Indian Prince's Hidden Son / Craving His Forbidden Innocent

‘Reception asked me to tell you that you have a visitor waiting down in the basement,’ the woman told her.

Willow suppressed a sigh and bundled Hari, his blanket and a couple of toys up into her arms. Visitors weren’t allowed to enter the rooms in the hostel, but the basement was available for necessary meetings with housing officials, social workers and counsellors. Willow hadn’t been expecting anyone, but the number of people now involved in checking up on her and Hari and asking her to fill in forms seemed never-ending.

My goodness, maybe somewhere had finally been found for her and Hari to live, she thought optimistically as she walked down the steps to the basement to enter a large grey-painted room furnished mainly with small tables and chairs, few of which were occupied. She hovered in the doorway and then froze when she saw Jai standing by the barred window that overlooked a dark alleyway.

Jai looked so incredibly out of place against such a backdrop that she could not quite believe her eyes and she blinked rapidly. Clad in a black pinstriped suit teamed with a white shirt and gold tie, he looked incredibly intimidating. But he also looked impossibly exclusive and gorgeous with that suit sharply tailored to a perfect fit over his tall, powerful frame. The stark lighting above, which flattered no one, somehow still contrived to flatter Jai, enhancing the golden glow of his skin and the blue-black luxuriance of his hair and accentuating the proud sculpted lines and hollows of his superb bone structure. He was stunning as he stood there, absolutely stunning, his light eyes glittering in his lean, strong face, and she swallowed convulsively, wondering how he had found her, what he wanted with her and how on earth she could possibly hide Hari from him when she was holding him in her arms.

* * *

Jai noticed Willow at almost the same moment, lodged across the room, a tiny frail figure dressed in jeans and an oversized sweater, against which she held a child. And he stared at the child in her arms with helpless intensity and, even at that distance, he recognised his son in the baby’s olive-toned skin and black hair. His son… Jai could not work out how that was possible unless Willow had lied to him about it being safe for them to make love without him taking additional precautions. But just at that moment the how seemed less significant than the overpowering and breathtaking sense of recognition that gripped him when he glimpsed his infant son for the first time.

Willow walked towards him and he strode forward to greet her, noticing that she was struggling to carry the child along with the other things she held. Without hesitation, Jai extended his hands and lifted the baby right out of her arms.

Hari chortled and smiled up at him. Evidently, he was a happy baby, who delighted in new faces. Jai looked into eyes as pale a blue as his own, his sole inheritance from his British mother, and knew then without a shadow of doubt that, hard as he found it to credit, this child had to be his son, his child, his responsibility. He moved away again, and Willow hovered, feeling entirely surplus to requirements, until one of the four bodyguards seated at a nearby table surged forward to pull out chairs at another table and Jai took a seat with Hari carefully cradled in his arms.

Willow dropped into the seat beside Jai’s and Hari grinned at her while he tugged at Jai’s tie. ‘How did you find me?’ she whispered.

‘A private detective agency. They’ve been trying to trace you for months,’ Jai imparted, his wide, sensual mouth compressing at that unfortunate fact. ‘I only wish I’d found you sooner.’

‘I can’t imagine why you’ve been trying to find me,’ she confided.

‘But isn’t it fortunate that I did?’ Jai traded smoothly as he stroked a gentle finger through the spill of Hari’s black hair. ‘You must realise that you cannot stay in such a place with my son.’

Paper pale at that quiet declaration, Willow gazed back at him. ‘Your…son?’ she almost whispered, shaken by the certainty with which he made that claim.

‘He is my image. Who else’s son could he be?’ Jai parried very drily as if daring her to disagree or throw doubt on the question of his child’s parentage. ‘And as this is not somewhere that we can talk freely, I would like you to go back to your room right now and pack up all your belongings to leave.’

‘I can’t do that. I’m here waiting to get a place on a council housing list and if I leave, I’ll lose my place in the queue,’ she protested in a low intent voice.

Jai settled Hari more securely on his lap. ‘Either you do as I ask…or I will seek an emergency court order to take immediate custody of Hari as he is at risk in such an environment. That is unacceptable. Be warned that I hold diplomatic status in the UK and the authorities will act quickly on my behalf if I lodge a complaint on behalf of my heir. The usual laws do not apply to diplomats.’

In sheer shock at that menacing information, Willow went rigid, her blood chilling in her veins. ‘You’re threatening me with…legal action?’ she gasped in astonishment, barely able to believe her ears. ‘Already?’

Jai sent her an inhumanly cool and calm appraisal, the dark strength of his resolve palpable. ‘I will do what I must to put right what you have got wrong…’

Stabbed to the heart by that spontaneously offered opinion, Willow bent her head. No judgement here, she thought sarcastically, but she was so deep in shock that Jai would actually threaten her with losing custody of her child that she didn’t even know what to say back to him. She didn’t want to take the risk of being too frank, didn’t want to row in public, didn’t want to make a bad situation worse by speaking without careful forethought. She sensed that the Jai she had thought she knew to some degree was not the Jai she was currently dealing with. This was Jai being ruthless and calculating and brutally confrontational, which, logic warned her, had to be qualities he had acquired to rise so high and so fast in the business world. Unluckily for her, it was not a side of him she had seen before or had had to deal with.

‘We will not argue here in a public place,’ Jai informed her in the same very polite tone. ‘We will both ensure that the needs of our child remain our first consideration.’

‘Of course, but—’

‘No, there will be no qualification of that statement,’ Jai interposed levelly. ‘Now, please pack so that we can leave this place behind us.’

Willow leapt upright and reached down for Hari.

‘I will look after him while you pack,’ Jai spelt out as he too stood up, towering over her in her flat heels with Hari still clasped in his arms.

‘You could walk away with him while I’m upstairs,’ Willow pointed out shakily, not an ounce of colour in her taut face as she looked up at him fearfully.

‘I give you my word of honour that I will not do that. You are his mother and my son needs his mother,’ Jai murmured soft and low, the hardness of his expression softening a little. ‘Although I grew up without mine, it would never be my choice to put my son in the same position.’

Willow backed off a step, still uncertain of what she should do. ‘If I pack, where are you taking us to? A hotel?’

‘Of course not. To my home here in London,’ Jai proffered as Hari tugged cheerfully at his hair. ‘I have already had rooms prepared for your arrival.’

‘You took a lot for granted,’ Willow remarked helplessly.

‘In this situation, I can afford to do so,’ Jai told her without remorse.

And with that ringing indictment of her ability to raise their child alone, Willow headed upstairs. There wasn’t much for her to pack. She gathered up Hari’s bottles and solid food and put them into the baby bag Shelley had bought her. She settled the bin bags filled with their clothing and Hari’s toys into the battered stroller, donned her duffle coat and wheeled the stroller to the top of the stairs before stooping to lift it and battle to carry it downstairs. Halfway down the second flight one of Jai’s bodyguards met her and lifted it out of her arms.

‘Is that the lot?’ Jai asked, turning from the reception desk, Hari tucked comfortably under one arm.

‘Yes. I left stuff with Shelley.’

‘There’s a form for you to fill in. I put in the forwarding address,’ Jai advanced.

Willow was surprised that there was only one form because before she had even moved into the hostel, she’d had to fill out a thirty-page document. She signed her name at the foot, briefly scanning the address Jai had filled in, raising a brow at the exclusivity of the area. Mayfair, no less. Five minutes later, she was climbing into a limousine for the first time in her life, breathless at the unknown ahead of her.

Jai strapped Hari into the car seat awaiting him.

‘When did you learn to be so comfortable around babies?’ Willow asked tautly.

‘There are many children in my extended family. High days and holidays, they visit,’ Jai told her. ‘I was a lonely only child. Hari will never suffer from a lack of company.’

On her smoothly upholstered leather seat, Willow tensed, registering that Jai was already talking about her son visiting India. She supposed that was natural, and an expectation he would obviously have. Even so the prospect of her baby boy being so far away from her totally unnerved her, and she couldn’t help feeling overwhelmed, most especially when Jai had already threatened her with legal action.

‘Now for the question that taxes my patience the most,’ Jai breathed, his nostrils flaring with annoyance, his light eyes throwing a laser-bright challenge. ‘Why would you move into a homeless shelter rather than ask me for help?’

Willow froze. ‘There’s nothing wrong with living in a homeless shelter. They’re there for when people are desperate.’

‘But you weren’t desperate, not really. You could’ve turned to me at any time. And don’t try to misinterpret my question. I probably know a great deal more than you about the individuals who use such shelters. Some are those who have fallen on hard times through no fault of their own, others have mental health issues or are drug addicts or ex-cons. None of those elements make a homeless shelter safe or acceptable for a child,’ Jai completed harshly.

‘Nonetheless there are quite a few children living in them!’ Willow shot back at him stubbornly.

‘Why didn’t you contact me?’ Jai demanded, out of all patience with her reluctance to answer his original question. He had been denied all knowledge of his son for more than six months and that enraged him, but he was grimly aware that this was not the right time to reveal his deep anger, particularly not if he wanted her to tell him the truth.

Willow swallowed convulsively. ‘I didn’t think you’d want to know. It was my problem. He’s my child.’ She hesitated. ‘When I was pregnant, I was afraid that you would want me to have a termination and I didn’t want to be put in that position. I didn’t want to feel guilty for wanting to have my own child. It was easier to get on with it on my own and I managed fine while I was pregnant and still able to work.’

‘I would never have asked you to have a termination. Hari is my child too,’ Jai retorted crisply. ‘I would have ensured that you had somewhere decent to live and I would have supported you.’

Willow sighed. ‘Well, it’s too late now to be arguing about it.’

Jai’s eyes flashed at that assurance and he struggled to repress his anger, because her misplaced pride and lack of faith in him had ensured that his son had endured living conditions that were far less than his due.

‘So, how did you manage to conceive when you told me it would be safe for us to have sex?’ he asked next, battening down his volatile responses to concentrate on the basic facts.

Willow could feel her whole face heating up and she glanced across at Jai with noticeable reluctance. Safe to have sex? That was what he had meant that night? She shook her head slowly as clarity spilled through her brain and she squirmed in retrospect over her own stupidity. ‘I misunderstood. When you asked if it was safe, I assumed that you were asking if we would be interrupted…if I was expecting anyone,’ she admitted stiffly, her cheeks only burning more fierily at the look of incredulity that flared in his ice-blue eyes. ‘I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking about contraception. That danger honestly didn’t cross my mind.’