Rising Stars & It Started With… Collections. Кейт Хьюит
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wedding day?’
‘I loved it, Emir.’ She looked up to him. ‘Every moment of it.’
‘Every moment?’
‘I struggle to be polite to Natasha and Rakhal. I understand that I have to be, that without communication …’ She did not want to talk about them on her wedding night but, yes, she might have been a little rude. ‘I struggle sometimes to stay quiet when I believe there is injustice.’
‘I had worked that out,’ Emir said. ‘I know there is much on your mind. All day I have wanted to speak with you. There is something you need to know, but there has not been a suitable moment.’
‘Oh!’ Amy had been about to say the same thing. ‘Emir, there is something—’
‘Amy,’ he interrupted, for his news was too important not to share. ‘You know I spent last night in the desert? Usually the night before the King marries is a time for feasting and celebrating; instead I spent that time speaking with Rakhal.’
‘And you didn’t pull your swords?’
He heard the teasing in her voice. ‘Rakhal listened to all I said to him that day—he thought long and hard about it and though things have worked out for him, though he is happy, he does not want the burden he carried to be passed on to his son. He agrees that we are Kings without power unless we make our own rules for our own lands.’ Emir picked up the vial that hung around her throat, knew the terrible pressure that had been placed on her. ‘Our decision will be refuted by the elders, of course, but with both Kings in full agreement there will be no going back.’
‘I don’t understand?’
‘The predictors are wrong,’ Emir said. ‘Alzan and Alzirz are two strong and proud countries. It is time for them to break free from the rules of old. Of course the people and the elders will challenge this. They believe …’
‘Emir!’ That whooshing sound was back in her ears, ‘Emir, wait!’ Anguished eyes looked up to him. ‘I did enjoy today, every moment of it, and if I seemed distracted at times …’ Amy took a deep breath. ‘I didn’t faint from nerves.’ She still couldn’t take the news in, had been reeling from it all day. ‘Well, maybe a bit. But when the palace doctor examined me …’ She’d never thought she’d hear herself say these words. ‘I’m pregnant, Emir.’ Amy was crying now, and not just a little bit. ‘I had him retake the test and he is certain—it would seem that first night …’
‘But you said it was impossible.’ It was Emir who didn’t understand.
‘There was always a slim chance, apparently,’ Amy explained. ‘I just didn’t hear that and neither did my fiancé.And I never went back to the doctor to properly discuss things.’
Emir held her as she cried. The news was as shocking as it was happy, and it took a moment for it to sink in.
‘The rules might not need to change. I might have a son,’ Amy said.
And he held the bride whom he loved, come what may, and he loved her all over again.
‘Soon we will be able to find out what I’m having.’
‘There is no need to find out,’ Emir said. ‘For whatever we are given we will love. The rules will change.’ Emir’s voice was firm. ‘Clemira is a born leader, that much I know, and Nakia will be a wonderful support for her. It is right she be second in line.’
‘But the predictions!’
‘Are just that,’ Emir said, and he looked to the woman who had healed his black and tortured heart, the woman who had swept into his office and challenged his way of thinking, and he could not believe what he had. His instinct was to kiss her, to hold her and soothe her fears, and then he paused for just a moment as the news truly started to hit him. And he told her why the predictions were surely wrong. ‘They did not factor in that a king might fall in love.’
‘HE is beautiful,’ Emir said.
Amy could not stop looking at her newborn son—could scarcely believe that she was holding her own baby in her arms. Just feeling him there, she knew all the hurts of the past were forgotten, the pain of the last twenty-four hours simply deleted as she looked down into his dark eyes.
‘Are you sure he’s mine?’ Amy teased, because he was completely his father’s son. She looked up to Emir and he kissed her gently, and she was bathed in a happiness made richer because he loved her and his daughters, with or without the gift of a son.
He took the baby in his arms and held him for a long moment, and Amy could see the pride and also the pain on his strong, proud features, for he was surely remembering the bittersweet time when he’d last held a tiny infant.
‘I don’t want to miss a moment of his life,’ Emir said. ‘I missed way too much of the twins’ first year.’ He closed his eyes in regret.
‘Emir, there was a reason.’ She understood that now.
‘Every time I saw them, every time I held them, all I wanted was to do what was best for them, and yet I had the responsibility to put the future of my country first.’
‘It must have been agony.’
‘I was made better knowing they were looked after by you. When you left, when it was Fatima, when the ways of old were being adhered to, I knew I could not rule a country that rendered my daughters worthless. It worked in the past, but not now,’ Emir explained. ‘Yet it was a decision that required distance.’
‘It did,’ Amy agreed. ‘I wish you could have spoken with me …’ Her voice trailed off, because Emir was right. It was a decision that could only have been reached alone. ‘It’s all worked out.’ She looked at her sleeping baby. ‘The rules don’t even have to change.’
‘They do,’ Emir said. ‘For I never want my son to have to make a choice like the one I was forced to make. The predictors were wrong: the two countries are better separated. I am glad I have a son for many reasons, but it will prove once and for all that we are doing this because it is right rather than necessary. The people will love him as they now love the girls—as they love you.’
The changes of the past few months had been less tumultuous than Amy had feared. The old Bedouin man had laughed when Rakhal and Emir consulted him, had shrugged and shaken his head when they’d said that the predictions were wrong. But the people in the main had accepted it, reassured that their two Kings were united and strong in their decision. And even before they’d found out that Amy was expecting a baby they had cheered for the twins, and a newspaper had celebrated with a headline about the future Queen Clemira.
‘Your mother should be here any time,’ Emir said, because as soon as Amy had gone into labour Emir had organised a plane for her.
Amy could not wait to see her mother’s face when, after all the anguish, she got to hold her grandson.
‘Shall I bring the girls in to meet their new brother?’ Emir asked, handing his son back to her outstretched arms.
‘Okay,’ Amy said, excited about their reaction.
She smiled as he brought the girls in. She loved them so much—every bit as much as the baby in her arms. She had loved them from the moment they were born. She watched Nakia’s face light up when she saw her new brother. She was completely entranced, smothering him with kisses, but Clemira seemed less than impressed. She looked at him for a moment or two and then wriggled down off the bed and toddled off. Following her sister’s lead, soon so too did Nakia. Emir called for the nanny to take them back to the playroom.
‘Do you think she is jealous?’ Emir asked, taking the now sleeping baby and placing him in his crib, then climbing onto the bed beside her. ‘She barely looked at him.’