Tears surged into her eyes as her whole face trembled. “You’re not just—just...”
“I only ever hid things I thought were no longer relevant, but I never and will never lie to you, ya mashoogati. It’s the truth. You can have your mother back now.”
He received an armful of sobbing love and thankfulness in utmost gratitude, before he turned to Haidar and Jalal.
“I’m sorry, ya shabaab, but your mother was solely responsible for this.” At their pained, resigned looks, he added, “But she didn’t order my mutilation, or death, after they extracted the information. Her orders were to get the information without damaging me, then keep me prisoner until she carried out her plan. What they did was their own payback to me. I’d been responsible for their imprisonment or that of their relatives.”
Haidar frowned. “Are you saying this to make us feel better?”
“With Sondoss as your mother, I doubt that’s possible.” At their grimaces, he grinned, making them do a hilarious double take. “Seriously, she’s not as bad as I thought she was. She has lines she won’t cross, which makes her dangerous and misguided but not a hardened criminal. As far as I’m concerned this—” he indicated his scar “—isn’t her doing. So I basically forgive her. And so should you.”
Haidar groaned. “It’s a miracle we’re so well-adjusted.”
Jalal’s eyes widened. “You’re talking about us?” He shook his head as he rose, put his hand on Rashid’s shoulder. “The only reason we’re not as dangerous as our mother is because we found you so early on. And before we strayed too much after you left us, we found Roxanne and Lujayn.”
Haidar rose, huffed a mirthless laugh. “That was a couple more catastrophes averted, thanks to the right people at the right time. So...” He placed a hand on Rashid’s other shoulder. “Right man, when will you take your kingdom off our hands?”
“Uh...never?” As they all exploded in protests, he smirked. “I meant it’s never going to be totally off your hands. Even after I take the throne, you’ll share it with me. You pick your titles.”
Jalal shook him in mock panic. “Please, not heir and spare. Harres and Shaheen suffer untold horrors being Amjad’s.”
“My heir is right here.” He lovingly caressed Laylah’s round belly, soaked up her adoration. “You can be anything and everything else.”
“Sokrunn ya rubb—thank God!” Haidar pretended relief. “But we’ll have to get back to you on that, after Roxanne and Lujayn tell us exactly what we’ll be, and what we’ll do.”
Rashid laughed. “A very wise if terminally annoying king once told me that a man can’t call himself that until a woman has him totally whipped.”
Haidar guffawed. “We’re the manliest men who ever lived then.”
Rashid looked down at Laylah, loving her, thanking the fates for her with every heartbeat. “No one is manlier than me.”
A contest of anecdotes proving who was manlier followed, after which they settled everything else.
When he returned from seeing Haidar and Jalal off, he came down on the floor beside Laylah as she stretched on the couch, rubbing and kissing her belly soothingly.
Sighing her pleasure, she drew her hands luxuriantly through the hair that now brushed his neck. “Thank you, ya rohi.”
“I’m the one who’s thankful I could give you this.”
“I’m not only thanking you for doing all this in the hope of exonerating my mother of the one crime I would have never forgiven her for, or for giving me the chance to rebuild my relationship with her. I’m thanking you for being you, for being mine.”
“You thank me for that every day. You spoil me.”
“Tough. I will keep on thanking you. But then you do the same. Now give me the straight answer you didn’t give the guys.”
“I am doing a lot for Azmahar from here. But I will only go back there with our whole family accounted for. Whether to be king or not remains to be seen. This is the destiny I care about—being yours, and our baby’s.”
“The throne is the other half of your destiny!” She pulled him up to her by his hair. “Didn’t you claim to be the ‘manliest’ man there is? Prove it. Say it is and that you’ll take it.”
Taking her lips, taking her into his arms and heart, he smiled his pledge. “Amrek, ya habibati. As you command, my love. It is, and I will.”
Laughing delightedly, she enfolded him back in her arms and heart. “Good man.”