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He shrugged. “Not specifically.”
And then her brain caught up with the rest of his claim. “And you were on a mission of some kind?”
“How old is the child?”
Jada blinked. “You don’t know?”
“I know nothing about this,” he said. “I got a phone call while I was in Brussels, telling me that if I didn’t come and claim a child I didn’t know I had by a certain date, I would lose my rights to her forever. Then I went and got testing done to confirm that I am in fact the father, and I am, just so you know. Then yesterday I got a letter saying my parental rights would be terminated and she would be adopted to someone else if I failed to come to a hearing that had been moved to today.”
“She’s one. She just had her birthday.” Just the two of them in Jada’s little house, on the same street where she’d lived for eight years. “Where were you a little over a year and a half ago?”
His mouth twitched. “Near here. I was in Portland seeing to some business.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Ah. Business.”
“I can’t talk about the exact nature of it.”
Disgust filled her. He was the sort of man she’d been blessed never to have had any interaction with. She’d married too young and her husband had been completely decent. She didn’t think men like this, men who bed-hopped with zero discrimination, were real outside of terrible movies. “I can guess. I’ve been caring for the results of that business.”
One brow shot upward. “Just an added bonus to my trip. I’m not a sex tourist.”
Jada blinked, heat rushing into her cheeks. “You are direct, aren’t you?”
“And you are prickly. And extremely judgmental.”
And not accustomed to people who were so comfortable talking about their bad behavior. He seemed to wear it like a badge of honor. “You’re here to take my child from me—what reaction did you want me to have to you?”
He looked at their surroundings. They were the only two people in the antechamber. “I didn’t anticipate being stuck in the lobby with you, I have to say.”
“And yet you are. Answer me this…what does a man who travels the world, doing Lord knows what, want with a baby? Do you have a wife?” She hoped not, all things considered.
“No.”
“Other children?”
“Not as far as I know,” he said, a smile that could only be described as naughty curving his lips. “Clearly these things can surprise you.”
“Not most people, Mr. Vasin,” she bit out. “So, why do you want her?”
It was a good question. One Alik didn’t know the answer to. All he knew was that if he turned and walked away, if he never met her, never made sure she was cared for, if he left her to fight her way through life as he’d had to do, then there would officially be no hell hot enough for him.
Forgetting about the phone call had crossed his mind. Not making it to the hearing had crossed his mind. But with each thought had come a twinge in his chest, a brand on a conscience he hadn’t known he’d possessed.
He didn’t particularly want her. But no matter what, he found he couldn’t leave, either.
He gave the only answer he had. “Because she is mine.”
“Hardly a good reason.”
“Why do you want her so badly, Ms. Patel?” he asked, returning her formality. “She is not your child, no matter how you feel.”
“Is that so? Blood relation, even to a stranger, is more important than the care that’s been given? Is that how you see it?”
Alik looked down at the woman in front of him, all fire and passion. Beautiful, and if it was any other situation, his thoughts might have turned to seduction. Black, glossy hair, golden skin and honey-colored eyes, combined with a petite and perfect figure, made her a very tempting package.
Though, at the moment she was also a dangerous one. She was tiny, barely reaching the middle of his chest and yet she did not fear him. She seemed ready to physically attack him if need be.
Not in the way he would like, he imagined.
“It is not an emotional matter,” he said. “It is black-and-white in my eyes. I am her father. You are not her mother.”
She drew back, a cobra preparing to strike. “How dare you?”
“Mr. Vasin? Ms. Patel?” A small woman in a black jacket and slacks opened the door and poked her head out. “We’re ready for you both.”
As Mr. Vasin is here and clearly of sound mind, and, having submitted to a paternity test, has proven to be the father, we have no reason not to release his child into his custody.
Jada replayed the last ten minutes of the hearing in her mind, over and over again. The judge was sorry, the caseworkers regretful. But there was simply no reason why Leena shouldn’t be with her father. Her billionaire father, as it turned out, which she knew had bearing on the ruling regardless of what anyone said.
How could it not? Jada was a housewife with no spouse to support her. Her only source of income came from her late husband’s life insurance settlement and as generous as it was, it wasn’t a billion dollars.
That, combined with the irrefutable proof of his paternity, when it was made clear that he had been wronged, the victim of a misunderstanding, had meant Jada hadn’t had a case. Not in anyone else’s mind. In hers, she had the only case that mattered. But no one else cared.
And now, Leena was with this Alik Vasin, in a private room so the two of them could get to know each other. Have an introduction. They couldn’t let Jada take Leena with her. She was a flight risk. Another thing everyone was very regretful about.
Jada leaned against the wall in the empty hallway and gasped for breath. No matter how much air she took in she was still suffocating. Her chest was locked tight, and she tried to breathe in, but her lungs wouldn’t expand. She wondered if her heart had stopped beating, too.
Her knees shook, gave way, and she slid down the wall, sitting with her legs drawn up to her chest, not caring that she was in a skirt, not caring if anyone saw. She hated that this feeling was so familiar. That it slipped back on as easy as an old pair of jeans. Shock. Grief. Loss.
Losing Sunil had been hard enough. Unfair. Unexpected. No one planned to be a widow at twenty-five. Coming to terms with it, with being alone, when she’d leaned on her parents, and then her husband, for all of her life, had been the hardest thing she’d ever gone through. She was still going through it.
Losing Leena on top of it…it wasn’t fair. How much was one person expected to lose? How long before she was simply gutted, left empty, with nothing and no one to care for her? No one to care for. And then what was she supposed to do with herself?
Her shoulders shook and a sob worked its way up her throat, her body shuddering with the force of it. People were walking by, trying not to stare at her as she dissolved, utterly and completely, in the hall of the courthouse.
And she didn’t care. What did it matter if a bunch of strangers thought she was losing her mind? She might very well be. And if they felt uncomfortable being in the presence of her grief, she didn’t care. It was nothing compared to trying to live inside her body. Nothing compared to contending with the pain she was dealing with.
“Ms. Patel.” That voice again.
She looked up from her position on the floor, and saw the man, the man who had taken her baby from her. There was only one thing that stopped her from going for his throat. Only one thing stopping her from opening her purse, finding her mace and unleashing her fury on those stormy gray eyes.
Leena.
He was holding a squirming Leena in his arms. And she was squirming to try to get to Jada. She could only stare at her daughter for a moment, hungry to take in every detail. To remember every bit of her.
Jada scrambled to her feet and extended her arms. Leena leaned away from Alik’s body, and he had no choice but to deposit the fussing, wiggling child into her arms.
Jada clung to her daughter, and Leena clung to her. Jada closed her eyes and pressed her face into her daughter’s silky brown hair, inhaled her scent. Lavender shampoo and that sweet, wonderful smell unique to babies.
She didn’t feel like she was drowning now. She could breathe again, her heart finding its rhythm.
“Mama!” Leena’s exclamation, so filled with joy and relief. And Jada broke to pieces inside.
“It’s okay,” she whispered, more for her benefit than her daughter’s. “It’s okay.” And she knew she lied. But she needed the lie like air and she wouldn’t deny herself.
“She does not like me,” Alik said, his voice frayed. For the first time since she’d seen him, he was betraying his own discomfort with the situation.
“You’re a stranger,” she said.
“I’m her father.” He said it as if a one-year-old child cared about genetics.
“She doesn’t care if you’re related to her or not. Not in the least. I am her mother as far as she’s concerned. The only mother she knows.”
“We need to talk.”
“What about?”
“About this,” he said, his voice slightly ragged, a bit of that smooth charm of his finally slipping. “About what we need to do.”
She didn’t know what he meant, but she knew that right now she was holding Leena, so the rest didn’t matter.
“Where?” she asked.
“My car. It is fitted with a car seat.”
“Okay,” she said. Going with him should feel strange; after all, she didn’t know the man. But the court had found no reason he couldn’t be a fit father. That meant they were going to send her baby off with this man, by herself. So she was hardly going to hesitate over getting in his car with him, all things considered.
She swallowed hard. There was no one else to do this. She was the final authority here, the only one who could change things. And she would take every second with Leena she could get.
She followed him out of the courthouse and down the steps. He pulled out his phone and spoke into it. She wasn’t sure what language he was speaking. It wasn’t Russian, English or Hindi, that much she knew. A man of many talents, it seemed.
A moment later a black limousine pulled up against the curb and Alik leaned over, opening the back door. “Why don’t you get her settled.”
She complied mutely, putting Leena, who was starting to nod off after her traumatic afternoon, into the seat and then climbing in and sitting in the spot next to hers. She hadn’t wanted to take any chances that he might drive off while she was rounding the car. Paranoid, maybe, but there was no such thing as too paranoid in a situation like this.
She was momentarily awed by the luxuriousness of the car. She’d ridden in a limo after her wedding, but it hadn’t been anywhere near this nice. The seats lined the interior of the limo, leaving the middle open. There was a cooler with champagne in it.
That made her bristle. Had he been planning on celebrating his victory over champagne? A toast to stealing her child away? She wanted to hit him. To hurt him. Give him a taste of what she was dealing with.
“What is it you wanted to speak to me about?” she asked, her voice sharper than she intended.
He closed the door behind him and settled into place. “Drink?”
“No. No drink. What is it you wanted to talk about?”
“How did you meet the child’s mother?”
“Leena,” she bit out. “Her name is Leena.”
“What sort of name is that?”
“Hindi. She’s named for my mother.”
“She should have a Russian name. I’m Russian.”
“And I’m Indian, and she’s my daughter. And really, aren’t you some kind of arrogant, thinking you can come and just take my child away from her home, away from her mother and then, on top of it all rename her?”
His dark brows shot upward. “I will not rename her. It is not a bad name.”
“Thank you,” she said, cursing her own good manners. She shouldn’t be thanking him. She should be macing him.
“Now,” he said, straightening, his posture stiff, like he was about to start a business meeting, “how did you meet Leena’s mother?”
“Just…through an adoption agency. She told me the baby’s father was dead and that she couldn’t possibly raise the child on her own. It was a semi-open adoption. She was able to choose the person she wanted to take her. It wasn’t easy for her.” She remembered the way the other woman had looked after giving birth, when she’d handed Leena to Jada. She’d looked so tired. So sad. But also relieved. “But it was right for her.”
“And the adoption?”
“Normally they’re finalized within six months of placement. In Oregon the birth mother can’t sign the papers until after the birth, which makes it all take a bit longer. And we were held up further because…because while she listed the birth father as dead, it wasn’t something that was confirmed. She had your name, but there was no record of your death, and neither could you be found to sign away your rights. And it hadn’t been long enough for you to simply be declared absentee.”
“And then they found me.”
“Yes, they did. Lucky me.”
“I am sorry for you, Jada. I am.” He didn’t sound it at all. He sounded like a man doing a decent impression of someone who might be sorry, but he personally didn’t sound sorry at all. “But it doesn’t change the fact that Leena is my daughter. I can’t simply walk away from her.”
“Why not? Because you’re just overcome by love and a parental bond?” She didn’t believe that for a moment.
“No. Because it is the right thing to do to care for your children, your family. Leena is the only family I have.”
At another time she might have felt sorry for the man. As it was, she felt nothing.
“Caring for her would mean having her with me,” she said.
“I can understand how you might see it that way.” He looked out the window. “She does not like me. She cries when I pick her up. And frankly, I don’t have the time to be a full-time caregiver to an infant.”
“Then why did you come?”
“Because the other alternative was having nothing to do with her, and that was not a possible solution in my mind.”
“So what does that mean then? You’re just going to hire nannies?”
“That was my thought. I was wondering if you would like to take a position as Leena’s nanny.”
“You what?”
Jada couldn’t believe the man was serious. The nanny? To her own child? An employee of the man who was stealing everything from her?
Leena was her light in the darkness. She was everything to her. Being her mother had become the entirety of Jada’s identity. And her daughter had become her whole heart.
