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Farooq’s words shot through Carmen, pulverizing the framework holding her heart in place. Yet something kept her on her feet and conscious. Probably hope that she was hallucinating. “W-what did you say?”
He exhaled, the icy armor not back in place, the underlying volcano seething through the cracks. “Spare me further theatrics. You had my daughter. You have my daughter. I am here for her.”
He knows about Mennah.
How could he know about her?
He somehow did, had said … said …
I am here for my daughter.
What did that mean? Here for her … how? It couldn’t mean what it sounded like. It couldn’t mean he … he …
He wanted to take Mennah away from her.
The ground softened. An abyss yawned beneath, pulled at her …
But no. No. Not even he could take a baby away from her mother. This wasn’t Judar, where he was the law. This was America.
But how did he find out? Had he had her investigated, found out she’d had a baby, done the math and come to the conclusion Mennah might be his? Why would he want her even if he realized she was? He couldn’t consider her anything but a disastrous mistake.
That first night he’d had no protection, and even in the inferno of arousal, he would have stopped if she hadn’t assured him she was safe. She’d been certain she was. She’d had a dozen reports from as many specialists declaring her infertile.
He’d told her in blatant detail how he wanted to invade her, feel his flesh inside hers without barriers, to pour himself inside her. It had sent her up in flames in his arms …
Stop. Stop. She couldn’t let those memories assault her now. He hadn’t been risking repercussions, had believed her assurances. That was why she’d known his reaction would be violent if he found out about her pregnancy. He would have looked upon it as an ultimate breach of the trust he didn’t give easily. Most important, she couldn’t have projected how damaging it would be to him, a prince in line to the throne of one of the world’s most conservative and richest oil states, to have an illegitimate child.
Suddenly her heart nearly fired out of her ribs.
Could he be here to make sure Mennah disappeared, so she’d never compromise his position?
Out of her mind with dread, she asked, “What makes you even think my daughter can be yours?”
His answering stare was long and pitiless, lava coursing beneath the dark, hard surface.
Then he dipped one hand inside his jacket, as if he were extracting a gun.
Next moment she wished he had pulled one out, had shot her straight through the heart with it.
He pulled out a photo instead. Of Mennah.
A photo of Mennah sitting in strange surroundings. Holding an unfamiliar toy. Wearing unknown clothes. Mennah was laughing at the camera, secure, pleased, knowing how to please.
Mennah was only like that around her.
In the few times she’d seen other people, she’d clung to Carmen, fearful, tearful. If someone had managed to get her alone …
Was she losing her mind? How could she be wondering that?
She’d never left Mennah alone, except when she was sound asleep in her crib, like now. She’d diverted her career to work from home so she could be with her daughter at all times.
How had he gotten his hands on Mennah?
“I—I’ve never left Mennah. When—how did you get the chance to—to—”
“I didn’t.” His voice slashed across her babbling. “This isn’t a photo of your … of my daughter. This is a photo of my sister, Jala, at Mennah’s age. Mennah is also my feminine replica at that age. That Mennah is mine is indisputable. So let’s drop the hysterics and get to the point of all this.”
“Wh-what is that?”
“That I’ll never forgive you for keeping her from me.”
Farooq’s gaze clung to Carmen as she flinched as if at the lash of a whip, his fascination beyond his control.
But that was an improvement on what had happened when she’d opened her door with that smile ready on her lips. Everything had stilled then. Thought, heartbeats. Time itself had seemed to stop.
Then it had hit a screeching reverse, catapulting him to the moment he’d first laid eyes on her in that conference hall a year and a half ago.
As a tycoon and a prince, he had the world’s most spectacular beauties flaunting their assets and practicing seduction for his benefit. His attention had to be worked for extensively, was held with utmost effort for periods never surpassing days.
Then she’d come forward, hesitant, prim, and his focus had been captured and his lust aroused, effortlessly. Absolutely. A surge of something he’d never entertained feeling—possessiveness—had followed.
He’d wanted to banish every male around, shield her from their eyes and thoughts. Not that she’d been inviting attention. No doubt as part of her plan to stand out.
Apart from her aloofness, she’d been smothered in a navy skirt suit from neck to mid-calf, when all the women around her had worn skirts riding up their thighs and blouses opened on deep cleavages.
Her closed expression and concealing clothes had made him more eager to tear through them. He’d seen himself stripping her of that guarded look, those offending coverings, arranging her on that conference table, spreading her for his pleasure and hers, her reserve melting as she begged for his pleasuring, writhed for his domination …
It must have been the response she’d counted on. That the mystique of her reticence in manner and dress would rouse the hunter lying dormant inside him. And it had worked. Spectacularly.
For the first time ever, he’d been fazed, couldn’t account for his violent response. Unlike many men of his culture, he didn’t prefer fair-skinned, light-eyed women, certainly never redheads.
But she’d approached him like a wary gazelle, her equal attraction and alarm blazing in those heaven-colored eyes, had put that supple hand in his and everything about her had become everything he craved. Her face and body had become the sum total of his fantasies, every feature and line the source of his hunger, the fuel for his pleasure.
He would have done anything to have her in his bed. And when by the end of the night he’d had her there, he couldn’t let it end, had offered what he’d never offered any woman. Three months. In the private space he never let anyone breach. With every minute, he’d wanted her for longer. He’d even entertained forever.
Then she’d walked out.
Ever since, he’d been trying to wipe her taste from his mouth, the memory of her from his psyche, to reacquire a taste for other brands of beauty, build tolerance for another’s touch.
After each dismal failure he’d damned her, damned his addiction more. And here he was, renewing his exposure.
She’d opened the door, and it had been as if everything he’d learned since she’d revealed her true face had been erased, and she was again the woman he’d run back to that night, intending to offer forever.
It had taken her spectacular reaction to seeing him to jog him out of his amnesic haze. To fire his memory of when she’d done the unprecedented. The unimaginable. Thrown his desire back in his face. Been the one to walk out.
He’d pretended interest in his surroundings to tear his senses away, only for everything about her new home to send his fury cresting, proof of her crimes against him.
Had this place been stripped of even a coat of paint, it would still cost a fortune, with its location in an elite building in an upmarket neighborhood of one of the most expensive cities in the world, New York. The fortune she’d made being Tareq’s mole.
Tareq had planted her in his life at the perfect time. During his taxing world tour, as he’d fought for his goals on all fronts, amidst Tareq’s escalating efforts to discredit him.
He’d thought her a godsend. Instead she’d been sent by a devil. A devil whose evil had backfired.
With Farooq’s father dead—of a broken heart, Farooq was convinced, just a year after Farooq’s mother had died from a long illness—Tareq had thought that, as the king’s oldest nephew, he’d succeed Farooq’s father as crown prince. Tareq’s own father had died of a heart attack when they were all quite young, leaving Tareq his only heir and the oldest of the royal cousins.
But, knowing that Tareq favored certain unkingly, depraved activities, their uncle the king had at first said he’d reserve the crown prince title for his own son. A son he could only have if he took a second wife. When he couldn’t bring himself to take another wife, he’d then said he’d name his heir according to merit, not age, with the implication clear to all that he meant Farooq and would soon officially name him crown prince. Tareq had then launched into non-stop plotting to overrule the king’s decree.
During Farooq’s tour, Tareq had suddenly started talking as if he’d secured the succession, bragging that he’d be the first king who never married. Farooq guessed he’d said that to gain the support of the enemies of the royal house of Aal Masood by intimating that they would therefore get a turn to rule after him. He now realized that Tareq had also thought his plot with Carmen had been about to bear fruit, creating an illegitimate, half-western heir for Farooq and eliminating him from favor.
But Tareq’s assertions had only given the king ammunition to overcome the reluctance of the members of the Tribune of Elders—the king’s council—who had resisted bypassing Tareq for Farooq. With Tareq adding contempt for the Aal Masoods’ future to his depravities, the king knew that all Farooq needed to do to drive the last nail in Tareq’s coffin was to overcome his own reluctance to marry. Didn’t he have a woman he’d consider marrying? his uncle had asked.
Farooq hadn’t even hesitated. He had a woman. Carmen.
And his king had issued the decree. The heir who married and produced the first child would succeed to the throne.
And Tareq had ordered Carmen to leave the very next day.
During their confrontation, Tareq had thanked his lucky stars that Carmen hadn’t conceived, casting aspersions on Farooq’s virility and fertility. Sixteen hours ago, Farooq had realized she’d left because she had conceived, the child that would have snuffed her employer’s dying hopes.
She couldn’t have known what she’d lost when she’d run out on him. But he still didn’t know why she hadn’t stayed to use the child as a bargaining chip, had taken Tareq’s offer instead. Even if she’d shown Farooq the face of a woman he could never marry, he’d been in addiction’s merciless grip, would have given her light years beyond what she had now.
Had she thought he’d sate himself, wreak vengeance on her then discard her with nothing? Or did her subservience to Tareq mix greed with fear? Or even lust …?
His thoughts boiled in an uproar of revulsion.
Thinking of her in Tareq’s filthy arms, succumbing to his sadism and perversions … Bile rose up to his throat.
But the sick image of her as his cousin’s tool and whore, and her own words as she’d left him, clashed with everything radiating from her now….
No. He’d never believe anything he sensed about her again. He could still barely believe how totally he’d been taken in, how seamlessly she’d acted her part. It had been a virtuoso performance, the guilelessness, the spontaneity, the unbridled responses, the perpetual hunger, the total pleasure in him, in and out of bed.
But all that faking had borne something real. A daughter. And he’d missed so much. The miracle of her birth and every precious moment of the first nine months of her life.
And if it had been up to Carmen, he would have never found out about her. She would have grown up fatherless.
But among all Carmen’s crimes, what most enraged him had been that touch.
She’d touched him as if to ascertain he was really there. And that touch had almost made him drag her to the floor, tear her out of her clothes and bury himself inside her.
Now he relished repaying her for shredding his control yet again, seeing her with her composure shattered.
Oh, yes. That was real. She must be frantic, thinking her cash cow had run dry. Now that Farooq had learned of Mennah’s existence, Tareq would stop paying for her luxurious lifestyle.
Seething with colliding emotions, he inclined his head at her. “Nothing to say, I see. That’s very wise of you.”
She gulped. “H-how did you find out?”
He wouldn’t have. Ever. If he’d stuck to his oath never to seek her out. But instead of fading away, her memory had burned hotter each day, and the need for closure had almost driven him mad.
It had taken months, even with the endless resources at his fingertips, to find her. His best people had finally gotten him the basics—an address, a resume … and a photograph. Of Carmen and a baby. A baby recognizable on sight as his.
That photograph now burned a rectangle its size over his heart, though he’d chosen to show Carmen Jala’s photo instead, to cut things short. He’d expected her to contest his paternity.
Pursing his lips, he pushed past her. “I find out anything I want. Now, I’ll see my daughter.”
“No.” She grabbed him, aborting his stride toward the hall leading to the bedrooms. Her touch, though frantic, still sent a bolt of arousal through him. He added his unwilling response to her transgressions, looked down at her hands in disgust, at her, at himself. She removed them, took a step backward. “She’s sleeping.”
“So? Fathers walk in on their sleeping daughters all the time. You’ve taken nine months of my daughter’s life away from me. I’m not letting you take one more minute.”
She jumped into his path again, her color dangerous, her chest heaving. “I’ll let you see her only if—if you promise—”
He slashed his hand, cutting off her wobbling words. “Nobody lets me do anything, let alone you. I do what I see fit. And everyone obeys.”
He took another step and she threw herself at him, imprinting him with her lushness. His body roared even through the fury.
He gritted his teeth. “Get out of my way, Carmen. You’re not coming between me and my flesh and blood again.”
She clung, gasped, “I didn’t—”
“You didn’t?” He held her away with fingers that even now luxuriated in the feel of her resilient flesh, longed to run all over her. “What else do you call what you did?”
A sob rattled deep inside her, made him want to clamp his lips on hers, plunge inside her fragrant warmth, plunder her until he’d extracted it, and her perfidious soul with it. Instead he relinquished his hold on her, unhooked her frantic fingers from his flesh with utmost control, put her away. She stumbled back, ended up plastered to the hall entrance, her eyes, those luminous pieces of his kingdom’s summer skies, welling with terrible emotions. Emotions he knew she didn’t have.
His anger spiked. “What do you call keeping her a secret? Or trying to deny my paternity now?”
“Please, stop.” She spread her arms over the entry when he moved, intending to brush her aside. “I did it because I know that, in your culture, illegitimacy remains your deepest entrenched stigma and that to a prince like you, having a lover bear you an illegitimate child would be an irreparable scandal …”
He looked down into her eyes. Ya Ullah, how could they be so guileless? So potent? How could lies be so undetectable?
“So you are an expert on my culture and my status?” he grated. “And you left, and left me in the dark that I’d fathered a daughter, to observe the demands of both?”
She nodded, shook her head, at a total loss. “Oh God, please.” She paused, then panted, “How could I have told you I was pregnant? When I told you it couldn’t happen?”
He gave a shrug. “Just like any woman who gets pregnant after such protestations would have. That it just happened. I’m sure the statistical failure of contraceptive measures has come to the rescue of countless women in your position.” Those ruby lips trembled on what he knew would be another ultra sincere-sounding protest. Before he closed them with his own, he plowed on, “And then I’m well aware of the facts of life, and if I’d wanted to be positive I didn’t impregnate you, I would have handled protection myself, not left it up to you and your assurances of safety. But I didn’t.”
And how well he remembered why he hadn’t.
That first night, by the end of their dinner, he’d been in agony. But he’d been willing, for the first time in his life, to wait for a woman. He’d wanted the perfection to continue, had wanted to give her time, give himself more of her, without the intimacies he’d been burning for. The unprecedented feelings of closeness and rapport, the sheer delight in everything about her had been incredible enough; he would have savored them without fulfillment of the carnal promise indefinitely. He’d resolved to end the night with a kiss and no more. Then she’d sabotaged his intentions, pulverized his expectations.
She’d offered herself with such a mixture of shyness, passion and resolve that he’d almost refused. She’d aroused in him what he’d never felt toward a female outside his family. Tenderness, protectiveness. She’d seemed in an agony of embarrassment at her demand, yet in the grips of a hunger she couldn’t control. She’d tremulously told him she knew she’d be a one-night stand for him but she had to have it, would settle for any taste of him.
He’d had her in his quarters without realizing how, had too late remembered protection, had been loath to send for it. He’d told her he’d still pleasure her, and she could pleasure him, if she wanted. She’d clung to him, said she was safe, in every way.
He hadn’t even questioned her honesty, his relief sweeping. He’d wanted her to be his first. The first woman he experienced to the fullness of intimacy, his flesh driving in hers, feeling the heat and moistness of her need for him, without barriers. The first woman he poured himself into. And all through the magical six weeks he’d done that, had each glorious time abandoned himself inside her in the throes of completion. And trust.
His lips twisted in disgust, at what even memories did to him. “I didn’t,” he repeated. “So whatever blame there is, I share it in equal measure. Not that the word blame applies anywhere in the conception of a child. Certainly not my child.”
She crumpled against the entryway, as if from a blow, and hiccupped, “I—I had no way of knowing you could have felt this way. You didn’t want me beyond those three months and I thought you couldn’t possibly want the baby I accidentally got pregnant with …”
