Текст книги "A Secret Birthright"

Автор книги: Olivia Gates

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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 10 страниц) [доступный отрывок для чтения: 4 страниц]

She had no answer now but more tears.

They welled up, filling her whole being. It was beyond incredible. To have his incomparable skills and support. It was also beyond terrible. To have to go with him, be near him, for weeks, be exposed to his influence and subjected to her weakness.

Beyond the tragedies that had sheared through her life and heart, that was the worst thing that could have happened to her. She would have gone to hell and wouldn’t have bothered coming back to see Ryan healthy and happy. Now she would go to the one place she considered worse than hell. And she could never explain her feelings to Fareed.

She finally whispered, “I—I don’t know what to say.”

He sat back, his imposing frame sprawling in the contentment of someone who’d fulfilled his purpose. “You do. A three-letter word. Beginning with a Y and ending with an S.”

A thousand fears screeched in the darkness of her mind. And she closed her eyes and prayed. That when she said it, it would only mean Ryan’s salvation, and not her damnation.

She opened her eyes, stepped off the bleak, yet familiar, cliff of resignation into the abyss of the unknown.

And whispered the dreaded, “Yes.”

The trip to Jizaan passed in a blur of distress.

Fareed, with Emad and the flight crew, orchestrated a symphony of such lavish luxury that it almost snapped her frayed nerves. She was so unused to being waited on, so uncomfortable at being on the receiving end of such indulgence, when she was unable to repay it, too, that it exhausted her.

After the first three hours, she’d escaped by sleeping the remaining eight hours to their refueling layover in London. She’d taken refuge in sleep again in the second leg of the journey, leaving Rose and Ryan to plumb the jet’s inhabitants’ ceaseless desire to spoil them.

She was floating somewhere gray and oppressive when she felt a caress on her hand.

She jerked out of the coma-like sleep knowing it was Fareed. Only his touch had ever felt like a thousand volts of disruption.

“I apologize for disturbing your slumber, but we’re about to land.” His eyes glowed like embers even in the jet’s atrocious lighting, his magnificent voice soaked in gentle teasing. “I hope fourteen hours of sleep managed to provide a measure of rest.”

She would have told him they sure hadn’t if her throat didn’t feel lined with sandpaper. She rose from the comfort of the plane bed, returning it to its upright position, feeling as if she’d been in a knock-down drag-out fight.

Apart from everything that disturbed her past, present and future, she knew why she felt wrecked. She might have been hiding in unawareness, but she’d felt him as she’d slept, and his thoughts, the demand, the promise in them and her struggle against them, had worn her out.

Rose waited until he left to approach her with Ryan, eyeing her in sarcastic censure. “That was sure record-breaking.”

“You mean you and Ryan staying awake for that long?”

Rose huffed. “Oh, we slept, around an hour on each leg. We were savvy enough to take advantage of that once-in-a-lifetime experience. While you are either stupid, or stupid not to grab at all that…God offers.”

From the proof of undeniable experience, Gwen knew that Rose, the only “aunt” she’d ever had, had only her best interest at heart. She’d always counted on her outspokenness to make her face the truth when she shied away from it. But now that smack of reality only made her sink deeper into despair.

Rose had no idea how…impossible everything was.

She was almost thankful when Fareed returned, bringing with him another dose of disturbance. She wasn’t up to more evasive maneuvers with the other unstoppable force in her life.

She was unequivocally thankful when Rose engaged Fareed in conversation during landing. It left her able to pretend to look outside her window when she saw nothing but her internal turmoil.

They were really in Jizaan.

After touchdown, Fareed got up and took Ryan from Rose.

Gwen jumped up, tried to take him. Fareed looked down at Ryan. “Which ride do you want, ya sugheeri?”

Thorns sprouted in her stomach at the loving way Fareed called Ryan his little one.

Ryan, who seemingly understood anything Fareed said in either English or Arabic, looked back at her with dimples at full blast. Then he bobbed in his arms, spurring him to move.

There. She’d gotten her answer.

As Rose preceded them out of the plane with Emad, Fareed kept a step behind her.

His bass purr hit her back. “I’m not competing with you for his favor.”

She slanted him a glance over her shoulder, almost winced at the incredible sight of him, as immaculate and fresh as if he hadn’t been up for the past twenty-four hours, after a month of grueling surgeries, too. He towered over her, his shoulders broad enough to blot out the whole world, virility and gorgeousness radiating off him in shock waves.

Looking ahead before she stumbled, she murmured, “It never occurred to me that you were.”

“And he’s not choosing me over you.”

A mocking huff broke from her. “Could have fooled me.”

His deep chuckle resonated in her bones. “He’s not. I’m just the new toy.”

She would have chuckled, too, if she’d been able to draw more air than that which kept her on her feet and conscious.

And that was before he took her elbow, offered the support he must have felt she needed, smiled down at her. “You really should be happy we’re enjoying each other’s company so much.” Her knees almost lost their solidity as seriousness tinged his gaze. “But I can’t be more relieved that he likes and seeks me. The coming time isn’t going to be easy, and trusting me is going to make everything so much better for him.”

He was that thoughtful? She’d only ever known one other person with that kindness.…

Memories lodged into her heart like an ax. She clamped down on the pain. She couldn’t afford to let those overwhelm her now. She needed to be at her strongest, her most resolute. For Ryan. And for her own struggle.

She passed by a time zones clock, blinked at its verdict. Four-thirty in the afternoon in L.A., 5:30 a.m. in Jizaan. Exactly twenty-four hours from the moment she’d staggered into his orbit.

She felt as if her life before those hours had been someone else’s, someone whose memories were sloughing off to be replaced by this new reality that had no rhyme or reason.

Then she stepped out of the jet and into another realm.

Her career had taken her all over the world, other desert kingdoms included, but Jizaan felt…alien, unprecedented.

The least of it was the airport itself, what she’d caught glimpses of from the air, what had the design, ambition and otherworldliness of a horizon-dominating space colony.

Everything else was painted with a brush of hyperreality. The star-sprinkled sky midway between the blue of eternity and the indigo of dawn had the vibrancy of another dimension, the stars the sharpness and abundance of another galaxy. The desert winter breeze that kissed her face and ran insistent fingers through her hair, even when jets’ exhaust should have tainted it, felt cleansing, resuscitating. The whole atmosphere was permeated by echoes of a history rife with towering passions, unquenchable feuds and undying honor. She felt it all tug at her through her awareness of Fareed, whose blood ran thick with this land’s legacy.

She stole a look at him, found him looking down at Ryan, his expression laced with fondness. Ryan, secure in Fareed’s powerful grasp, was looking around, his face rapt as he inhaled deep, as if to breathe in the new place, make it a part of him.

Her heart constricted. If only…

“Ahlann wa sahlann bekom fi daari-wa daarakom.”

Fareed’s deep tones caressed every one of her nerves—until she translated what he’d said.

He was welcoming them to his home. And theirs.

She knew this was simply the ultragenerosity the region was known for, where they offered guests their homes as theirs. She still felt as if a wrecking ball had swung into her. She swayed with the force of the phantom sensation.

Fareed grabbed her tight against his side.

He’d probably saved her, this time from a plunge down a flight of steel stairs. But being ensconced in his heat and hardness, his concern was unendurable.

She groped for the railing, quickened her descent, pretending steadiness. The moment she touched ground, her legs wobbled again.

He caught her, exhaled. “I should have woken you earlier. You’re still drowsy. Or you’re hypoglycemic again. You barely ate anything since we started this journey.”

She didn’t refute his explanations. Better to let him think it was all physical. She wouldn’t tell him the truth. She couldn’t. Not the general truth. Or the one behind her latest bout of chaos. That as soon as her feet touched the ground, she could almost swear the land pulled at her. And yelled at her.

Leave, the moment you can. Before you sustain an injury you won’t survive this time.

They’d reached the limo awaiting them a dozen feet from the jet’s stairs, where Emad had taken the driver’s seat with Rose beside him, when she heard Fareed say, “We’re going to my place, Ryan.”

The words meant for Ryan skimmed her mind, leaving no impression. Then they slowly sank. And detonated.

She swung to him as he held the door open for her. “What?”

He frowned his confusion. “What do you mean ‘what’?”

“What do you mean your place?”

He smiled, a smile drenched in that overriding sensuality that was as integral to him as his DNA. “My place is the place where I live. And where you’ll stay.”

“We’re going to stay in your center!”

He gave an adamant headshake as he prodded her to enter the limo, making her slide across the backseat by entering after her. “Only during the immediate pre– and postoperative period. And don’t contest this again.”

“I never contested it a first time.…”

“Which was much appreciated, so don’t suddenly change—”

She cut him off in return, feeling her brain overheating. “Because this is the first time I’ve heard of this.”

“Not true. I told you during the flight.”

“Was I awake when you told me?”

He gave her a thoughtful glance, then his smile scalded her with its amusement. “Come to think of it, that you didn’t contest it should have clued me in that you were sleep talking.”

“And now that I’m awake…”

“You’ll be my esteemed guest.”

Before she could utter another protest, Ryan, who’d been getting louder demanding his attention, grabbed his face and tugged. Fareed turned to him and at once they got engaged in another game of fetch-and-explain.

Even though he had been paying Ryan every attention, she knew he relished that timely excuse to end their conversation. She knew there was no use trying to continue it. He had this infallible way of getting his way, of making his unilateral decisions the only ones that made sense. But his place?

She felt she was sinking in quicksand and any move was making her sink faster.

And there was nothing she could do about it.

She exhaled, sought distraction, looked outside the window, her eyes finally registering the splendor of Jizaan’s sparkling capital rushing by.

In the first slivers of dawn, the magnificence of Al Zaaferah, or The Victorious, named after the centuries-old ruling house, seeped into her awareness. It felt as if it had been erected today to the most lavish standards. It also looked constantly evolving with extreme-concept projects rising among the soaring mirrored buildings—everything felt futuristic yet with pervasive cultural influences making it feel steeped in history.

She was lost in recording every detail when she noticed they’d gotten off the main roads and were now driving through automatic, thirty-feet-high, wrought-iron gates. Fareed’s “place,” no doubt.

The limo winded through ingeniously landscaped grounds, approaching a sprawling stone mansion crouching in the distance. Painted in sweeps of shadow and mysticism, it had the feel of a fortress from a Middle Eastern fable, the abode of someone who craved solitude, yet in having to house those his rank dictated, expanded his domain to give them space, and himself distance.

She hadn’t thought what his place would be like. If she had, she would have imagined he lived in either the royal palace, or as imposing an edifice. But even though this place spoke of affluence, it didn’t reek of excess. It was amazing how everything was permeated with the privileges of the prince, yet possessed the austerity of the surgeon.

All through their journey to the main door, she felt invisible eyes monitoring their progress, relaying it to forward stations. Even though she’d experienced many aspects of Fareed’s status, that seamlessly orchestrated surveillance solidified everything in her mind. Who Fareed was. Where she was now.

He handed her out of the limo feet from stone steps leading to the patio. Footmen appeared as if from nowhere and rushed to open the massive brass-work doors.

She entered beside him with trepidation expanding in her heart into a columned hall that spread under a thirty-foot mosaic dome. The doors closed with a soft click. To Gwen, it felt as if iron prison doors were slammed shut behind her.

Her gaze darted around the indirectly lit space, got impressions of a sweeping floor plan extending on both sides, understated colors, a male influence in decor—his virile influence permeating the place. Her inspection ended where thirty-foot-wide stairs climbed to a spacious platform before winding away to each side of the upper floor.

Fareed led them up one side to a guest apartment triple the size of her condo, faithfully displaying the amalgam of modernity and Arabian Nights feel of the rest of the mansion. If she were in a condition to appreciate anything, she would have found it amazing to walk through doors that looked like they’d been transported through millennia intact only to swing open soundlessly with a proximity sensor. She was sure even Scheherazade’s imagination couldn’t have created anything like this place.

“Let me take him.”

Gwen stirred from her reverie at Rose’s words. She found her taking a now sound-asleep Ryan from Fareed.

“We’re both done for.” Rose stifled a yawn as she gave Gwen a kiss on the cheek. She grinned at Emad as she took Ryan’s bag from him. “I’ll find us the nearest beds and it might be night when you see either of us again.”

In a minute everyone had left her alone with Fareed.

She turned blindly, pretending to inspect the sitting area. She ran a hand along the perfect smoothness of a hand-carved chair before turning to a spherical, fenestrated brass lantern hanging from the ceiling with spectacular chains. She made the mistake of transferring her gaze to him and the hypnotic play of light and shadows over his face and figure only deepened his influence.

He stared back at her for long, long moments, winding up the coil of tension inside her tighter until she felt she’d shatter.

Before she begged him to just stop, he finally exhaled. “I apologize for not staying to show you around, but I have to go to work, catch up on everything I hadn’t been able to attend to long-distance. Use the place as you would your own—and don’t argue. Just explore, relax, rest. Then tomorrow we go the center.”

Her heart almost knocked her off her feet. “You—you’ll operate tomorrow?”

He simply said, “Yes.”

After losing all of her family, one after the other, Gwen had thought she’d known all kinds of anguish and desperation. All forms of loss.

But now she knew there was more. There was worse. And there was one injury, one loss, she wouldn’t survive.

If anything happened to Ryan…

“Everything will be fine.”

She chafed at Rose’s reassurance. What she’d reiterated over and over since Fareed had taken Ryan and disappeared into the depths of his staggeringly advanced medical center.

It didn’t work now as it hadn’t worked before. Fareed had come out once, fourteen hours ago, telling them Ryan had been prepared and was already in the O.R. He’d said he’d come out to reassure them as soon as he was done with the surgery.

That had lasted eight hours. Two hours longer than his longest estimate. Every second of the extra time, she’d known a worse hell than any she’d known before.

Guilt had consumed her. She’d sought inferior help initially, hoping it would suffice, save her from making contact with Fareed. What if she’d left it too late? What if she’d be punished for considering anything, no matter how momentous, ahead of Ryan’s health?

Rose hugged her, sensing her thoughts. “Stop it, Gwen. Everything is fine. Fareed’s assistant assured us it is.”

“But he didn’t.”

Fareed hadn’t come out to reassure her as he’d promised! What if that meant he couldn’t face her with what had happened yet?

Rose tsked. “You did see the mass casualty situation that hit the center like a tornado, didn’t you? With his being the chief around here and with God knows how many lives to save, I’m sure putting your mind to rest personally plunged to the bottom of his priorities.”

Logic droned that Rose was right. But hysteria was drowning it out. They wouldn’t let her see Ryan in Recovery or ICU. Fareed’s orders. That was six mutilating hours ago.

Suddenly, Fareed appeared at the other end of the expansive waiting area.

She rose, could barely stand erect as his long strides ate the maddening distance between them. Then out of the blue, he was swamped by people. Other patients’ frantic families.

He stopped his advance, turned to them with calm, patient and what must have been very detailed reassurance because it defused their tension. By the time he at last excused himself with utmost courteousness and resumed his path to her, she was at screaming pitch.

As he stopped before her, those fiery eyes piercing her, she felt he’d trodden on the heart that had crashed at his feet.

“It all went wrong.”

Six

Gwen’s lifeless statement barely scratched the surface of the terror in her heart.

Fareed hadn’t smiled at her. He’d smiled at the others. She could only interpret his intensity as bad news. The worst…

He smiled. Her knees buckled.

“Nothing went wrong.” His smile broadened as he caught her by the waist, stopped her from folding to the ground. “I already told you that—well, I sent Akram to tell you that everything went perfectly right.”

“Oh, you magnificent man, thank you!” Rose charged him, made him relinquish his hold on Gwen and squeezed him in an exuberant hug.

Gwen felt the life force that had felt extracted from her slowly begin to reenter her body. Then he put Rose at arm’s length, smiled down at her. “But I can’t take much credit. Ryan did most of the work. From the pre-op preps to what my team told me felt like ordering his very tissues to assist me, he was the most interactive patient I ever had. I’ve never had a surgery go so smoothly.”

Rose laughed her delight. “That’s our Ryan! But we’ll just pretend that you did have an equal role in this, and you’ll accept our thanks like a good sport.”

“As long as you realize the extent of my contribution, I’m happy to accept.”

Their elation hammered at Gwen, demanding to breach her numbness. But the tidal wave hovered at the periphery of her mind, scared to crash and sweep her fears away.

“So why won’t you let me see him?”

He turned to her, eyes flaring with sympathy. “Because children look heartrending when they’re in ICU and I wanted to spare you the sight.”

“That was why you left me to go insane out here for six hours? Didn’t you realize I’d prefer having my heart rent by seeing him over going mad by not seeing him?”

His eyes widened with her every word, before they narrowed again with self-derision. “My concern was evidently misplaced. Guess I can’t put myself in a mother’s shoes after all.”

Her frustration turned inward, a flame that burned her blood with mortification. “God, no…I didn’t mean to imply that…”

“Don’t apologize for loving Ryan too much. But even after you blasted me for being so blithely insensitive to your needs, I am still unable to meet them. I have to be this infuriating professional and insist on my position. For now. I promise you he’s in perfect condition and that you’ll see him in a few hours.”

“Please, let me see him now. A look is all I want!”

“What you don’t want is the image of him sedated and inert and hooked to tubes and monitors burned into your memory. You may know what you’ll see, but seeing it for real is something totally different. And I refuse to let you inflict another mental scar on yourself. I’ve seen parents suffer debilitating anxiety long after their children are cured, and you’ve suffered enough of that. So even though you probably want to kill me right now, you might want to thank me later.”

“But I don’t want…” She paused, groaned. “Are—are you doing this on purpose?”

He chuckled, winked at Rose who joined him in chuckling. “Of course, I am. One of my PhDs is in distraction. But while it must feel like eternity now, the hours will pass, then I’ll transfer him to a private suite and you’ll be with him from then on.” His logic was putting out the fires of dread and desperation. But the clamoring of her heart wouldn’t subside. He silenced her turmoil. “Until then, how about you ladies join me for a meal? I’ve long passed starving, and knowing you, Gwen, I’m sure we were on that same path together.”

Rose waved her hand. “Oh, you two go ahead. Emad told me to call him as soon as you made an appearance, and to meet him in the center’s restaurant. He promised a meal to top the Cordon Bleu he treated me to in L.A., and I sure want to see how this can be achieved.” Rose hugged her. “See? You should always listen to me. Now listen to me and take care of yourself. You won’t do Ryan any good if you collapse. You’re even allowed to smile without sinning against motherhood.”

“I’ll take care of her.” Fareed took Gwen’s elbow. “I’ll even brave the impossible chore of making her smile.” He tilted his head at her from his prodigious height. “Shall we?”

Gwen didn’t even nod. She could do nothing but stare after Rose, as she walked away with her phone at her ear, and let Fareed steer her wherever he wished.

She registered glimpses of their journey down the halls and corridors spread in reflective granite. She barely noticed the people whose eyes held deference for Fareed and curiosity for her on their way to an elevator straight out of a sci-fi movie. She didn’t feel it move, but when its brushed-steel doors slid open moments later, it was into a room the size of a tennis court, with twenty-foot, floor-to-ceiling windows spanning its arched side.

It was like looking out of a plane, with Al Zaaferah and its skyscrapers sprawling below and into the horizon, lighting up the clear night sky like a network of blazing jewels. She dimly realized they must be in the top floors of the steel-and-glass tower that formed the main portion of the center.

She’d barely recovered from the breathtaking elevation when the opulence and austerity of the place hit her. This must be his office.

His hand burned its mark into her arm as he escorted her across a gleaming hardwood floor covered in what felt like acres of Persian silk carpet to a deepest-green leather couch ensemble around a unique worked-wood centerpiece table.

When she remained standing, he gave her the gentlest of tugs. She collapsed where he indicated. He stood before her for a long moment, his gaze storming through her. Then his lips spread.

Her heart tried its best to leap out of her throat.

“Even though I know asking your preference in food is an exercise of futility, it seems I like butting my head against a wall. So, again, any favorite cuisine?”

“Anything…with calories.”

She was stunned she’d produced the words. She was only sure she had when he laughed.

Her hand pressed the painful, thudding lump that had replaced her heart. There should be a law against such hazardous behavior.

He phoned in his order of food before he turned his attention back to her. Beside that watchfulness that made her feel he was listening to her thoughts, and that supreme assurance that was integral to him, she saw satisfaction.

From what she knew of him from years of following his career, this was a man who knew his handiwork, never exaggerated his results. He really believed Ryan’s surgery had been successful beyond even what he’d promised her.

And the floodgates of relief finally burst.

She shook under its enormity, and this time when he reached for her, she surrendered to the potent comfort he offered.

Fareed stroked Gwen’s shining head, absorbed her softness and ebbing fear, inhaled her freshness and dissipating distress and told his burning hands that that was as far as it went—for now.

When he’d come out of the O.R., he’d seen no one but her. She’d looked so lost, those eyes that wreaked havoc with his control pleading for reassurance. He’d forced himself to answer the other families first or he would have crushed her in his arms. As it were, he’d been aware of the curious glances when he’d taken her to his private elevator.

Not that he cared. He did his absolute best for all his patients. If he chose to give his personal time and attention afterward to her, it was no one’s business.

But holding her like that, having her burrow into him like a kitten seeking protection, was wrecking his reason. His body had hardened beyond arousal, and that was with her wrapped in those shapeless clothes and only seeking comfort. What effect would she have if she sought him with hunger in her touch and eyes?

He shuddered with expectation. What he’d give to carry her to bed now and to hell with his professional code.

But he’d already strained that code for her. All he could do now was keep his passion under a tight leash until Ryan was no longer in his care. Afterward…

Afterward, he expected an even fiercer impediment than the dictates of his professional honor. His father.

He knew he’d wage a more ferocious war with him than when he’d chosen to go into medicine and not into politics or business.

Not that it mattered. He wasn’t Hesham, young and vulnerable. He would fight anything and anyone, starting with his father, to have her. He’d face the whole world for her.

And he knew that, beyond a doubt, she wanted him as fiercely. That was what fueled her struggle to keep her distance, what she believed the circumstances dictated. But when her worry for her son and his obligations ended, he would plumb the depth of her answering need.

Feeling he was peeling off a layer of skin, he let her go as soon as her tremors subsided. She pulled away at the same instant.

Embarrassment blazed on her cheeks as she slid to the end of the couch. “You must be so sick of soothing frantic relatives.”

“It’s part of the job description.”

He nearly laughed at his exaggeration. She’d seen how he’d dealt with his patients’ relatives. While he’d been courteous and accommodating, he hadn’t dissolved their fears in his embrace.

A knock on the door roused him. “Our calories are here.” A smile wobbled on her lips. He sighed. “Next time, I’ll manage to make that smile last longer than a nanosecond.”

He went to the door, returned with a trolley laden with food and beverages. Everything smelled mouth-watering. But the hunger that rose inside him was for her. He could almost taste the grace and femininity in her every line. His body tightened even more.

He should be exhausted. He was. It made no difference when she was around. He remained alert, unable to waste one moment when he could…experience her. Even when she’d slept on the plane, he’d stayed awake to check on her. She aroused not only his passion but his protectiveness, too, to unreasoning levels.

Bowled over. That was what he was. And to think that before he’d seen her, he’d sighed in pity at those who used that expression. Reveling in his condition, he sat down beside her, started uncovering hot plates.

He whistled. “Seems they got us everything with calories. Are you up to the challenge?”

Fareed’s question distracted her from drooling at the distressing scent. Not the food’s. His.

She could only murmur, “No promises.”

His fire-tinged eyes turned more enigmatic before he turned to serve the food. Her senses reeled with his closeness, her thoughts tangling at his inconsistencies.

Even though he was known to be most accessible professionally, on a personal level, he was considered inapproachable. Yet from her own experience, he was only too approachable, and she…

She had to stop fantasizing about him. He was the one man she should never want, the one man who was off-limits.

But what if he is the one man you can want?

She crushed the insidious voice as she accepted a steaming plate piled with mouth-watering grilled salmon and vegetables, careful not to touch him again. Touching him had infused a dangerous narcotic into her bloodstream. She should be careful not to end up addicted. Or was she already?

Was this how it happened? Inadvertent exposure, moments of surrender to temptation and suddenly you were irrevocably lost.…

“Eat, Gwen, and I’ll reward you. I’ll discuss Ryan’s postoperative period and rehabilitation.”

This brought her back to earth with a thud.

“Yes, please.”

His eyes ignited. She shied away from their heat and her interpretation of it. It had to be her feverish mind superimposing her preposterous cravings on his glances and actions.

She cleared her throat. “Wh-what do you expect?”

“How about a deal?” he countered. “One mouthful a sentence.”

“Oh, all right.” She loaded a fork, forced it into her mouth.

He tutted. “A bigger mouthful won’t get you a longer sentence, and I won’t talk any faster if you choke.”

She swallowed the lump and almost did just that.

“For God’s sake, just tell me!” she spluttered.

“I expect a full recovery.” At her evident frustration with his brevity, his eyebrows rose. “You expected more for that forkful? I already had Akram tell you everything. You just want me to repeat myself to see if I’ll slip up.”

Heat surged to her head. “I realize I’m being obsessive…”

“And I’m totally ribbing you, as you say in the States.” His eyes laughed at her, coaxing her to ease up. “But as a scientist, too, I realize you won’t be satisfied until you have all the details. So let’s start with my findings during surgery.”