The Sheikh's Secret Son

“Do you want me to go after him, Eden, talk to him?” Ciara had asked, offering her help, her friendship, her comfort.

“No, thank you, Ciara,” Eden had said, returning to her feet slowly, like an old woman whose joints didn’t always cooperate. “He’ll be fine. He’s probably going to visit with his pony for a while. Hercules is quite good at listening to Sawyer’s problems, as long as the carrots hold out. He just needs some time alone, and then he’ll be…fine. Really, he’ll be fine…”

Eden had been right. Logan had brought Sawyer back to the house about a half hour later, and the boy had held his uncle’s hand tightly as he apologized to her for running off without telling her where he was going. Then, as Eden watched, and as her brother had given Sawyer’s hand a small squeeze, her son walked closer, his body stiff and straight, and motioned that she should bend so that he could kiss her cheek.

Always the gentleman, her son, once he was over his temper. Almost princely in his forgiveness of her for his own impolite actions.

Eden smiled now as she opened the door to Sawyer’s room and a wedge of light from the hallway spilled into the room, exposing her son’s outline on the bed. Tall for his age, old for his age. Straight and strong. Oddly formal for a child, with the manners of a much older child, with the sometimes autocratic ways of the man he’d never known.

And yet he was five years old. Only five years old.

Eden tiptoed into the room, stopped, and smiled again. Her big boy. Her great big, brave, wonderful boy. With his thumb stuck in his mouth and his teddy bear, Fred, clutched tight in one arm.

She bent and adjusted the covers over him, then pressed a kiss to her fingers before touching those same fingers to his cheek. He was her baby.

Her baby with the grown-up questions.

And she was his mother, the woman who didn’t have any answers for him.

Eden Fortune had been born to just that. Fortune. There was wealth, yes, but she also had a more important fortune, that of her family. Eden’s was a large family, the sort that swept you up, welcomed you in. Sometimes smothered you.

But she tried to not think about that anymore, about how she had run away when the love and concern had felt more like pity. She’d been young then, young and stupid. Young, and stupid, and pregnant. More than a little worried that, after vowing never to be like her father, she had acted with his same disregard for consequences.

Cameron Fortune was dead now, killed when speed, alcohol and poor judgment had combined to send his car racing out of control on his way back to the ranch from San Antonio, the nubile young woman tucked into the passenger seat dying as well. He’d always been irresponsible and she’d promised herself that, much as she’d loved her dad, she would never be anything like him.

But despite her vow, Sawyer was born…the consequence of an impetuous love, unprotected sex, and no thought at all about consequences.

But if Eden was her father’s child, she was also her mother’s daughter, and she had the same for-better-for-worse character that had kept Mary Ellen Fortune standing at her husband’s shoulder, loving him no matter what.

Eden had made a mistake, but she had owned up to it in true Mary Ellen Fortune style. She’d packed herself up, straightened her spine, her resolve, and done what had to be done. She’d had her baby, kept her baby.

And she’d never regretted her decision.

Buying the house in San Antonio had been one of her best moves, as now she was close enough to the ranch to have the love and companionship of her family yet far enough away to maintain her independence. She had her brothers, Holden and Logan, she had her mother, and the entire Fortune menagerie of loving aunts and uncles and cousins.

And she had her career. Eden thanked the good Lord every night for her career. Her career as an international business lawyer filled her days. Sawyer filled her leisure hours.

Nothing filled her nights….

Eden was running late Monday morning, always a warning sign that the whole day would be one full of glitches and irritating minor problems—beginning with her pulling a hole in her last pair of panty hose. She’d had to run to the local convenience store to pick up a new pair. Worse, she’d come downstairs to learn that Sawyer had awakened with the sniffles, and even though Mrs. Betts had promised to watch him closely and call the doctor if he began to run a fever, Eden had been loathe to leave him.

Which was silly. Mrs. Betts was more than just a housekeeper. She was Eden’s friend, and she loved Sawyer to pieces. He’d be fine, Eden knew that. He didn’t need his mommy hovering over him, feeling his brow and handing him tissues. It had been Sawyer who had told her that, too, and not Mrs. Betts. What an independent little creature she was raising!

Pushing back her jacket sleeve as her high heels clicked against the marble floor of the tall office building, Eden checked her watch one more time, grimaced one more time, and headed for the bank of elevators.

Naturally, her gas gauge had somehow crept all the way to Empty when she hadn’t been looking, further proving her theory that a day begun badly never goes well. The stop at the crowded gas station had taken precious minutes she hadn’t had to spare.

Still fretting over the time lost at the gas station, she tapped one elegantly clad foot on the floor as the security guard checked for her name on the list in front of him.

She looked at her reflection in the golden doors of one of the elevators, quickly running a hand through her shoulder-length dark brown hair, squinting a little as she decided that she probably should have worn more blush with her dark blue suit, for her cheeks looked a little too pale.

“Oh, okay, here you are, Ms. Fortune,” the security guard said after what seemed an eternity of time, pointing to one of the names on his list. “And here’s your security pass. You can just pin it to your suit, okay?”

Eden nodded, took the pass. She had taken three quick steps toward the last elevator in the hallway before she stopped, turned, and walked back to the desk. She was wasting more time, she knew, but she just had to ask.

“Henry, I’ve been coming here for two years now. I know you, you know me. I know your wife packs you meatloaf sandwiches every Thursday, and you’ve met Sawyer a couple of times—enough times that you know he likes those cherry candies you keep in your pocket.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Eden looked at him a moment, shook her head. “So,” she asked, pointing to the badge she’d pinned to her jacket, “what’s all this? The checking the list, the badge—those two goons standing in front of the elevator that goes to the twenty-sixth floor?”

Henry stole a quick look over his shoulder at the “goons,” then motioned for Eden to step closer, as if he were about to tell her some state secret.

“It’s this guy,” he whispered conspiratorially. “I don’t know who he is, see, but he shows up about an hour ago. Big black limousine. Bulletproof, I’m thinking, and with a car in front, another in back. All these guys come piling out of the two cars, come marching in here, demanding all sorts of stuff. I had to clear out the whole lobby before the guy steps so much as a foot out of the limo. And then I could barely see him for all the guys walking with him, speeding him into the elevator, whisking him upstairs. Tall, though. I could see the top of his head. He had one of those things on it, you know? One of those headpieces or what-you-want-to-call-its.”

The guard leaned even closer to Eden and his voice dropped another notch. “You know what I think, missy? I think he must be some government type. And not ours, neither.”

“Sounds intriguing, Henry,” Eden said, trying to sound suitably impressed. She’d only been working in international law for two years, but she’d already seen her share of important people—those who really were and those who only thought they were. “And was he definitely going to the twenty-sixth floor?”

“Like you said, missy, you’ve been coming here for a while now,” Henry said, standing straight once more and nervously beginning to shuffle the papers in front of him, as if he knew he’d said more than he should. “We both know that’s the only elevator that goes all the way to the twenty-sixth floor.”

Eden frowned, thanked Henry, and headed for the elevator once more, mentally reviewing the coming meeting in her head, mentally going over the names of those expected to attend the meeting.

There were all the usual suspects, of course. Her boss; her boss’s boss. Three other lawyers on her level, each one assigned to a particular area of international law. Her area of expertise was international law as it pertained to oil and gas rights.

Today her firm was to represent a triad of American companies hoping to do business in the small oil-and-gas-rich Middle East kingdom of Kharmistan. Which, she supposed, explained all the heightened security and the big-shouldered, dour-faced men standing on either side of the elevator. They had reason to be a nervous bunch, Middle East tensions being what they were.

Eden had a bad moment at the elevator—fearing she was about to be frisked for the first time in her life—before the two big-shouldered “goons” finally let her pass, muttering to each other in their own language.

She kept her smile bright until the elevator doors closed in front of her, then grumbled something that sounded very much like “male chauvinist pigs,” certain that the two had difficulty believing a woman could possibly have anything constructive to do with business. Now there was a prejudice that had no trouble crossing international borders!

She forgot the guards and watched the numbers light up one after the other as the elevator swiftly and silently whisked her to the twenty-sixth floor. One last check of her watch told her she had cut it fine, but would arrive on the dot of nine.

She gripped the handle of her attaché case tightly in both hands, holding it in front of her in an unconsciously defensive posture, took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly as the doors opened. Several men standing in the lobby of the penthouse office suite turned to look at her, then turned away again to resume their conversation.

Eden continued to stand in the elevator. She couldn’t move. Her feet had rooted to the floor, her brain had gone on stun, robbing her of the ability to walk.

The elevator doors whispered closed again and she collapsed against the back wall, her hand pressed to her mouth as she told herself not to scream. Not to scream, not to faint, not to run…run…run. Run out of the building. Run to her car. Run to her house, where she would grab up her son and then run some more.

Run as far and as fast as she could.

Thankfully, sanity returned before anyone summoned the elevator back to the lobby, and she swallowed down hard and pushed the Door Open button so that she could leave the elevator and join the men who had probably already forgotten her.

He doesn’t know, she told herself, repeating the words over and over like a mantra. He doesn’t know, he doesn’t know. And what he doesn’t know can’t hurt me.

Drawing on every resource at her command—her upbringing, her independent nature, her long years of taking care of herself—Eden willed her heart to slow. Willed her lips to smile. Willed herself to remember who she was, where she was, and why she was here.

She was here to explain international oil and gas law to her bosses, to her firm’s clients, and to a Sheikh Barakah Karif Ramir of Kharmistan or his representative.