Sarah And The Secret Sheikh

* * *

Sarah woke as the first fingers of dawn filtered through the curtains of Majed’s bedroom windows. She lay still and listened intently but couldn’t sense any signs of movement throughout the rest of the flat. Very quietly, she pushed back the bedclothes and tiptoed into the living room to find Majed sprawled across the sofa that barely contained his bulk, fast asleep.

Most people when they slept looked unguarded, younger...vulnerable. Not Majed. If anything he looked slightly forbidding and stern. It suddenly struck her that the easy-going façade he assumed every day at the bar might be exactly that—a front.

Or maybe your news has given him unpleasant dreams.

She scratched her hands through her hair. How long had he sat up last night, churning over her news? She’d had a few extra days to get used to the idea. Yesterday evening her sleepless nights had finally caught up with her. She felt rested and well now, though, and she didn’t have the heart to wake him.

A shiver shook through her. When she got right down to it, how well did she know Majed? Barely at all. She had no idea if he wanted a child. She gripped her hands together. For all she knew, he might welcome a child with unbridled enthusiasm. Or the idea of fatherhood might be a total anathema to him. Surely one should know these things about a man before becoming pregnant by him?

Your mother didn’t.

Perhaps not, but she didn’t intend to take her parents as role models. They’d spent her entire childhood using her as a pawn in their war to score points off each other. That was the only thing she was certain of—that she wouldn’t do that to any child of hers. If she had this baby she’d do her best to ensure its childhood was happy and carefree—not a battleground.

If.

Slipping onto a chair at the dining table, she lifted her feet to the seat and hugged her knees. She and Majed had to decide what to do about this baby and she had no idea where to start.

A pen and notepad rested in the middle of the table. She pulled them towards her with the thought of writing a list of pros and cons. She’d start with the cons, because there were so many: the pregnancy was unplanned, she was unemployed, so how would she support not just herself but a baby as well? Her mother would have a fit and there’d be no end to the recriminations. Her father would take the opposite stance and think an unplanned pregnancy was an inspired idea. She was only twenty-six—there was plenty of time yet before she needed to start thinking about having children. She was a total screw-up and surely a child deserved better than that for a parent?

There’d be more cons—lots more—but the length of the list had started to dishearten her. She needed something in the pros column to balance it out...just a little bit.

She stared at the page and bit her lip. There had to be one reason to keep this baby. A solid logical reason that made perfect sense. Her throat ached. The page in front of her blurred. She reached out and wrote a single sentence:

I love this baby already.

She stared at the words she’d just written and blinked hard. She did love this baby, but was it enough? A child deserved a better home than Sarah could give it. But, no matter how much she might wish to, she couldn’t draw a line through that single entry on her ‘pros’ list.

Perhaps she should try a different tack and list all of the options available to her instead. Biting back a sigh, she turned the page...only to find that Majed had made a list of his own. Her heart started to pound. Would it be an invasion of privacy to read his list?

Invasion or not, she had no hope of stopping herself.

At the top of the page in bald, ugly print he’d written a single word: abortion.

She couldn’t stop herself from flinching, even though it had been the first option that had occurred to her too. Even though it was an option she was still considering.

Beneath that he’d written: adoption. She swallowed. Did she have the strength for that? If she loved this baby then wouldn’t she want the very best for it? Wouldn’t she fight to give it the very best, regardless of the cost to her personally?

She froze when she realised that was exactly what she’d do. She loved this baby. All she had to work out now was what would be in the baby’s best interests.

She pulled Majed’s list back towards her. Two hard, dark lines separated those first two items from the rest of his list. Pulling in a breath, she read on...

* * *

Majed watched Sarah’s eyes widen as she read down the list he’d made. He knew when she’d reached the end of the list because it wasn’t possible for her eyes to go any wider.

She glanced across at him and saw him watching her. Something arced in the air between them before she gave him a brave little smile that cracked open something in his chest and started up an ache that he feared would never go away.

He couldn’t afford to fall in love with this woman. He couldn’t afford to fall in love with anyone. Love clouded one’s judgement. And when one’s judgement was clouded it put the people one cared about at risk.

He couldn’t fall in love with Sarah, but he could look after her.

‘Good morning,’ she whispered.

Her voice emerged on a rasp, as if her throat was dry, and he threw off his blanket, rose and strode to the kitchen. ‘Let me get you something hot to drink. You should’ve helped yourself.’

‘I didn’t want to disturb you.’

He came back with glasses of apple juice and steaming mugs of herbal tea. His body cried out for strong black coffee but, if Sarah was avoiding caffeine the way most pregnant women he knew did, then it would be cruel to drink it in front of her.

He nodded at his list. ‘I tried to cover every possible option I could think of. Are there any you’ve thought of that I’ve missed?’

She shook her head and sipped her tea. He watched carefully for any signs of nausea but she merely closed her eyes and inhaled the steam as if welcoming the warmth into her body. Her clothes looked rumpled from having been slept in, and she had bed hair, but beneath all of that a vitality and vibrancy that had been lacking yesterday had started to emerge.

‘You’ve thought of things that hadn’t occurred to me.’ She pointed to the very last item on the list. ‘That’s a bit over the top, don’t you think?’

He shrugged but his gut tightened. ‘My purpose was to list every option I could think of, without making value judgements.’

He’d spent a lot of time in the West. Four years in the UK at Oxford University with trips to the USA in the summer breaks. For the last four years, he’d worked in Australia. But he’d grown up in Keddah Jaleel—a world of ancient tradition, arranged marriages and duty. He knew exactly what his family would expect of him in this situation.

He had no intention of forcing those expectations onto Sarah but...

‘I want you to know that whichever one of those options you settle on, whichever you deem is in your and the baby’s best interests, I’ll support you one-hundred percent.’ He didn’t want her to doubt that for a moment.

She set her mug down, a deep furrow marring her brow.

‘What?’

‘Your happiness is just as important as mine.’

He didn’t deserve happiness. He didn’t say that out loud, though. It was a sentiment that would horrify her. He nodded at the list. ‘None of those options make me unhappy.’

Her raised eyebrow told him she didn’t believe him. She pointed towards the top of the list. ‘This line here is rather dark. It looks angry. Does that mean you hate the idea of abortion and adoption?’

He tried to keep his face unreadable. ‘I’ve no ethical objection to either. It’s just...’ He reached out and wrapped her hand in his. ‘It’s just, I don’t dare care for the life growing inside you if those are the routes you’re considering.’

She stared at him with such intensity his mouth went dry. The pulse at the base of her throat pounded and he could feel an answering throb start up at the centre of him.

‘You care about this baby?’

The question was raw, Sarah’s voice full of heartbreak and hope, and he didn’t know which one would win out.

He nodded. There wasn’t a single doubt in his mind that if Sarah had this child—if—he would love it with everything that was inside him.

Then tell her that. You need to give her more.

But he didn’t want to pressure her one way or the other.