Heir to a Dark Inheritance

CHAPTER THREE

“DO I WANT TO BE YOUR…wife?”

He’d said it so casually, so utterly void of emotion that she was certain she must have misheard him.

“Yes,” he said. “As you’ve made it clear, my offer of nanny is unacceptable. And you are right—without you, the child is unhappy.”

“Leena,” she bit out again, frustrated by his insistence on detachment.

“I know her name.” He bent and handed her Leena, a rush of love washing over her as she felt her daughter’s weight in her arms. He started to pace beside the table in front of her. “It’s a simple thing, one that will protect both us and my daughter legally. You will be able to adopt her and, should we divorce, which I have no doubt we will, unless we find each other so unobtrusive that the marriage simply never gets in our way, we will be able to work out a shared custody agreement.”

“I…it is possible for an unmarried couple to work out an adoption. It’s more difficult…there needs to be a clear emotional involvement, but…”

“And why make it more difficult? This will be much more simple. Proving a legal connection is much simpler than faking an emotional one, don’t you think?”

Yes, she did think. She was sure he was right. It would protect her. It would make her Leena’s mother. It would give her the adoption she wanted. But…but there was this man, this stranger. And he was asking to be her husband.

For the second time in her life, everything had changed in one day. She tried, she tried desperately, not to remember the day three years ago when she’d gotten a call from Sunil’s office saying he had been sent to the hospital.

Tried not to remember what it had been like, driving there, feeling shocked, dazed. Then seeing him in the bed. He’d looked so sick. Like he was a man barely clinging to life.

Because that was what he had been. And only a few hours later, he’d lost his grip on it.

And her perfect world had crashed down around her. Three years spent rebuilding, trying to pick up the pieces, and Alik Vasin had come along and broken it all again.

“You can’t just get married for those kinds of reasons,” she said. Her lips felt cold, her entire face prickly.

“Why not? Can you think of a better reason?”

“Love,” she said. It was the craziest thing she’d ever heard. And the worst thing was, she didn’t know if she could say no.

She looked at Leena and her heart lodged in her throat. If she said no, would this be the last she saw of her? Would she never see her grow? Hear her speak in sentences? Watch her go from a baby, to a child, to a teenager and finally, a young woman? All of her dreams, ash at her feet. Again.

Unless she said yes. She was the one who had demanded more. And now that she was getting the offer, could she really say no?

He frowned, one shoulder lifting. A casual dismissal. “Marriage has never meant very much to me. Marriage is a legal covenant, and it protects a lot of legal rights. That to me makes legal issues the most logical reason to marry.”

“I don’t even know you.”

“I’m not asking you to know me, I’m asking you to marry me. Then my daughter will have a mother and a father. She will be cared for in every way that counts.”

Jada blinked, trying to catch up with Alik’s logic. Trying to understand it. He sounded so certain, and he moved so quickly, she could scarcely process one thing he’d said before he’d moved on to something else completely.

“How can you simply suggest something like this so…calmly?”

“Because it doesn’t matter to me whether you’re my nanny or my wife. Nothing will change, and it will offer you the protection that you desire.”

“And why is it so important to you to give me that?”

“Additional stability for my daughter. And…” He hesitated. “Her attachment to you is very strong. She…seems to love you. I would hate to cause her any pain.”

The way he said it was odd, as though he didn’t truly understand either emotion he spoke about. Like he was trying to say the right things, or forcing himself to think the right things, but wasn’t quite managing it.

It was crazy. Totally and completely. But she had nothing left here, not without Leena. No reason not to accept the insane offer.

You don’t know him.

No, she didn’t know him. But if she didn’t go, her daughter would. Without her there to protect her. No. That couldn’t happen. It wouldn’t. No matter the cost.

Unbidden, she thought of her own wedding day, more than eight years ago. She’d been so young. So full of hope for the future. And so very much in love.

Marrying Alik, making him her husband, she felt like it made a mockery of that. Felt like she was putting Alik in a place that should be reserved for another man. The man that she’d loved with all of her heart.

Oh, Sunil, please forgive me.

She didn’t know if he would have been able to. She wasn’t sure if he’d truly understood her desire to have children. If he’d realized how deep it went. Or maybe he had, and he simply couldn’t acknowledge it, because for him, it would mean facing how much he’d failed her. But she’d never seen it that way. She would have been happy, even then, to adopt.

Still, just for a moment, she wished she had him back so she could lean on his strength. Feel his arms around her, in comfort, just one more time.

It was a strange disconnect, though. If she still had Sunil, she wouldn’t have Leena. And she needed Leena.

Truly, marrying Alik was marrying for love. For the love of her child.

Then another thought occurred to her. One that made her feel scared and hot at the same time. She didn’t know if it was angry heat, embarrassed heat, or something else entirely. It was the something else entirely that really worried her.

“You said there would be very little difference between my position as nanny and my position as wife. Were you planning on sexually harassing me as your staff or are you planning on keeping your hands off me if I’m your wife?”

“It is of no matter to me. If you want sex, I’m more than willing to give it.”

The thought made a rash of heat spread over her skin. The way he said things like that, so bald and open, was something she just didn’t understand. She wasn’t a prude, but she wasn’t going to start offering sex to a stranger either, as if it wasn’t a bigger deal than choosing between pizza or dal for dinner.

“If I want sex?”

“You make it sound strange. Don’t you like sex?”

She nearly choked. “I…I don’t…It’s not a recreational activity.”

“Perhaps not to you.” The smile that curved his lips told her he, indeed, thought of it as such, and she felt her toes curl in her shoes. Oh, good grief, he wasn’t that hot. He was inappropriate. “Either way, the choice is yours. If you want it, I am willing.”

“And if I don’t?” she asked.

“As I said, it is of no matter to me. I’m not intending to pledge my faithfulness either way.”

“You’re not?” she asked, annoyed by that for some reason. Perhaps because in this plan, Alik seemed to be giving up nothing, while for her, everything was changing.

“I have a short attention span where women are concerned. My life is not conducive to relationships.”

“I don’t know that anyone’s is. That’s why people work at their marriages, you know?” For all that she’d loved her husband, they’d had their problems, but everyone in a long-term relationship did.

“Do you want my faithfulness?”

She half snorted half laughed. “Hardly.”

“Then why make an issue of it? I won’t demand yours, either. So long as Leena is cared for, I can’t be bothered by what you do or who you’re doing it with.”

“Did you honestly just question whether or not I will care for Leena? I’ve been doing it for the past year—it’s hardly going to change now. It’s all I want to do. She’s what I want.”

“And because of that you have no interest in relationships?”

“I had a relationship,” she said, feeling, for some reason, like claiming Sunil as a husband, considering the conversation, might cheapen it in some way. “He was all I ever wanted in a man, and he’s gone now. That part of my life is gone. Over. Leena is my life now.”

“Very noble of you.”

“Hardly. I just know that I already had what a lot of people spend a lifetime looking for. No one gets that lucky twice.”

He skipped over her words, as though he hadn’t even been listening. “As I said, I don’t care either way.”

She felt numb. Light-headed. There was only one answer she could give.

“I will have to collect my things,” she said, her words detached, as though they were being spoken by a stranger.

“I can send someone to do that for you.”

Of course he could. He was a billionaire and all. “When would the marriage take place?”

“As soon as possible. In fact, I know just the place to have the wedding.”

“Wedding?” she repeated, knowing she sounded dull.

“Of course we will have a wedding. We want it all to look authentic. For Leena’s sake if for no other reason.”

Just like that, she was treated with a welcome burst of anger. She stood from her chair, Leena still in her arms. “And your being seen with other women won’t seem abnormal to Leena? I hope to God it does.”

“She won’t know about it,” he said.

“How?”

He smiled, bright white teeth against tanned skin. “I’m a ghost, Jada. You don’t read about me in the news, and there’s a very good reason for that.”

“You don’t read about me in the news, either, and the reason is that I’m boring.”

“Oh, I am not boring, and if the press ever got wind of me? I would be a headline.” Coming from another man it would have sounded like bragging. Like he was talking himself up. But Alik said it like he was stating the most mundane of facts. And it made her believe him. “As it is,” he continued, “they know nothing about me, and I intend to keep it that way.”

A shiver ran up her back, the hair on her neck standing on end. “You have a high opinion of yourself and your media appeal.”

Granted, he would have media appeal in spades. Even if it was just because he had model good looks. She looked at him harder. No, perhaps he didn’t have a model’s good looks. Models usually possessed some sort of androgynous beauty, while Alik was hard. A scar ran through the center of his chin, one marring the smooth line of his upper lip. His hands were no better. Rough, looking as though the skin on the backs of them had been, at some point in his life, reduced to hamburger, and had since healed badly.

She hadn’t noticed at first. She’d been too bowled over by his presence in general to take in the finer details. And now she was wondering exactly who this man was. This man she’d agreed to marry.

She had a feeling that she didn’t really want to know.

“I’m simply realistic,” he said. “However, anonymity suits me. It always has.”

“Well, that’s good, because it suits me, too.”

“Glad to hear it.” He picked up his cell phone and punched in a number. “Bring the car to the front of the coffee shop. And map the route to the airport.”

“The airport?” Panic clawed at her, warring with despair for the position of dominant emotion.

“There is no need to wait, as I said.”

“So, where are we going then? Paris? Barcelona or that town house in New York?” She tried to feign a bravado she didn’t feel. Tried to find the strength she needed to survive this new pile of muck life had heaped onto her.

“Tell me, Jada, have you ever been to Attar?”

Attar was Alik’s adopted country. The only country he’d ever sworn a willing allegiance to. As a boy, pulled off the streets of Russia, he’d been asked very early on to betray his homeland, his people.

And he had done it. The promise of food and shelter too enticing to refuse. His conscience had burned at first, but then it burned past the point of healing. Singed beyond feeling.

Over the years he’d belonged to many nations. Taken the helm of many armies.

Attar was the one place he loved. The one place he called home. Sheikh Sayid al Kadar and his wife Chloe were a big part of that.

As his private jet touched down on the tarmac, waves of heat rising up to envelop the aircraft, Leena woke with a start, her plaintive wails working on his nerves.

He’d never been especially fond of children. Yes, he tolerated Sayid and Chloe’s children, had sworn to protect them, but he hardly hung out to play favorite Uncle Alik, regardless of the fact that Sayid was the closest thing to a brother he’d ever had.

But then, he didn’t anticipate spending too much time with his own child. The thought made him feel slightly uncomfortable for the first time, a strange pang hitting him in the chest. He wasn’t sure why.

Because you know what abandonment feels like.

He shook off the thought. He wasn’t abandoning Leena. He was shaking up his entire damned life to make sure she was cared for. And he was doing her a kindness by staying away.

“Welcome to Attar,” he said. “We’re on the sheikh’s private runway, so there’s no need to wait.”

“The sheikh?”

“A friend of mine.” His only friend.

“Well, I guess you are sort of newsworthy,” she said.

She had no idea. His relationship with Sayid was only the tip of the iceberg, but he hardly intended to tell her about his past. He had no need to. They would marry, he would install her in the residence of her choice and then he would carry on as he had always done.

He made a mental note to put Leena’s birthday in his calendar. He would attempt to make visits around that time. Failing that he would send a gift. That seemed a good thing to do. And it was a bloody sight better than abandonment.

He put his sunglasses on, prepared to contend with the heat of Attar, a heat he had grown accustomed to over the past six years. He suddenly realized that Jada and Leena weren’t.

He pulled out his cell phone. “Bring the car up to the jet, make sure it is adequately cooled.” It was strange, having to consider the comfort of others. He rarely considered his own comfort. He would have charged out into the heat and walked to where the car was, or walked on to Sayid’s palace himself.

He grimaced. He didn’t especially want to go straight to Sayid’s palace. He would have the driver take him to his own palace.

“Wait until the car pulls up,” he said to Jada.

“Why?” she asked.

“This is not the sort of heat you’re used to.”

“How do you know?”

“Unless you’ve spent years in a North African desert, it’s not the kind of heat you’re used to. I assume you have not?”

“Not recently,” she said, her tone stiff. It almost struck him as funny, but he had the feeling if he laughed vulnerable body parts might be in danger.

“I thought you probably had not.”

When he saw the sleek, black car pulling near the door of the plane, he gave the pilot the signal to open the door. The moment it started to lower, a wave of heat washed inside the cabin.

“You weren’t joking,” she said.

“No, I wasn’t.” The stairs were steep, and he wondered if a woman as petite as Jada could manage a wiggling one-year-old on her way down.

“Give her to me,” he said.

“Why?”

“Do you want to try and negotiate those with her in your arms? If so, by all means.” His discomfort with the situation, with the prospect of holding the child again, made his voice harder than he intended.

“And what makes you think you’ll do better? You aren’t experienced with babies. What if you drop her?”

“I have carried full-grown men down mountainsides when they were unable to walk for themselves. I think I can carry a baby down a flight of stairs. Give her to me.”

Jada complied, but her expression remained mutinous.

“After you,” he said.

She started down the steps and into the car, and he followed after her. There was a car seat ready in this vehicle, his orders followed down to the letter. There should also be supplies for a baby back at his home. Money didn’t buy happiness—he knew that to be true. He doubted he’d felt a moment of true happiness in his life. But money bought a lot of conveniences, and a lot of things that felt close enough to that elusive emotion.

He much preferred having it to not having it. And a good thing, too, as he’d sold his soul to get it.

“Where are we headed?” she asked when the car started moving.

“To my palace.” He looked out the window at the wide, flat expanse of desert, and the walls of the city beyond it. This was the first place he had ever felt at home. The desert showed a man where he was at, challenged him on a fundamental level. The desert didn’t care for good or evil. Only strength. Survival.

It had been a rescue mission in this very desert that had nearly claimed his life. And now it was in his blood.

“You have a palace?”

“A gift from the sheikh.”

“Extravagant gift.”

“Not so much, all things considered.”

“What things?” she asked.

He didn’t know what made him do it, but he unbuttoned the top three buttons on his shirt and pulled the collar to the side, revealing the dark lines of his most recent tattoo. The one that covered his most recent scar.

Her eyes widened. She lifted her hand as though she was tempted to touch, to see if the skin beneath the ink was as rough and damaged as it looked. It was. He wanted her to do it. Wanted her to press her fingertips to his flesh, so he could see just how soft and delicate she truly was against his hardened, damaged skin.

She lowered her hand and the spell was broken. “Is that part of that newsworthiness you were talking about?” she asked.

“Some might say.”

“It looks like it was painful.”

“Not especially. I think the one on my wrist hurt worse.”

“Not the tattoo,” she said.

He chuckled, feeling a genuine sense of amusement. “I know.”

They settled into silence for the rest of the drive. Jada stared out the window, her fingers fluffing his daughter’s pale hair. He wondered if she looked like her mother. Her birth mother. He could scarcely remember the woman.

Based on geography he had a fair idea of who she was, but he ultimately couldn’t be certain. A one-night stand that had occurred nearly two years earlier hardly stuck out in his mind. He’d had a lot of nights like that. A lot of encounters with women he barely exchanged names with before getting down to the business of what they both wanted.

He wondered if a normal man might feel shame over that. Over the fact that he could scarcely recall the woman who’d given birth to his child. Yes, a normal man would probably be ashamed. But Alik had spent too many years discovering that doing the right thing often meant going hungry, while doing the wrong thing could net you a hotel room and enough food for a week. He’d learned long ago that he would have to define right and wrong in his own way. The best way he’d been able to navigate life had been to chase all of the good feelings he could find.

Food and shelter made him comfortable, so whatever he’d had to do to get it, he had. Later on he’d discovered that sex made him feel good. So he had a lot of it. He was never cruel to his partners, never promised more than he was willing to deliver. And until recently, he’d imagined he’d left his lovers with nothing more than a smile on their face and a post-orgasmic buzz.

That turned out not to be strictly true. It made him feel unsettled. Made him question things it was far too late to question.

His palace was on the coast of Attar, facing the sea. The sun washed the sea a pale green, the rocks and sand red. And his home stood on the hill, a stunning contrast to the landscape. White walls and a golden, domed roof that shone bright in the midday heat.

Here, by the sea, the air was more breathable. Not as likely to burn you from the inside out.

“This is my home,” he said. “Your home now, if you wish.”

He wanted to take the invitation back as soon as he’d issued it. There was a reason he’d not mentioned the Attari palace in his initial list of homes Leena might live in. The heat was one reason, but there was another. This was his sanctuary. The one place he didn’t bring women. The one place he brought no one.

Not now. Now he was bringing his daughter and the woman who was to become his wife. For the first time in his memory, he seriously questioned the decisions that he’d made.

CHAPTER FOUR

JADA COULD SCARCELY take in all of her surroundings. She clutched a sweaty, sleeping Leena to her chest and tried to ignore the heat of her daughter’s body against hers, far too much in the arid Attari weather, and continued through the palace courtyard and into the opulent, cool, foyer.

“This is…like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

“I felt the same way when I first came here. To Attar. It is like another world. Although, it’s funny, I find some of the architecture so similar to what you find in Russia, but with dunes in the background instead of snow.”

“Do you keep a home there?” she asked. She realized suddenly that it was not in the list of places he’d named earlier.

“I do,” he said. “But I don’t go there.”

“Why?” The question applied to both parts of the statement. Why would he keep a home he never went to? And why would he not go there?

“I have no need to revisit my past.”

“And yet you keep a house there?”

“Holding on to a piece of it, I suppose. But then, we all do that, do we not?”

“I suppose,” she said. She flexed her fingers, became suddenly very conscious of the ring that was now on her right finger. She’d removed her wedding ring about a year after Sunil’s death. And then a few months later she’d put it back on, but on her other hand. A way to remember, while acknowledging that the marriage bond was gone.

A way to hold on to a past that she could never reclaim. She knew all about holding on to what you couldn’t go back to.

“I asked that my staff have rooms prepared for you and Leena. Rooms that are next to each other. I will call my housekeeper and see that she leads you to them.”

“Not you?”

“I don’t know where she installed you,” he said, his total lack of interest almost fascinating to her. She wondered what it would be like to live like him. No ties, no cares. Even when it came to Leena, he seemed to simply think and act. None of it came from his heart and because of that there was no hesitation. No pain.

But there was also no conviction. Not true conviction. Not like she felt when she’d made the decision to come here, knowing that, no matter the cost she couldn’t turn her back on her child.

As attractive as his brand of numbness seemed in some ways, she knew she would never really want it. There was no strength in it. Not true strength. It was better to hurt for lost love, and far better to have had it in the first place. Even in the lowest point of her grief she wouldn’t have traded away her years with her husband. Even facing the potential loss of Leena, she would never regret the bond.

“Well, then how am I supposed to find you in this massive palace if you don’t know where I am and I don’t know where you are?” Everything about Attar was massive. The desert stretched on forever, ending at a sea that continued until it met sky. The palace was no less impressive. Expansive rooms and ceilings that curved high overhead. It made her long for the small coziness of her home. For the buildings back in Portland that hemmed them in a bit, the mountains that surrounded those.