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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 either 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.”
The thought made a rash of heat spread over her skin. The way he said things like that, so bald and open, was something she just didn’t understand. She wasn’t a prude, but she wasn’t going to start offering sex to a stranger either, as if it wasn’t a bigger deal than choosing between pizza or dal for dinner.
“If I want sex?”
“You make it sound strange. Don’t you like sex?”
She nearly choked. “I…I don’t…It’s not a recreational activity.”
“Perhaps not to you.” The smile that curved his lips told her he, indeed, thought of it as such, and she felt her toes curl in her shoes. Oh, good grief, he wasn’t that hot. He was inappropriate. “Either way, the choice is yours. If you want it, I am willing.”
“And if I don’t?” she asked.
“As I said, it is of no matter to me. I’m not intending to pledge my faithfulness either way.”
“You’re not?” she asked, annoyed by that for some reason. Perhaps because in this plan, Alik seemed to be giving up nothing, while for her, everything was changing.
“I have a short attention span where women are concerned. My life is not conducive to relationships.”
“I don’t know that anyone’s is. That’s why people work at their marriages, you know?” For all that she’d loved her husband, they’d had their problems, but everyone in a long-term relationship did.
“Do you want my faithfulness?”
She half snorted half laughed. “Hardly.”
“Then why make an issue of it? I won’t demand yours, either. So long as Leena is cared for, I can’t be bothered by what you do or who you’re doing it with.”
“Did you honestly just question whether or not I will care for Leena? I’ve been doing it for the past year—it’s hardly going to change now. It’s all I want to do. She’s what I want.”
“And because of that you have no interest in relationships?”
“I had a relationship,” she said, feeling, for some reason, like claiming Sunil as a husband, considering the conversation, might cheapen it in some way. “He was all I ever wanted in a man, and he’s gone now. That part of my life is gone. Over. Leena is my life now.”
“Very noble of you.”
“Hardly. I just know that I already had what a lot of people spend a lifetime looking for. No one gets that lucky twice.”
He skipped over her words, as though he hadn’t even been listening. “As I said, I don’t care either way.”
She felt numb. Light-headed. There was only one answer she could give.
“I will have to collect my things,” she said, her words detached, as though they were being spoken by a stranger.
“I can send someone to do that for you.”
Of course he could. He was a billionaire and all. “When would the marriage take place?”
“As soon as possible. In fact, I know just the place to have the wedding.”
“Wedding?” she repeated, knowing she sounded dull.
“Of course we will have a wedding. We want it all to look authentic. For Leena’s sake if for no other reason.”
Just like that, she was treated with a welcome burst of anger. She stood from her chair, Leena still in her arms. “And your being seen with other women won’t seem abnormal to Leena? I hope to God it does.”
“She won’t know about it,” he said.
“How?”
