Heir to a Dark Inheritance (4 page)

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.

J
ADA 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.

Here, everything just seemed laid bare and exposed. She didn’t like the feeling.

“I hardly thought you would want to find me,” he said.

She had thought so, as well, but the idea of not being able to find the only person she knew in this vast, cold stone building didn’t sit well with her at all.

“Better than getting lost forever in this fortress you call a home.”

He looked up, his focus on the domed ceiling. Sunbursts of gold, inlaid with jasper, jade and onyx. “A fortress? I would hardly call it that. I have spent time in fortresses. Prisons. Dungeons.”

“I don’t need to know what you do in your off time,” she snapped, not sure what had prompted her to make the remark.

A slow smile curved his lips. “But what I do in my off time is so very fascinating. I’m sure you could benefit from a little off time yourself.”

Her body reacted to the words with heat, with increased heart rate and sweaty palms. Her body was a filthy traitor. Her mind, on the other hand, came to her rescue. Sensible and suitably outraged.

“I already told you, I’m not going there with you. I’ve agreed to marry you, but I’m not sharing your bed. This marriage won’t be real.” It couldn’t be real. She’d had a real marriage. A marriage filled with laughing and shouting and making love, and this, this union with a stranger, no matter that it was legal, would never be that.

There had been security in her marriage. Even at the low points, there had been an element of safety. Alik possessed nothing even slightly resembling safety. He was a law unto himself, much like the desert she found herself stranded in.

He crossed his muscular arms across his broad chest, one eyebrow arched. “On the contrary, this marriage will be very real in every way that counts.”

Her skin prickled. “What does that mean?”

“All marriage is, is a legal document. But then, that’s what adoption is,
da?
So you have to collect the proper legal documents to get your life in order. That’s how I see it.”

“That’s not what marriage is.”

“And you’re an expert.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I am.”

He stopped talking, his gray eyes locked with hers. “I do not claim expertise in that area. But all I’m saying is, it will be as real as it must be in order for you to make a permanent claim on Leena. That is all you require.”

“Yes. Although I’m still a little unsure about why you’re helping me.”

Alik was, too. In some ways. In others…it made sense. It was what a family looked like. A mother and father, married. That was the traditional way of it. It was everything he’d never had, and he’d suffered for the lack of it. He would not allow Leena to suffer similarly.

And it was what Sayid had done. He had married Chloe in order to secure the future of his nephew and it had all turned out very well for him.

Of course, Alik wasn’t counting on love and more children. He was in no danger of it, in fact. Love was something he had never managed to feel. Loyalty, yes. A bond of brotherhood with Sayid. But otherwise…no, love was certainly not on the table for him. It had been torn from him, the day his mother had left him in an overcrowded orphanage.

There could be no love but…perhaps a sort of facade of legitimacy. He hadn’t been a soldier for hire in a long time. And since then, he’d parlayed his experience as a military strategist into the business world, and he’d been a huge success. But there were events, functions where people brought spouses or at least dates.

He’d never had an actual date. He didn’t take women out, he met them out. At parties, clubs, and then he took them to
bed. To whatever hotel room was closest. To the backseat of his car. He’d never been particular.

But things were changing. His life was changing. He’d long since abandoned some of the more self-destructive exploits of his youth. The truth was, being a soldier for hire had afforded him a lot of money. And in combination with being a man who didn’t care whether he lived or died, it was a very dangerous thing.

Now though, things were different. He was ready for them to be, in some ways. He wondered if this was the thing that might finally reach the frozen block in his chest where his heart should be.

He’d spent years serving the lusts of his flesh, allowing his body to feel the things his heart simply could not.

He looked at the child in Jada’s arms and he wished for a connection. For something. A recognition of her as his blood, as his family.

And there was nothing. No magic bond.

He gritted his teeth. “Yes, I think having you as a wife actually suits my purposes well. I’ve had a career change in the past few years and it will sometimes be good for me to have a wife to attend galas and things of that nature with me.”

“Galas?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t sign on to attend galas. I signed on to be a mother to my own child.” He noticed that she adamantly continued to refuse to call Leena
his
child, “and to be left alone in one of your penthouses. In a location of my choosing, if I remember correctly.”

“Perhaps I have changed what I expect. I ought to get something additional out of the deal, don’t you think? And since sex isn’t on offer I think the least you can do is put on a ball gown and hang on my arm at business functions.”

She lifted her chin, lioness eyes glittering with deadly intent. “Whatever you wish, of course.”

Such a dangerous acquiescence. He could tell she meant none of it, but that she was willing to play along with anything at this point. Anything to keep Leena close to her.

That realization made his chest burn, as though her conviction was so strong it had lit a spark within him. His child deserved that. This intense protectiveness, born of love, that Jada wore so proudly. And Leena would not get it from him. He could not give it.

All the better that Jada would be in residence.

“Somehow, I don’t believe that,” he said. “But I don’t require your obedience.”

“Don’t you?”

He shrugged. “No. Where’s the fun in that? I prefer women who like a challenge.”

“I prefer you not think of me as a woman.”

He looked over her petite figure. Small, perfectly formed breasts, gently rounded hips. “It’s a bit late for that. It’s the curves. They give you away.”

She lifted her chin, golden eyes burning with fire. “I’m ready to see my room now.”

“Then I shall call Adira.”

Jada had been forbidden from putting her own things away by Alik’s very stern head of the household. There were people for that sort of thing, and she was not to trouble herself. That extended to Leena’s things. Both of which had arrived, inexplicably, only hours after they did.

Alik had made good on his every promise so far, which made it truly difficult to hate him too much.

Leena was his daughter, after all, and regardless of how she felt about his behavior, about how irresponsible one had to be to get into such a situation, she couldn’t deny that he was Leena’s father.

How could she deny Leena a chance to know him? That Jada had been the one to love her and care for her did make
her more important in her estimation, but the biological connection between Alik and Leena wasn’t nothing.

The morality of the entire situation was sticky and horrible.

Jada sank onto her bed and watched Leena, toddling around the exterior of her blanket before sitting down a little bit too hard, her movements wobbly and clumsy. She didn’t cry. She just clapped her chubby hands.

Jada slid off the edge of the bed and clasped one of Leena’s hands in hers, ran a finger along the little dimples that disguised her knuckles. The price for this, for being with her daughter, wasn’t too high.

There would never be a price too high. If she hadn’t agreed to the marriage, to coming here with him, then she would have lost her child forever.

And if she’d agreed to be the nanny, she would have lost the position that was rightfully hers. After the doctors, she’d been the first person to hold Leena. She’d been the one who’d spent countless sleepless nights pacing the halls with a squalling child in her arms.

She was Leena’s mother in every way that mattered. Marrying a stranger, leaving her home, her country, it was a small sacrifice for moments like these, and every moment in the future.

Leena was her life. Nothing else mattered.

“Settling in, I see.”

Jada turned and saw Alik standing in the doorway. She hadn’t heard him approach, hadn’t heard the door to the bedroom open. He was almost supernaturally stealthy. It was a bit unnerving. But then, the man was unnerving in general.

“Yes. We are. I don’t think Leena is fazed at all by the different surroundings.”

“I think it would be different if you weren’t here.”

She blinked, not expecting the compliment. Not expecting him to understand. “You’re very right about that.”

“I made some calls. I was able to secure us a marriage license
and it’s all in order for the ceremony to take place this weekend.”

Her throat tightened, her mouth going dry. “I imagine your connection with the sheikh helped on this one.”

“It didn’t hurt.”

Why was the room spinning now? It seemed like it was spinning. “This morning, I woke up and got ready to go to the courthouse to finally get this adoption finalized. I thought, there’s no way he’ll get here in time and they’ll just rule him as absentee. Now, I’m in a foreign country with a man I barely know, and I’m marrying him in three days.” She said it all out loud, like it might help make it real. And if it wasn’t real, maybe speaking out loud would wake her up from this bizarre dream.

“And this morning,” he said, his voice quiet, “I got word that the hearing date had been changed and I went to a courthouse in another country, to make sure that I didn’t lose the chance of ever seeing my own child. Knowing if I missed it, I may never even get a chance to look at her.”

For the first time, she realized that Alik’s life had been upended, too. Even if the upending was a result of his own actions. “I suppose we’ve both had a strange day.”

He straightened. “To say the least.” The gravity was now absent from his tone. “One of the strangest I’ve had, and if you were aware of my past history you would know that’s saying something.”

“I get that vibe from you.”

“Do you?”

“Nothing about you seems typical.”

Not even close. He was like a predatory animal in human form. Easy grace and harnessed power. But with the ability to spring into action and tear out someone’s throat in the blink of an eye. He’d looked at home in his denim and rumpled shirt, tattoos on display, and just as comfortable in a
custom-tailored suit. He was a man who shifted identities as easily as breathing.

“I suppose not,” he said. His words were oddly flat.

“So what is it you do?” she asked.

He looked surprised. For the first time since all of this had happened, since she’d met him, he actually looked caught off guard. “What do I do?”

“For work. For money. Other than…having sheikhs be indebted to you and gifting you palaces, that is.”

“Right now? I’m a tactical expert. I go into corporations and help with strategies. How to take out the competition. Plans to increase productivity and profit. Whatever they need.”