Читать книгу Modern Romance April 2017 Books 5 - 8 - Кейт Хьюит - Страница 14
ОглавлениеMALIK WATCHED GRACIE’S face pale as her slender body swayed and he knew he should have been gentler, more persuasive. The trouble was, he didn’t know how to be that any more. Ten years of living in a battle zone left a mark. And in any case he had neither the patience nor the time to woo this woman. He would take what he needed no matter what.
Still, he knew it wouldn’t do to frighten Gracie off before he’d even begun. This required careful handling. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
‘I need to see my son, Gracie.’ The old name slipped out before he realised, and he saw that she noticed. A welter of confusing emotions rose up in him, and he forced them all down. He could not let himself be clouded by sentiment. Not now, not ever. He was not his father.
‘Malik...this is such a shock.’ She pressed her hand to her chest. ‘I never expected to see you again. Your grandfather made it very clear I was to disappear.’
‘Which you were happy enough to do.’
‘Happy? No.’ She shook her head as she bit her lip, her face still pale. ‘But it seemed the best option, considering. In any case you can’t just bulldoze into our lives like this...’
‘You’ll find I can,’ Malik stated. A latent anger thrummed under his words, and he saw Gracie register it. ‘You never should have kept him from me.’
Temper flared in her eyes. So she was angry, too. Fine. ‘I didn’t have much choice.’
‘There is always a choice.’
She shook her head slowly. ‘So you’ve decided to paint me as the villain in this melodrama, despite the fact that I tried to contact you and your grandfather is practically insane. And you want me to just hand over my child like he’s some parcel you can collect when you feel like it. Great. Really great.’ She shook her head again as her arms crept around her body and she hugged herself. He could see how her body trembled and shook, and he felt a flicker of pity.
‘Let us try to discuss this reasonably, Grace.’ He tried to moderate his tone, even though he felt lit up like a stick of dynamite inside, with every word acting as a match to tinder. Anger and regret churned within him; the explosion was only a matter of time. He had a son he’d never known about, never been given the chance to know. The fault was Asad’s—and also Gracie’s. ‘You must see I have parental rights.’
‘Ye-es,’ Gracie admitted, the word drawn from her reluctantly. ‘But so do I.’
‘Then let us find a way forward.’ He was going to have to handle her very carefully, Malik could see. She would resist his ultimate intention: to bring both her and the boy back to Alazar. As for marriage...that would come in time. He had no intention of admitting all of his plans to her now, in the heat of their meeting. Who knew how she would react, what she might do? He needed her cooperation, preferably her docility.
Gracie pressed a hand to her head. ‘I can’t take this in,’ she said. ‘You can’t spring this all on me, Malik. Not so suddenly, and then expect me to fall in with your plans without so much as a murmur.’
‘I haven’t suggested any plans.’ But he would. Soon.
‘I know, but...’ Gracie sank her teeth into her lower lip again, and, despite the tension and anger and uncertainty, Malik felt his body respond, a sudden jolt of desire that appalled him. He couldn’t feel even a shred of that for Gracie now. There was no point, and it would only cloud the issue at hand...securing the succession of the throne, and the stability of his country. ‘Give me some time,’ she implored. ‘How about... How about we meet tomorrow? I could meet you at a restaurant...’
Malik gave her a long, hard look. She was trying to manage him. Him, the heir to the sultanate of Alazar, manipulated by a slip of a woman from Nowhereville, USA. His lip curled. ‘Very well. I will arrange a place and send a car for you.’
‘I can meet you...’
‘It is not necessary. The car will come at seven o’clock.’
Irritation sparked in her eyes. She didn’t like being managed, either. ‘Seven-thirty.’
He almost smiled at that. ‘Fine.’ His gaze moved slowly over her, taking in the changes for the first time. Her hair was a shade darker than it had been ten years ago, although it still fell in tumbling curls and waves over her shoulders. Her body was still slender, although perhaps a little bit rounder, a little bit more womanly. Instead of youthful cut-offs and a T-shirt, she wore a khaki-coloured skirt and a summery cotton blouse dotted with tiny pink flowers. She still wore the kind of brightly coloured sneakers she’d had on in Rome, and the realisation almost made him smile again. She might be older, but Gracie Jones had not lost her spark. He was, bizarrely and pointlessly, glad of that.
Deliberately he moved his gaze back up to her face. ‘Tomorrow night, then.’ Malik turned to go. His hand was on the door when she spoke again.
‘Malik...’ Her voice was soft, and yet he stopped in his tracks. ‘You haven’t even asked his name.’
A new, unidentifiable emotion came at him like an arrow, piercing the steel he’d surrounded himself with for so long. His hand clenched on the doorknob, this strange new vulnerability unsettling him deeply. It was too much to process in that moment, too much to reveal. A lifetime of maintaining the armour of cold indifference could not be shed so quickly or easily. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said shortly, the words wounding him as well as her, and then he opened the door and walked out.
* * *
Gracie didn’t sleep at all that night. She lay in bed, the moonlight sifting silver patterns on the floor, as her mind raced and seethed, trying to make sense of Malik’s bombshell of a visit.
Why did he want a father’s rights to his son if he didn’t even care about his name? What was really going on? Anxiety pulsed and writhed inside her as she thought of unleashing this new, frighteningly cold Malik on his son. He was, she feared, turning into his grandfather, a ruthless man interested only in the power he could wield. Or maybe he’d always been that way, and he’d just hidden it well. She didn’t know him, she reminded herself. She’d never known him.
And she would not let Sam experience the same harsh cruelty she’d once felt from Malik—except she might not have any choice. Malik was Sam’s father. As he’d said, he had rights. Rights Gracie might not be able to deny even if she wanted to.
The next morning, bleary-eyed and distracted, she snapped at Sam, who looked surprised and hurt before she pulled him in for a too-tight hug. She couldn’t lose him. She wouldn’t. In the middle of the night, in the darkness of her own frightened mind, she’d feared that Malik might spirit Sam away, snatch him on the way to school or even from his own bed. His horrible grandfather was certainly capable of it.
Now, however, with sunlight streaming through the window and the sound of children’s laughter coming from outside, she wondered if she was being both paranoid and extreme. Surely Malik wouldn’t commit a crime.
She still felt shaky inside that evening as she prepared to get ready for her dinner with Malik. She’d agonised over what to wear and had decided on business attire—a pair of tailored dark trousers and a crisp white blouse. She pulled her hair back with a clip and softened the look with a slick of lip gloss, adding red patent leather flats because sometimes it felt as if a splash of colour was her only reminder of how fun she’d used to be.
Her sister Anna knocked on the door to the apartment.
‘Anybody home?’ she called out before laughing as Sam barrelled into her. ‘Hey, buddy. You ready to get going?’
‘Yeah!’ Sam crowed, and with a strained smile Gracie came into the kitchen.
‘Thanks for having Sam tonight, Anna.’
‘Any time, you know that. His cousins love sleepovers.’ Anna had three young boys and they all adored Sam. Her sister glanced at her outfit, which was severe for her. ‘Um...is this a job interview? For a funeral director? Because you don’t normally dress like that.’
‘Sort of,’ Gracie admitted with a sigh. ‘But not for a funeral director.’ At least she hoped she wasn’t sounding the death knell of life as she knew it.
Sam swung around to goggle at her. ‘You’re getting a new job? But I like you being at my school.’
‘I’ll still be at your school,’ Gracie assured him. ‘This is for something different.’ Already she felt tangled up in a web of lies, but she wasn’t ready to tell anyone about Malik or his visit.
Anna frowned at her. ‘Are you okay? You seem tense.’
Gracie felt as if she might snap in half. ‘I’m fine,’ she assured her sister. ‘Just a little nervous.’
Sam ran to get his stuff for the sleepover and Anna took a step closer to her, her eyes narrowed. ‘Is this really a job interview?’
‘Do I look like I dressed for a date?’ Gracie tried to joke.
‘I don’t know.’ Anna’s frown deepened. ‘Jonathan mentioned someone came to the house to see you last night. He said he looked scary.’
So that hadn’t flown under the family’s radar after all. ‘He was just tall,’ Gracie dismissed with a wobbly laugh. ‘You know Jonathan.’
‘Gracie...you haven’t got yourself into some kind of...trouble, have you?’
Gracie glanced in the mirror and fussed with her hair, needing the distraction. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t know,’ Anna confessed. ‘With money or something...’
‘Money?’ Gracie turned from the mirror. ‘Seriously? You think I had some loan shark coming around Mom and Dad’s?’
Anna had the grace to look slightly abashed at this. ‘I guess not.’
‘I’m fine,’ Gracie said with more conviction than she actually felt. ‘Don’t worry about me, Anna, please.’ She was so tired of being the Jones kid who’d messed up and then made good, only sort of. She didn’t want everyone clucking and sighing over her. She’d fix this. Somehow she’d fix this.
She waited outside on the pavement for the car Malik had said he would send, and then stared as a stretch limo came around the corner and pulled up in front of her parents’ house. She saw curtains twitch at a dozen different windows and felt a surprised smile bloom across her face. Maybe Malik was trying to impress or intimidate, but she kind of liked the idea of the good people of Addison Heights seeing her being picked up in a limo.
Malik emerged from the car, looking devastatingly sexy in a black button-down shirt, open at the throat, and black trousers. His eyes gleamed in his face as he took in Gracie’s appearance. Suddenly she wished she’d worn something feminine and flirty, but how stupid was that? She’d been seduced once by this man. She had no intention of succumbing again.
‘I like the shoes,’ Malik murmured, and Gracie blushed, those few words of simple flattery affecting her far too much.
‘Thank you.’
Malik opened the door to the limo and Gracie slid inside, revelling in the soft leather seats, the unabashed luxury. There was a coffee table between the sofa-like seats, along with a huge bouquet of flowers.
‘You could practically live in here,’ she said as she noted the mini-fridge. ‘All you need is a bed.’ Immediately she wished she hadn’t said that.
‘And champagne,’ Malik returned smoothly, magicking a bottle out of seemingly nowhere. Gracie stared at it, transfixed by the memory of another bottle of champagne, another lifetime.
‘What are we celebrating?’ she’d asked.
And he’d replied, ‘Meeting.’
‘Why are you pulling out all the stops like this?’ she asked after Malik had popped the cork and poured two foaming glasses of champagne. ‘Last night you were Mr. Hard-Nosed and now...’
‘I was shocked last night,’ Malik admitted as he handed her a glass. ‘So much of this has caught me by surprise. Discovering I had a son, seeing you again.’ His gaze lingered on her for one sizzling moment before he looked away. ‘I was not at my best. I apologise.’
The words sounded stilted, but the sentiment seemed sincere. Maybe. Surely she’d learned not to trust this man? ‘Well.’ She had no idea how to respond to any of it. ‘Cheers.’
‘Cheers,’ Malik answered, and lifted his glass in a toast before taking a sip, his silvery gaze over the rim of the glass not leaving hers. Gracie had to force herself not to look away. She could feel her composure slipping, notch by notch. She’d wanted this meeting to be brisk and businesslike with her firmly in control, but a couple sips of champagne and she knew it was already spinning away from her.
‘Where are we going to eat?’ she asked. The limo was speeding down the road out of Addison Heights, which only offered a couple of diners and all-you-can-eat buffets. She couldn’t picture Malik at either.
‘Oriole, in Chicago.’
‘What?’ Gracie nearly dropped her champagne. ‘That’s an hour away.’
Malik’s smile gleamed. ‘I could not find a suitable place closer by.’
‘And Oriole...’ The name rang a bell. She’d read about it in a magazine, Chicago’s newest and most exclusive Michelin-starred restaurant. ‘How did you even get a reservation? I read that it’s booked weeks and even months in advance.’
Malik gave a negligible shrug. ‘Such things are not difficult.’
For a sultan. She finished the sentence herself silently. Despite the luxury and his obvious wealth, it was still hard to believe Malik was actually the heir to an entire country. That night in Rome he’d only been a boy, a wonderful boy she’d been head over heels for. The memory made her sad, somehow. Everything had changed.
She glanced out of the window at the road speeding by, the champagne sending pleasant bubbles zinging through her system. She felt weirdly tongue-tied, having no idea how to bridge the chasm of the last ten years. How have you been? seemed an absurd question at the moment.
‘Tell me about our son,’ Malik commanded in a low voice. Gracie tensed.
‘Last night you didn’t even want to know his name.’
‘Peace, Grace. I already told you I wasn’t at my best last night.’
And she hadn’t been, either, spinning with shock from it all. She was still spinning. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘I do want to know his name,’ Malik said, and she heard the barest hint of apology in his voice. She knew instinctively that she wouldn’t get any more than that.
‘It’s Sam.’
Malik was silent, and Gracie turned from the window, risking another glance at his stern, autocratic profile. His mouth was compressed, his gaze shuttered. She had no idea what he was thinking.
‘Sam,’ he finally said. His voice sounded a little hoarse. ‘It is a good name.’
‘I’m glad you think so.’ She was torn between gratitude and irritation, an unsettling mix. Just being with Malik was sending her emotions into a complete tailspin.
She took another sip of champagne, needing the distraction. Malik shifted in his seat, and Gracie was conscious of even that, the stretch of expensive fabric across his powerful thighs, the faint waft of exotic, citrusy cologne when he moved. More memories assailed her, sharp and sweet and so unbearably poignant.
For a second she could feel Malik’s weight above her, his forearms braced by her head, his gaze intense and fiery as he’d moved inside her.
Prickly, shaming heat spread through her whole body. Why was she thinking this way, simply because of a whiff of cologne? But it was the same scent she remembered from a decade ago, and it flooded her senses.
‘So,’ she asked, her voice unnaturally loud and bright. ‘How have you been?’
A faint smile flickered across Malik’s face and was gone. ‘Busy. How have you been, Grace?’
The question seemed loaded with some hidden meaning, as if he suspected she hadn’t been all that well. He clearly hadn’t been impressed by her apartment last night, and why should he have? Judging by this limo, Malik was used to unbelievable luxury.
‘I’ve been fine,’ she said firmly.
So that was pleasantries out of the way. Gracie’s stomach swam with both nerves and champagne. She knew she should ask Malik what his intentions were, what he wanted for Sam, but she was too nervous to prod that sleeping dragon.
He leaned back in the seat, a relaxed and elegant sprawl, his finger and thumb braced against his temple. The gold and silver links of an expensive watch gleamed against one bronzed wrist. ‘What have you been doing for the last ten years?’
‘Besides raising our child?’ she retorted, and then wished she hadn’t. The word our suggested a reality that didn’t exist. Except perhaps now it did.
‘Besides that,’ he agreed, unfazed by her sniping. ‘Which of course is the most important job of all.’
‘Of course,’ she agreed, annoyed even by that. Malik no doubt had very traditional ideas about men’s and women’s roles. ‘I stayed home with Sam while he was young. That cheque helped with that,’ she added pointedly, but Malik remained unmoved. ‘When Sam started school, I began working as a teaching assistant. I’ve been hoping to get certified for full-time teaching, maybe in special needs like I wanted to.’ But she hadn’t started yet because she hadn’t saved up enough money for the course.
* * *
‘And you’ve been living...’ He trailed off, eyebrows raised expectantly.
‘Above my parents’ garage, yes,’ Gracie finished with a touch of defensive ire. ‘I like being near family and the price is right.’ Why, she wondered, did she feel she had to defend herself?
‘I’m glad you’ve had help,’ Malik returned, and leaned forward to place a hand on her knee. Gracie felt as if she’d just deliberately stuck her finger in an electric socket. Her whole body jolted and she stared down at Malik’s large brown hand, the fingers long and tapered, his palm seeming to burn through the fabric of her trousers. Did he realise how he was affecting her? Had that gesture been unthinking or calculated? What did Malik want?
With what felt like superhuman effort, Gracie pulled her leg away and angled her body towards the window. Her whole body still tingled from his touch. ‘Thank you,’ she muttered, and Malik just smiled.
‘Tell me more about Sam,’ he said after a moment, when Gracie’s heart rate had finally started to slow. It kicked right up again. ‘What is he like? Do you have a picture of him?’
‘Yes...’ With a weird mix of reluctance and anticipation, Gracie dug her phone out of her bag and scrolled through the photos, looking for a decent one of Sam. Most of them were of him in various states of activity, laughter and exuberance. She found a decent one of him head-on and silently handed the phone to Malik. Their fingers brushed as he took it and she tried to quell the frisson of awareness that went through her at that tiny touch. Ten years and he affected her just as he ever had, maybe even more.
Malik stared down at the phone, his expression impassive. Gracie’s heart lurched. What was he thinking as he looked at a picture of their son? Did he notice how Sam had his silvery eyes but her gap-toothed smile, at least the one she’d had as a child? But he wouldn’t know that, of course. There was so much he didn’t know about her, just as there was so much she didn’t know about him. They were strangers, bound by the beautiful and precious human being whose image Malik held in his hand.
Silently he started to hand the phone back to her, but his thumb slipped on the screen and the photos started to scroll forward. Another image of Sam appeared, this one of him goofing around in the kitchen, a silly expression on his face. Malik froze and then glanced at Gracie from under thick, dark lashes, his expression still shuttered.
‘May I?’ he asked, gesturing to the phone. Wordlessly she nodded and then sat there, her breath held, as Malik scrolled through the photos without speaking.
Sam grinning at the camera, Sam hamming it up in the backyard with some friends, Sam proudly holding third-place prize in the school spelling bee. Malik glanced at each photo for a few silent seconds before swiping to the next one. They were all, Gracie realised, pictures of Sam. And still he didn’t say a word.
Questions bubbled to her lips and she forced them down. She wasn’t going to ask Malik what he thought. She wasn’t going to beg for him to give some sign of what he was feeling, some word of praise or approval for the son he now claimed he wanted to know. Although, Gracie realised, he hadn’t actually claimed any such thing. Malik hadn’t told her one word about why he’d burst so suddenly into their lives, simply that he’d discovered Sam’s existence.
They didn’t talk until the limo pulled up to the restaurant in Chicago’s West Loop neighbourhood. As Gracie stepped out of the car, Malik rested one hand on the small of her back; she could feel the warm, insistent press of his palm and didn’t know whether to ignore it or lean into the caress.
The black-jacketed maître d’ opened the door himself and ushered them into an elegant restaurant that was lit by candles and completely empty.
Gracie turned to Malik in surprise. ‘I thought this place was booked months in advance...’
‘I took the liberty of hiring the entire restaurant,’ Malik replied with a shrug. ‘I wanted to ensure our privacy.’
‘Your Highness,’ the maître d’ murmured. ‘We are so pleased to have you visit us.’
Gracie had to keep her jaw from dropping as they were ushered to the single table set apart from the others, awash with candlelight and laden with crystal. She sat down, her mind still spinning, as Malik sat across from her and the sommelier handed him the extensive wine list.
‘You reserved the whole restaurant?’ she said, still disbelieving, her voice lowered to a whisper.
Malik raised his eyebrows as he looked up from the wine list. ‘Yes, what of it?’
‘It’s just...this place is being written up in all the magazines. People, even famous and rich people, wait months for a reservation.’
A small smile played about Malik’s mouth. ‘And?’
And with that single word Gracie realised afresh how powerful Malik was. The Sultan-in-Waiting of Alazar. A shiver of apprehension rippled through her.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were the heir to the throne?’ she asked. ‘Back then?’
Awareness and memory flared in Malik’s iron-grey eyes and too late Gracie realised she shouldn’t have referenced back then. That one magical, amazing, terrible night.
‘I wanted to keep a low profile.’
She decided to salvage her wounded pride by saying, ‘I would have thought your title would have added to your appeal.’
Black brows snapped together dangerously. ‘What do you mean?’
A shrug, to show how little it mattered now. ‘Only that it’s a good chat-up line, isn’t it? Not that you needed a chat-up line with me. I practically fell into your arms.’ The memory of how quickly and eagerly she’d bought the whole connection spiel brought a flush of shame to her face. She lowered her head, letting her hair swing down, to hide her expression.
Malik looked as if he wanted to disagree, but he merely pressed his lips together as he scanned the menu. ‘That was then, this is now.’
‘Very true.’ And now was going to be a whole lot of different.
‘The past doesn’t matter any more, except in relation to Sam.’
Which was her cue to ask what his intentions were. But before she could summon the courage to so much as open her mouth, a waiter materialised by Malik’s elbow. ‘Your Highness would like to order?’
‘Yes, I’ll start with the langoustine and Miss Jones will have the oysters on the half shell.’
‘Very good.’
Gracie listened, open-mouthed, as Malik ordered her entire meal without consulting her once. He handed the menu to the waiter and, with a pointed look he completely ignored, Gracie handed hers over, as well.
‘I obviously didn’t need that.’
Malik looked nonplussed. ‘Need what?’
‘The menu. Since you were going to order for me.’ She didn’t bother to keep the pique out of her voice. ‘What if I don’t like oysters?’
‘Have you had them before?’
And now she was caught out. ‘No,’ Gracie said after a moment, ‘but that’s not the point.’
‘Isn’t it? I’d like you to have new experiences, Grace. Adventures. Isn’t that what you once wanted?’
Gracie took a few scattered seconds to formulate her reply. ‘I’d like to choose my own adventures, thank you very much.’
‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ Malik said in a tone that suggested he would do no such thing. And what adventures was he even talking about? What kind of future was he referring to?
‘Malik...’ Gracie licked her lips, her mouth turning dry. Just saying his name made her feel strange. Made her remember. ‘Why have you come here? What...what do you want with Sam?’ She released a low breath, relief and trepidation warring within her. At least it was out there now. He had to answer, surely.
But Malik didn’t speak for a long moment. His eyes were fathomless and opaque, like pools of silver ice, glacial lakes. His mouth pursed and then relaxed as he sat back in his chair, one hand toying with the stem of his empty wine glass. ‘It is natural, is it not, to want to meet your own child? Until three days ago, I had no idea I had a son. Of course I would come.’
Not necessarily, Gracie wanted to say but didn’t quite dare. Not considering how his grandfather had reacted, or how Malik had pushed her away that wretched morning after. ‘So...’ Gracie began carefully, ‘you want to meet Sam?’
‘Of course.’
‘And then...?’ As she held her breath, she realised she didn’t know what she was hoping for. For Malik to say he’d return to Alazar and leave them alone? But Sam would be crushed to meet his father and then have him disappear. And yet...what was the alternative? For Malik to be a part of their lives? The thought of him setting up some kind of house or life in Addison Heights was absurd.
Her mind spun in circles, coming up against dead ends at every turn. What did Malik want?
‘And then,’ Malik said, his voice as calm and unruffled as a summer sea, ‘you and Sam will come with me to Alazar.’
