The Secret Heir Of Alazar

‘So you hoped.’

She blinked at the cold remark. What...? And then she realised. He knew about Sam. Of course he did. And she had no idea how she felt about that.

Jonathan tugged on her sleeve. ‘What’s going on, Gracie?’

‘This is just...just an old friend, Jonathan. We, ah, need to talk in private.’ Gracie tried to smile at her brother, but her face felt funny and stiff. If Malik was here because of Sam...what did he want?

She watched as her brother eyed them uncertainly before climbing the weathered steps of the front porch and disappearing inside.

Gracie looked back at Malik, her eyes memorising and remembering him at the same time. Those long, powerful legs. The broad shoulders. The silvery, intense gaze, the kind smile... Except he wasn’t smiling now. He hadn’t smiled since she’d seen him here. His face was as inscrutable and unyielding as a statue’s, beautiful and so very cold.

‘We can’t talk out here,’ she said.

‘Is there somewhere private?’

As reluctant as she was to invite him into her tiny home, Gracie couldn’t see any other option. She couldn’t leave Sam alone for too long. ‘I live around the corner,’ she said. ‘We can talk there.’

Malik inclined his head in a terse nod and Gracie turned to head back to her apartment. Malik followed, pausing only when she reached the front of the garage.

‘You live in a garage?’

‘Above it. There are stairs around the back.’ She led him to the outside staircase that ran along the wall. Her hands were shaking so much she fumbled with the knob before it swung open and she breathed a sigh of relief.

Malik stepped into her cosy kitchen, his tall, broad form making the small space seem even tinier. He looked so out of place amidst the colourful riot of houseplants, the cheerful yellow walls. Gracie retreated to the sink, its edge pressing into her back. She had no idea what to say, to think, to feel. Malik...here. It felt impossible, ridiculous. Exciting, too, which annoyed her. There was nothing to feel excited about, even if seeing Malik again made her remember so much. Want so much, even if it was foolish. He pushed you away, she reminded herself. He told you to go.

Malik folded his arms, the movement seeming one of forbidding judgement. ‘You should have told me.’

‘About what, exactly?’ She folded her arms and met him with as challenging a look as she could muster. She wouldn’t be cowed by this cold, haughty attitude. ‘Maybe you should have told me you were a sultan.’

‘Heir to the throne,’ he dismissed, and she let out a laugh that sounded a little too high and wild.

‘Oh, okay, then.’

Malik arched an eyebrow in an eloquent gesture of silent incredulity. He was so different than she remembered. Yes, he was just as devastatingly attractive, but he was colder now. Sharper, too, and more hidden. Remote and unreachable, without the warmth and friendliness, the tenderness that she’d once revelled in. Except that had all been an act, she reminded herself. This was the real Malik. He’d shown his true colours when he’d kicked her out of his bed.

‘Don’t play me for a fool a second time, Grace. You know what I’m talking about. My son.’

The Grace hurt. She was Gracie. He knew that. And as for his son... Sam was hers.

‘I never played you for a fool,’ Gracie replied. Her voice thankfully came out cool, if not as cold as his. ‘If anyone was tricked, it was me.’

‘With fifty thousand dollars in your pocket?’

Colour and heat flared in her face. So he knew about the cheque Asad had thrust at her. He must have learned everything, no doubt from Asad. But why? His grandfather hadn’t wanted Gracie, cheap tramp that he’d thought her, in Malik’s life. Why tell Malik now? Or had he discovered it on his own? And why did she now feel guilty for taking that money?

When Asad had found her in Prague just hours after she’d sent a desperate email to an anonymous government address, she’d been both shocked and afraid. He’d bundled her into his blacked-out sedan and told her point-blank to get rid of the baby. When, horrified, she’d refused, he’d handed her the cheque with the stipulation that she never contact anyone in Alazar again.

Gracie had been so overwhelmed, so frightened, that she’d signed the paper he’d waved in front of her nose and taken the cheque. And yes, she’d cashed it. She’d considered it eighteen years of child maintenance payments. And she’d needed that money, for both her and Sam’s independence. It had enabled her to stay at home with him until he’d started school.