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“You think it’s sadness for h without ht not have lost if I was there, giving you all the tionized, for your agony and absolutely unfounded insecurities You are more than I dreaiven me Mennah I do choose you, over the world”

“You can’t,” she screaht I’d have more time with you, until you married the Aal Shalaan bride, but now you ive you a …ya Ullah…” he choked

Her nod was a quake “That’s why I didn’t defend myself, so you’d leave me at once, while there was time to beat him to it”

“You’d do that forfor you You areyou, don’t force me to stay near you, to see you in another wo with your child…”

She collapsed by degrees, clinging to hi her apart

He stood paralyzed, a vise cla his chest and back This had to be howaccosted by pain too big to encoe to endure But no, he’d never lose her Never

“Carmen, ahleflek ya maboodati, I swear to you…”

What would he swear? That he didn’t need a male child? That all she’d said wasn’t true? It was But it didn’t have to be

He swooped doept her up in his are a few truths

“Carmen and I will not have more children, ya Maolai”

Farooq had been about to de beat hi in his hold, looking everywhere but at their king, who had eyes only for her, the new daughter he’d gained

“I refuse the de a male heir for the succession Youto Tareq’s manipulation and to outdated notions You yourself have no sons, and you are the happiest ave you You only worry about the succession because Tareq wouldI don’t have that to worry about I have my brothers as my successors, and I’m sure their children, when they one day have the his tired yet affectionate and co said, “That’s why I suathered the Tribune to debate the male child criterion I reminded them a wife and child were proof of stability and responsibility, that the gender of the child is irrelevant and that we all knoho between you and Tareq is king ence on Tareq checked out as we convened I presented the da evidence but couldn’t secure consent to a trial I settled for banishing hi him of his titles and wealth”