Page 21 of Sheikh's Quarantine Triplet Baby Daughters

Samyar

The first thing that Samyar thought, when he heard the lock click, was that he needed to take the door down. It was a shockingly calm thought in the middle of all this tumult. It was simple and clear, something like how it felt when he talked about city improvements or dam building with the royal engineering team.

There was a problem: there was something between him and Diane. That was not allowed.

There was a solution: take the door off its hinges and possibly burn it for daring to get in his way.

No. No, nothing is improved if we go after this like a barbarian, he thought, slightly appalled at himself.

Something deep inside, however, even as he approached the door, told him that taking the door off its hinges was still on the list of options, and not even as far down the list as might be preferred.

"Diane... Diane, are you all right?" he called, and he couldn't avoid the tension in his voice or the worry there, for all he wanted to stay calm.

"I'm fine," she said through gasping sobs. "Samyar, I'm fine, just go away."

"You don't sound very fine," he said, his voice growing sharper. "Diane. Are you hurting yourself? If you are..."

Her laugh was jagged enough to cut.

"God, no, I'm not in here... If I'm hurting myself, I'm using you to do it."

The words hit him with the force of bullets, and Samyar took a deep breath against the horror and the shame of it.

"Diane. I know I have hurt you in the past, but as we've said, the past is gone. It's over. We're not who we used to be anymore."

"No," she said acidly. "Before I ran into you again, I wasn't pregnant."

Samyar's hands curled into fists as he fought back the first five or six things he wanted to say.

"Do you want to be?" he asked. "If that is something that needs to be discussed—"

"No," she said, and he relaxed at how strong her voice sounded, even if there was still a sob underneath her words. "No. I want this. I want them. No matter what it means or what anyone else thinks."

Samyar let out a silent sigh of relief. It would have been up to her. It would always have been up to her, but he could feel where it would have broken him a little too, that decision.

"All right. I want them too."

The words brought silence from the other side of the door, and he could hear her shift. Samyar realized that Diane must be sitting on the floor, and he went to sit there too, the thick plank of wood the only thing that separated them.

"Diane... Do you believe me? I didn't know about the... the babies before today. But I know about them now, and darling, I want them."

"And what about me?" Diane said, and Samyar smiled before he remembered that she couldn't see him.

"And I want you as well," he said. "That's the truth. I have wanted you since the moment I met you. I want you in Paris, I want you in Alraed, I want you in the whole world."

Diane sobbed once, briefly, but when she spoke, her voice was cool and even.

"And what does that mean?" she asked. "Am I a secret? Are your children a secret? You left me in Paris because you had responsibilities to your people, and a foreign woman had no place in that."

They were nearly his words precisely, the ones he had rehearsed before he had gone to speak to her that last fateful day. They had sounded all right, but when they were out of his mouth – and now that he heard them in hers – he could see how cold they were and how cruel.

"As I have said, I have changed," he said. "Before we go any further, Diane, I will say that there is no opinion in the world, no law, no ruling body, nothing at all that is going to prevent me from caring for my children. They will be provided for, given every advantage that I can offer them. No matter what happens between us, that will always be true."

To his surprise, Diane's response was immediate.

"I know. I know you will."

"And that leaves what will happen between us," he said.

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