LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER ONE

      BEYOND THE WINDOW of the hotel suite a flurry of mixed rain and ice pellets swirled, but although Dr. Farhan Alaoui gazed out through the glass, he wasn’t really paying attention to the weather.

      This was a fool’s errand, and he the fool his father had chosen to go on it.

      In years past, knowing how little regard his father had for him, Farhan would have simply refused to come to Canada, telling King Uttam to find another way to deal with the matter. It wouldn’t have been the first time, or even the hundredth time, they would have butted heads. The pattern had started from when Farhan was a child, and had only stopped ten years ago, when he’d left Kalyana for Australia, cutting off contact with his father, determined not to return until absolutely necessary.

      Had his conscience bitten at him over the decision? Of course it had. He’d still been mourning Ali, trying to reconcile himself to being Crown Prince in his beloved brother’s place. The loss, along with his mother’s unassailable grief, which had made her pull even further away from her other two sons, had been excruciating. He hadn’t needed his father to intimate he was ill equipped to take on the role Ali had excelled at. Certainly hadn’t needed to be left with the feeling he would never do as well, so he may as well go back to school, finish his medical studies.

      There was to be a referendum, the King said, looking down his nose at his son. If they were lucky, the people would decide to make Kalyana a republic, abolishing the monarchy.

      Farhan had understood what his father hadn’t said outright.

      If that were to happen, the island kingdom would be spared the inept and unprepared King that Farhan clearly would be.

      Unfortunately for them all, the people had decided to keep the monarchy, and Farhan remained next in line to the throne. That was something he’d done his best to ignore, living in Australia as a normal person, working as a surgeon in a large hospital, until the night his younger brother Maazin had called to say their father had had a stroke.

      Of course, he’d had to return then.

      And he was a different person. More assured, ready to take on the responsibility he’d avoided for so long. A little less inclined to argue, or dig in his heels in the way he used to.

      What he hadn’t been prepared for was his father’s tacit refusal to assist him in learning his new role.

      Or being sent to Canada to track down the woman who should, by birthright, be the true monarch of Kalyana.

      When Farhan had reported finding her, he hadn’t been sure what his father’s reaction would be.

      Uttam’s fingers had curled into a fist on his desk, and Farhan had interpreted the motion as signifying anger. Or perhaps, considering the King’s unusual pallor, some other, stronger emotion. It made the physician in Farhan watch the older man closely, looking for any signs of cardio-pulmonary distress. After his father’s diagnosis of atrial fibrillation the entire family worried about his health.

      No one more so than Farhan.

      King Uttam tapped the folder in front of him, his dark gaze boring into Farhan’s. Despite the King’s macular degeneration, he still had the ability to fix a person in place with just one look.

      “Are you positive this woman is Bhaskar’s descendant?”

      Suppressing a sigh, Farhan shook his head. “I don’t have Bhaskar’s DNA to make the comparison. However, I can say she is a direct descendant of Queen Nargis, and since the records show Bhaskar as Nargis’s only child...”

      The slam of Uttam’s fist on the desk was so unexpected everyone else in the office—Farhan, Maazin, and the King’s aide-de-camp, Joseph Malliot—started.

      “All these years our family has been blamed, accused of doing away with Bhaskar to gain the throne, while he has been out there, somewhere, living his life as he wished—”

      Breaking off his unusually impassioned speech and rising abruptly, Uttam paced across the room. Stopping at the large birdcage housing his pet macaw, Uttam kept his back to his aide and two sons, reaching in to stroke a finger down Sophie’s cherry-red poll.

      No one spoke. Like acrid smoke, the King’s words hung in the office, thickening the already tense atmosphere. Farhan sent a quick glance at Maazin. He seemed relaxed, although his eyelids were lowered, hiding his true expression.

      After a moment, Uttam asked, “What do you know of her—this child of Bhaskar?”

      All the information was in the file on his father’s desk, but Farhan had made sure to bring his own copy.

      He’d gone through it fully, of course, and memorized most of it. The private investigator had been thorough, and Farhan was of the opinion the shy and quiet doctor was not, and never would be, a threat to the kingdom.

      Even her pictures gave the impression of harmlessness. She was no beauty, being a little plain, with a serious yet pleasant expression in all the photographs.

      But his father wasn’t interested in Farhan’s opinion on things, so, opening the folder on his lap, he read out the salient facts.

      “Dr. Sara Greer, general practitioner, thirty-one years old, resident of London,

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