Heir to a Dark Inheritance Read online

  “You have to claim her, Alik. She is your responsibility. You have so many resources at your disposal, so many things you can provide her with. She is your blood, your family.”

  “I have family without blood,” Alik had said, a reference to Sayid’s family, to whom he had sworn absolute allegiance.

  “A family by choice. She is your family. You are bound to her. To dishonor something so strong would be a mistake.”

  “No, my only mistake was coming here for the weekend instead of heading down to Paris or Barcelona to get laid.”

  “Running is your specialty, Alik,” Sayid had said, his tone deathly serious. “But you can’t change what is by running. Not this time.”

  His friend was right. Alik lived his whole life moving at a dead run. But he was never running from something. Nothing scared him that much. But he wasn’t really running to something, either. He was simply getting through as quickly, as loudly and recklessly, as possible.

  He found it was the loud and reckless things in life that offered the most return in terms of what they made him feel. And he was hungry for feeling. For tastes of what years of existing in survival mode had denied him.

  Maybe that, more than Sayid’s comments, had been the deciding factor in why he’d come. That or watching the other man’s life, watching all of the change it had brought about for Sayid to acquire a wife and children.

  Either way, when he’d decided to come after his daughter, he hadn’t made the decisions hesitantly or lightly. No, there had been no instant bond between them, but he had hardly expected that. Alik had never bonded to people instantly. Sometimes he simply never did.

  Sayid was the exception, and then later, Sayid’s family. But he’d been twenty-eight when he’d met his friend, who was more a brother to him than anything else, and it had been his first experience of caring for another human being.

  It still didn’t come easily to him. But swearing his alle-giance? That came as simply as seeing whose name was on the check. It always had for him. Even now that he’d moved into the business of tactical, cutthroat corporate raider, rather than tactical, cutthroat mercenary and overthrower of governments, that fact remained true.

  His loyalty could be bought, and once he was purchased, he would defend those he was loyal to till death if he had to. And then, when the job was done, he would break the bonds as easily as they’d been forged.

  Again, Sayid was the exception. A job gone wrong, turned into a rescue mission to save the life of the sheikh, even when everyone else had given up, had made their bond unbreakable.

  He would simply choose to cultivate that bond with his child. She had bought his loyalty with her blood, a check that could never simply be cashed, could never just disappear.

  That meant, no matter what, he would defend her. Fight for her, die for her.

  Or pound the streets as long as it took, looking for the woman she called mama.

  “I will protect you,” he said to her, looking at her red, tear-streaked face. “That is my promise.”

  His daughter was unimpressed with the vow.

  He pushed the door to the limo open. “Wait here,” he said to his driver.

  He got out, holding Leena, who was squirming and screeching against his chest. People were staring at him, at them. He was used to being able to fly under the radar when he wanted to. Used to making a scene only when he wanted to. But he had no control over this scene.

  How a tiny child could assume total control over things with the ease most people breathed astounded him. He walked down the sidewalk, cursing the rain, and the knots of kids in skinny jeans smoking cigarettes and blocking his way.

  Cursing his total lack of control.

  There was a clothing store, a pizza place and a coffeehouse along the main drag of the shopping center, and he was willing to bet that Jada hadn’t gone far.

  He pushed open the door to the coffee place and saw her there, clutching a mug in both of her hands, looking ashen and in shock.

  He crossed the coffee shop, wiggling baby attempting to impede his progress, and stopped in front of her table.

  “Tell me then, Jada Patel, if you do not take the position as my nanny, what will you do?”

  She looked at him, the relief that washed over her so strong it was tangible. And yet she didn’t move to take the baby from his arms. Didn’t try to relieve him.

  She didn’t respond. She simply looked at him with eyes that conveyed a depth of emotion he hadn’t known was possible to feel.

  “You don’t seem to have a very strong sense of self-preservation,” he said, shifting the baby in his arms. “I have offered you a chance to come and live with my daughter, to continue caring for her. You’ve as much as admitted that you have nothing here if you don’t get to keep her. You have no husband. No girlfriend or other sort of lover, obviously. They would have come to the hearing with you, offered support.”

  She looked down into her coffee mug. “No. I don’t have a husband.”

  “Then you have nothing to leave behind.”

  She looked away, her eyes glassy, reflecting the gray sky outside the coffee shop’s window. “Leaving here isn’t the problem.” She looked back at him. “What assurance do I have that you won’t simply fire me one day? Cast me out onto the street without any warning some day five years down the road and put me in the position of losing her then? I couldn’t bear it. I can’t bear it now, so part of me wants to take the chance, but I am giving you all of my power, the power over my life if I take the position, and I don’t like it at all.”

  “I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t like it, either, and yet I see very little in the way of other options.”

  Jada fought the panic that was rising inside her. Panicking wasn’t going to help. She had to think. Had to figure out what to do.

  She wished, so desperately, that there was someone she could ask. Her friends…she could hardly stand to be around them. They just looked at her with sad eyes, touched her like they were afraid she was cracking, breaking like a piece of delicate glass. And they’d all thought her crazy when she’d decided to adopt.

  Her parents had been gone for so long now. Her father when she was a teenager, her mother six years after that.

  And then there was Sunil. She would have turned to him, would have asked him what to do. After he’d died, she’d felt like she was drifting. Unable to think, unable to make a decision. The only thing that had gotten her out of bed every day was the knowledge that he would have wanted her to. He would have told her that there would be something else for her. Something good. And while he hadn’t been enthusiastic about adoption during their marriage, she knew he wouldn’t have wanted her to be alone.

  The something good she’d been waiting for was Leena. From the moment she’d seen Leena, tiny and pink, swaddled in a blanket with her hospital cap fitted snugly over her mop of brown hair, Jada had known she would give her life for her daughter.

  Becoming Leena’s nanny wasn’t even close to giving up her life. But it wasn’t the thought of leaving home that frightened her. She had no home without Leena anyway. It was the fact that, at Alik’s pleasure, at his whim, he could still tear her daughter away from her at any moment.

  She would have no parental rights. She would be nothing more than hired help, waiting for the ax to fall. Loss, when it came suddenly, was hideous. But living her life knowing that any day could bring it would be unbearable.

  “So what you need is more security?” he asked. “Something that would feel legal and permanent?”

  “Yes, something that would feel more stable, so that I wasn’t wondering if you were simply going to sweep through one day and decide I was no longer needed.”

  She looked at him, into those stormy gray eyes, and a shiver ran through her body. He had a kind of easy grace, a relaxed posture that made him look like he was at ease with the world, with his surroundings.

  But what she saw in his eyes just then proved that he was lying to the world. He was ice beneath the
exterior.

  “You are the kind of woman,” he said, “who would never sell her allegiance.” The way he said it, with a mix of wonder and admiration, surprised her. “You remind me of someone I know.”

  “That’s all very well and good, but it doesn’t solve my problems.”

  “And I now live to solve your problems?”

  “I think we both can see that no matter how tough you play, you have no idea of what you’re doing with a child.”

  “I can hire someone else.”

  “And you think that would make her happy? Does she not notice when I’m gone?”

  That hit him. Square in the chest. A strong, sudden burning of loss. He’d been two or three when he’d been left at an orphanage in Moscow. He didn’t remember his mother’s face. Or her voice. Or where he’d lived before then. But he remembered loss. Loss so deep, so confusing and painful.

  “She would notice,” he said, because there was no lying about that. Something had to be done. He knew now he stood in a terrible position. That of abandoning his child, or tearing his child away from the only woman she’d ever known as her mother.

  He was trapped.

  “You need to come up with a solution we can both be satisfied with.”

  Jada didn’t know how she’d kept from bursting into tears. She was on the edge of breaking completely. But she had to be strong. She had to show Alik that he wasn’t in charge. She had to take back control somehow.

  This was her life. The life she was creating for herself, and he didn’t get to own it. She’d had enough of being jerked around by fate or whatever it was that had reached down and disordered everything. She was done with that. Done with feeling like a victim. Done with allowing life to make her one.

  Alik looked down at Leena, his discomfort obvious, then looked back at Jada.

  “What do you need?” he asked, his voice frayed, his expression that of a desperate man.

  “I need security,” she said. “I need to be her mother, because no matter whether you understand it or not, that’s what I am, and that’s what a child needs. A mother, not a caregiver, not an absentee father. Someone who is there with her. Always.”

  He looked at her for a moment, black eyes completely unreadable, his handsome face schooled into a mask. “You think something of permanence would be best for Leena.”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded slowly. “I may have a solution to your problems. You don’t like the idea of my simply…how did you put it? Dumping my child off somewhere in the world with nothing but staff. You think she should have a family, a real family.”

  “Everyone should.”

  “Perhaps, but it is not reality. Still, if I could find a way to make that happen for her…having a family is very important, yes?”

  Jada nodded, her throat tightening. “Yes.”

  “I would hate to deny my child anything of importance.”

  She wanted to scream at him that he was denying his child her mother, and yet she knew it would do no good. He simply didn’t seem to understand the connection she felt for Leena. He didn’t seem to understand love. And losing control wouldn’t win this battle. When he pushed, she had to push back.

  “Perhaps then, I should take a wife,” he said.

  Pain crashed through her. He still didn’t get it.

  The thought of another woman filling her position, of another woman being the caregiver for her daughter, made her see red. And she knew that was selfish, and she didn’t care.

  “That easily?” she asked. “That easily you’ll just find a wife? One who will care for Leena like she’s her own child?”

  “I’ve already found her,” he said, gray eyes fixed on her.

  She felt the chill from his eyes seep through her skin, making her tremble. “Have you?” she asked, not sure what he was going to say, only that she wasn’t going to like it. Only that it was going to change everything.

  “You didn’t like my offer of coming to be my nanny. Would you like to be my wife?”

  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 eit
her 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.”