CHAPTER SIX
When Charlotte awoke the next morning, there was silence throughout the townhouse. This wasn't unusual. She had found that Aladdin was a cheerful early morning riser. Sometimes, she would wake up and find that he had been working or exercising for hours. He was good-natured about her urge to stay in bed, but she found that once she woke up, she only wanted to go looking for him.
There was a familiarity to the morning as she put on the robe he had left out for her, going to the bathroom to shower. She was a little discomforted when he didn't come to join her as he usually did, but she pushed it aside.
Still, there was a feeling of unease there as she walked in her robe through the rest of the house. It had been cared for in the weeks he was gone, and now there was a showroom quality to it with no evidence of it being used as a home.
This is what it will look like after we are gone, she thought, and she shivered at the grim image.
She knew that she would feel better after she found Aladdin, but she couldn't seem to do it. She wandered throughout the house, checked her phone, searched for any notes that he might have left behind, but there was nothing. He had disappeared.
Or he's gone back home.
There was no reason at all to think that. He had just said the night before that he wanted things to stay as they were. They had made love to each other so tenderly, and he would never have simply abandoned her.
She knew these things, but a part of her still feared. She huddled onto one corner of the couch. Going back to bed suddenly seemed too intimate, and she covered her face with her hands. She didn't know what she was going to do, and perhaps more damning, she didn't know what she was doing.
Throughout her whole life, Charlotte had always been the girl with the plan. She had always been the girl who knew what she was doing, what she wanted, and how she was going to get it. Ever since she started seeing Aladdin, things had changed. She wasn't really herself anymore, or perhaps more frighteningly, who she had been had changed entirely. What did she want now? Who was she?
The more she thought about it, the clearer some things became. She wanted Aladdin. She didn't want some weekend arrangement where they saw each other and then went in different directions. She didn't want to be the mother of his child and no more.
More than once, there had been moments when she couldn't see the difference between what they were doing and simply being wholehearted lovers.
Love—it is love that I am missing, she thought desperately.
Before, love had always been something that could be commodified and portioned out. She could keep the physical aspect of things separate from the emotional. Now, she couldn't do that. She needed them to be one. She needed Aladdin to be in love with her just as she was in love with him.
The problem was that she had no idea how she was going to do that. She had no idea what was going to happen to her and their child. She curled around her belly. She knew that it was far too soon to feel any kick there, but she could imagine the life inside her, the one that she had to protect and keep above all others. It was something that sharpened her resolve and made her look up.
Even if I can't find the courage for myself, I need to find the courage for her.
She wasn't sure why she suddenly believed that the child inside her was a girl, but she knew it. She had to do well by this little girl, and she had to start now.
I'm going to go find him, she thought decisively. I am going to go talk to him, and then I will make him see what I see. He might say yes or no, but at the very least, I will be able to know for sure.
She made herself get up from the couch, striding to the bedroom to find some clothes. She smiled when she saw the blue cashmere dress, one of the first things he had ever bought for her. It had taken her a remarkably long time to realize that it matched her eyes nearly perfectly, and that thought gave her strength that she didn't have before.
He feels something for me, she thought, fastening the dress and gazing at herself in the mirror. I know that he feels something for me. Perhaps that is something we can build on. Perhaps that is something that we can grow....
Once Charlotte had the dress on, she felt much better. She felt like a warrior queen going off to battle, and she would win the day or die on the field. She touched her belly briefly.
“You're with me, right?” she whispered. “Together, me and you, we can do anything, kiddo, I swear.”
She grabbed her purse, ready to swing out into Manhattan to look for her man, but then the door opened directly in front of her.
There he was. He brought a breath of cool fresh air with him, and she couldn't stop thinking about how handsome he was and how much she needed him.
“Aladdin! You're back.”
“I am,” he said, watching her closely. “Were you going somewhere?”
It occurred to her that he was worried. She realized that he had no idea what she wanted or what to expect from her at that point. There was something wary about him, and without thinking twice about it, she threw herself into his arms.
“No, not at all,” she said softly. “Never, if you don't mind.”
He laughed a little, but even then she could hear the strain in it. He pulled her back a little so he could look her in the face
“What are you talking about?” he asked, and now she couldn't keep the emotions off of her face. She pulled back slightly, smiling up at him. It was almost ludicrous how much she loved this man.
“I have something that I need to tell you,” she said softly, but he held up his hands, stepping back. In confusion, she watched him.
“There's been a lot going on in the last few days,” he said gently. “There has been more than either of us can understand, if I am being totally realistic about it. The truth of the matter is that I feel like being selfish and speaking first. Would that be all right?”
She nodded, mystified, and he led her to the couch, where he seated her in a bright ray of light.
“It has been strange,” he said, almost musing. “I have known you less than three months, but sometimes, I look at you and I feel it has been much longer. Sometimes, I think our history goes back further, and we have known each other in other times, in other bodies, as different selves. You are familiar to me in a way that my own family isn't, and it only makes sense that I love you accordingly.”
She hadn't been sure what she was expecting, but it wasn't for him to use that word, not like this.
“Love?” she whispered. She could barely believe what she had heard, but he nodded, as humble as a knight that ever came for the Holy Grail.
“Yes,” he said. Though he stood as proud and as tall as ever, there was a part of him that couldn't meet her eyes.
“It is love that I feel, and I am sorry if this was not what you intended or what you wanted. This is a thing that has happened in spite of me, and in spite of your wishes, and if you want me to never speak of it to you again, I can do that.”
“Aladdin...”
“Let me finish, please. You know who I am, and you know what I have to offer. I would have thought that that spoke for itself a few weeks ago, but then I met you. If you will marry me, Charlotte, I will offer you more than my position, my power, and my money. Instead, I will give you all the love that it is in me to give. I will offer you the sweetness of my days and the passions of my night. I will care for you and cherish you with every moment that I am breathing, and I will never allow you to come to harm.”
He took a deep breath. She could tell that he was shaking a little. She wanted to comfort him, but she only looked wide-eyed at him, her heart beating so fast that she thought it might come out of her chest.
“Charlotte, you are and always will be the love of my life,” he said. “Please, would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
Almost shyly, he brought a velvet black box out from behind him. As if she were in a trance, she watched him open it to reveal the glittering gem that lay inside. It was a ring that had one large diamond and a halo of smaller diamonds. The sheer beauty of it stunned her for a moment, and then she pushed it aside to throw herself into Aladdin's arms.
“Of course I love you,” she whispered. “Of course I will be yours. I have already thought of you as mine, and now you are only telling me something that my heart knew a long time ago.”
She clung to him with every ounce of strength in her, shaking with silent sobs. He clung to her tightly, refusing to let go.
“I love you,” she whispered. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”
It was as if the words, which had been so long caught in her throat, were free now, and she could not stop saying them. She knew who she was and where she stood, and she knew that from now on, she and Aladdin would stand side by side.
She pulled back just long enough to laugh a little as he pushed the ring onto her finger.
“It's lovely,” she said, “but you are the far finer prize.”
He grinned with pleasure and relief, kissing her soundly. Through it all, he held her as if he couldn't believe that she was truly his. For a moment, she ached at the pain and the worry she had caused him, for she could see it now. They had both been resisting, hiding from what they thought the other wanted. Now that they were together, truly together, she knew that her fears and doubts were in the past. They could heal each other.
“I belong with you,” he growled. “This much I know. We belong together, and I never want anything to pull us apart.”
She nodded, clinging to him.
“We'll go to Abu Dhabi,” he was saying softly. “We will return to my homeland, and you will meet my family. My mother and father will love you, and then we shall be married.”
She choked back on a laugh.
“Oh, god, Aladdin...how pregnant will I be when I get married? I'll be an utterly enormous bride.”
He laughed.
“Perfect,” he said magnanimously. “You will be lovely, full of our child and glowing. Or perhaps we will simply wait, and then our son or daughter could be in our wedding pictures.”
She laughed, shaking her head.
“I think our child's going to be a girl,” she said, looking up at him adoringly. She could envision him hovering protectively over a small girl as she played or studied. She could imagine him carrying their daughter into the ocean to look at the waves and tucking her in at night. The thought was so wonderful that it made her heart swell with love, and she had to fight back tears again.
“Do you?” he asked with a grin. “The UAE has had its share of warrior princesses. Our little one will be the next.”
“I don't know what lies in the future for our little one,” she said after a moment. “Perhaps she will want to fulfill her role as princess, or perhaps she will want to run away to New York to be a working professional. She may be sweet, or she may be a little spitfire who makes us doubt everything we ever knew, or she could be both.”
“She might be all those things, yes.”
“But one thing that I know will be true for this little girl, and for that, Aladdin, I am so, so grateful.”
She looked up into his green eyes, meeting his inquiring gaze with a tremulous smile.
“I know, beyond a doubt in this world, that she will be loved. So will I. So will you.”
He kissed her then, taking her breath away, and in that moment, she knew that this would be their forever.
THE END!
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