream, that wonderful fantasy she’d clung to since she was thirteen years old.
Except now it was tarnished. It would never again be the vision of utter contentment and perfection it had once been. Not now that it meant giving up so much.
She was changed. Completely. And she hated it. Resented it with every fiber of her being. Yet, she couldn’t feel any resentment toward Aden. Toward the life that had begun inside of her body.
It was easier to channel it to Sayid. Much easier.
“The people need a symbol,” he said, his tone grave. “I am not that symbol. No hope for the future. You… you bring hope.”
“It’s Aden,” she said.
“Yes, it is. But it’s you, too. You who brought them their king. Who risked my wrath, and believe me my wrath is legendary, to save him.”
“I didn’t think it would cost nearly so much,” she said, her throat tightening.
“And was it not worth it?” he asked, his tone hard. As if he had any right to judge her, while he sat there, power pouring off of him in waves.
The anger bubbled over. Again. She was normally so much better with control, but Sayid tested her. And after being alone in her struggle, in her pain, for weeks, she simply couldn’t stand keeping it all in anymore.
“You… you—” she pulled her hand back in the window “—you can sit there and act so superior to me? You have the power to move Aden and me around like pawns on a chessboard, and frankly, you have from the moment you walked into my apartment. And then you just… say things like that. As though this is all so clear-cut and I’m supposed to know exactly how to feel, exactly what to say and want. It’s easy for you. You have all the control. And beneath the control… you don’t care. You don’t have a single feeling, not one sliver of emotion. So of course this is easy for you. Of course it’s clear-cut. But unlike you, I have a heart, and that makes all of this incredibly confusing. Incredibly painful. Don’t you dare presume that you should know what I feel when you don’t feel a damn thing.”
Her voice was trembling when she finished, her words unsteady, tears threatening. But she wouldn’t let them fall. Wouldn’t let him see how vulnerable she felt. How raw. How perilously close she was to cracking apart.
Sayid only looked at her, his expression unchanging. He was unmoved. A man made of stone instead of flesh.
Finally, he spoke. “Easy?” he asked. “You think this is easy? Look at them, Chloe. At best they fear me, at worst, they are ashamed to have a man like me in power. A man of violence. There is nothing easy here.”
“You always seem so calm.”
“I am trained to.” He was silent for a moment. “You were wrong about something else.”
“What else, Sayid?”
“I do not see Aden as a pawn. He is king, and I will do everything in my power to protect him.”
“And what about me?” she asked, the words sticking to the sides of her throat.
“Every other piece is incidental,” he said, uncompromising. Unfeeling. “Life is war, and the only thing that matters is the checkmate. Not how many pieces you lose on the way. If the king isn’t standing in the end, all is lost.” Dark eyes met hers, the intensity of it, the visceral reaction his expression set off in her stomach, frightening. “Everything else, everyone else, is expendable.”
FOR THE NEXT COUPLE OF weeks, Sayid simply wasn’t around. And Chloe was grateful for it. His words, callous, and clearly true to him, had put her on guard.
She was nothing but a pawn to him. Simply an incidental. If scandal threatened to break, he would ship her back to Portland, of that she was certain. And she wasn’t ready to leave Aden.
Not yet.
She had nearly six months left with him, and she was going to treasure every moment. Capture it so she could hold it close. Always.
She closed her eyes and envisioned her hypothetical classroom again. It would be filled with students ready to learn.
And in the back of her mind, she would wonder the whole time about Aden. If he was being held enough. Loved enough.
She stood up from her computer and tugged her glasses off, walked from her room into his. She knew she shouldn’t pick him up since he was sleeping, but after the jarring thought of being separated from him, thousands of miles between them, she needed closeness. Needed to feel the bond that had been growing, strengthening, since the moment she first felt him move inside of her.
While pregnant, she’d never thought of him as hers. But it had been impossible not to marvel at it. She knew all about the development of babies in the womb. Such an intricate act of science that required everything to happen according to a perfect plan, with precision, with timing that was utterly essential.
And it had been happening inside of her.
Then, when he’d been born, all she’d thought about was survival. Hers and his. A bond forged by fire.
Now… it was changing again. When she thought of him, everything inside of her softened, the emotion she felt was an ache that started at the base of her throat and spread throughout her chest, to her limbs. And there was no rational explanation she could find for it, no biological excuse to try and explain it away.
Because biologically, Aden wasn’t her son. But her body had stopped caring.
Her heart didn’t care very much anymore, either. But her brain… her brain knew. Knew that it couldn’t last. That he wasn’t hers. That the wise decision was to keep aiming for her academic and professional ideal.
That this interruption of her plan, this detour, shouldn’t be allowed to matter so much.
For the first time, her brain was losing the argument.
She reached into the crib and picked Aden up. He squeaked, burrowing into her chest, the little noise making her heart lift. What was she doing? She wasn’t mother material. She knew nothing about a functional mother-child relationship.
And she wasn’t his mother.
You’re the only one he has.
That her brain knew and agreed with. There would be no nurturing from Sayid. There would be nothing from his uncle, no affection, no kissing scraped knees. There would be staff.
The thought of it chilled her, down to that deep, indefinable part of herself that was made up of pure, raw emotion. The part that transcended logic and reason. Trumped it completely.
She couldn’t allow it.
Certainty spread through her, a certainty that had been growing, steadily and surely, since the moment Aden was born.
She didn’t want to walk away from her life in Portland. Didn’t want to put her dreams on hold.
But she could.
The