The Sultan's Heir

“Damn,” came Ashraf’s fervent voice. “Damn, damn, damn.”

The was a silence. “And she knows nothing about the Rose?”

“So she said. But she is living in a place she certainly did not buy on a translator’s income. In Kensington.”

Ashraf cursed again. “You think she sold the Rose? Who to?”

Naj shook his head, his lips pursed. “No guesses there. Depends how much she knew.”

“She knows enough to deny the kid is Jamshid’s.”

“And maybe when she’s had a little time to absorb the facts she’ll stop denying it. She naturally assumed we all knew about the exchange of letters and left her to swing in the breeze. And God knows what she thought Jamshid’s motives were.”

“Naj, if he gave her the Rose she can’t have doubted his sincerity.”

“True. Well, maybe she sold it because Grandfather’s letter killed off any sense of loyalty.”

“It’s not fitting together,” Ash said.

“She’ll tell me eventually,” Naj said, though he wondered whether it would be himself who cracked. “It may take her time to get up the courage to confess.”

“We don’t have that luxury, time,” Ashraf pointed out. “We have to bring the boy here, and we have to do it yesterday.”

“I know.”

“Can you handle it, Naj? Want any backup?”

He thought of her eyes in that odd, fleeting moment when life had seemed different. There had been a promise there, of a kind he had been waiting for all his life without realizing it.

“I’ll handle it,” he said.

Sam and Rosie sat on the sofa, Rosie cuddling her son as she read him a story from a book they had chosen from the library and he told her about the pictures. It was something they did nearly every day.

But he was making do with less than her full attention today. Rosalind stroked her son’s head, kissed his hair, and murmured approvingly as he talked, but her eyes kept dropping to the beautiful ring, and her mind kept slipping back to her meeting with Najib al Makhtoum.

Her head was buzzing with questions. Why had Jamshid never told his grandfather about the marriage? Why had he not told her he was from such a rich family? Had they really only found the will recently, or did the family have some reason for suddenly being willing to part with her inheritance?

If so, that reason centred in the possibility that Jamshid had an heir. He had spoken about a jewel, but how likely was it that they really believed Jamshid would have given her anything so valuable? She looked at the diamond Najib had put on her finger. She knew little about precious stones, but this one had to be two carats at least. Bigger than this one—what were they talking about? The Koh-i-Noor? Why would Jamshid have given it to her when he hadn’t even told her about his wealthy background?

He had given her gifts, of course. But nothing more valuable than an ordinary man would give his fiancée. He had bought her a leather jacket she had admired, and given her a gold chain with a heart on her birthday. Rosalind’s eyes drifted down to the coffee table. And the little antique crystal ornament when she told him she thought she was pregnant. That was absolutely all.

She stared at the diamond ring Najib had just given her. She still could hardly believe it. Was it even real? But the light caught it as she moved her hand, and her question was answered. There was unmistakable fire in the heart of the stone.

Someone somewhere was very disturbed, that much was clear. Najib al Makhtoum had come, not so much to right an old wrong, not to see that she got her inheritance after five years, but to discover if Jamshid had a son.

She wondered if Najib had asked his sister about her. But anything Lamis might have told him was now overshadowed by the fact that he had seen Sam. He would be back, of course. She would have to plan what to say to him when he came.

Four

“Hello again, Rosalind.”

Rosalind tilted her head in a small nod, marvelling at how strong the family likeness was, especially around the eyes. They were Sam’s eyes.

“Najib. You do have a knack with the security guard. What is it, a Cloak of Invisibility?”

He gave her a look. “May I come in?”

“Do you think you might have phoned first?”

“Would you have been here if I had done so?” he asked dryly.

She lifted a cool eyebrow to let him know what she thought of that. “What do you want at this hour on a Sunday?”

Najib looked at Rosalind without answering. Her bare legs seemed too long under the unbleached cotton of her shirt, her hair was tousled, her lips vulnerable without any makeup, her eyes slightly swollen, and with a blow that rocked him he understood clearly that the answer to that was, I want you.

He clenched his jaw, because he almost spoke the words on the thought. Instead he said urgently, “Let me in. I have to tell you—”

She moved to block the doorway. “How did you get past the doorman, and this time I want to know?”

He glared at her. Her distrust of him suddenly infuriated him. “I got in because I am officially a resident of this building. I have bought an apartment here,” he explained with irritated emphasis.

She goggled at him. “You—you what? I don’t believe you!”

“Money can do many things. You know it, so what is there to surprise you? Now let me in.”

He put his hand on her arm, and that was a mistake. His skin seemed to glue itself to hers. Impelled by the urgency in his eyes, the heat of his flesh, she stepped back, and he followed her inside, his foot pushing the door shut behind him.

Electricity from his touch rushed along her arm and through her body. What a fool she was not to have recognized this attraction for what it was before! But it had needed this combination of morning, being taken by surprise, and a sense of her own vulnerability, apparently, to show her what should have been totally obvious: it had a potency that was frightening.

And just her luck she couldn’t even trust him.

She glared down at his hand, strong on her bare flesh, and wished it were her fate to give in to such strength, to be protected by it instead of threatened. “Let go of me,” she said hoarsely.

He was standing close, too close. Another mistake. He could smell the perfume of her skin, and worse, he could smell bed on her mussed hair, the drowsy smell of a woman newly climbed from the sheets.

“Let go,” she said again, her voice weaker, barely a whisper.

He willed his hand to lift from her warmth, but it only tightened on her. With almost overwhelming urgency, he wanted to pick her up and carry her back to her bed, undress her, make love to her, make her his before she could decide against him. His body leapt with the hungry need to lose himself in her.

“I am sorry,” he said.

He lifted his free hand to her cheek, slipping his fingers under the fall of her hair to cup her head, and bent his head to the dangerous, inevitable kiss.

In a sudden burst of paranoia, Rosalind thought, He’s trying to use sex as a weapon. She stepped back abruptly, breaking his hold, and his lips touched only air. And the same pang of regret pierced them both.

“What are you here for?” she demanded coldly.

He abruptly lost patience.