The Sheikh's Secret Son

Suddenly aware that any further attempts to ask for his assistance were futile, Darcy let her head drop with a grimace and the silken wheat-coloured hair that had escaped from her loosely arranged topknot glided down over her cheekbones. She could only pray it was helping to disguise the shock and fear that were pulsating through her. Surrendering to weakness for even the shortest time was anathema to her. The last time she had done such a thing it had cost her dear.

‘Who is this doctor, anyway, and will he call an ambulance?’

‘You do not need an ambulance. The doctor who is coming is the Sheikh’s very own physician. He is highly qualified and has an apartment here.’

‘Then I don’t suppose I have much choice but to wait for him. I hope he’s got some strong painkillers.’

‘If you need to take painkillers then you also need water. Do you want me to call someone to inform them that you have had an accident?’

Darcy’s heartbeat rapidly quickened. Her mother would hardly take the news calmly. Not when she was apt to turn the slightest mishap into a drama worthy of a soap opera. The last thing she wanted was for her parent’s anxiety to spill over to her little boy and worry him.

‘No. I don’t... Thanks all the same.’ Her smile at the guard was tentatively hopeful, but she suspected he didn’t believe a word she said.

Because of the dwindling daylight, she hadn’t noticed the two figures hurriedly heading towards them from the manor house. But she noticed them now. There was definitely the suggestion of urgency in their quickened steps as they started to run.

Deliberately glancing away, Darcy winced as she rubbed at her swollen ankle.

Would the next people to arrive on the scene be the police, to charge her with breaking and entering?

As if intuiting her distress, her companion dropped down in front of her and consolingly patted her arm. Her blue eyes widened in surprise. His behaviour was hardly typical of any security official she knew of. But just then, when she was feeling alone and frightened, despite her fake bravado, the man’s kindness was appreciated.

‘The doctor will soon tend to your ankle. Do not distress yourself unduly.’

‘I’m not distressed. I’m just angry that I climbed the wall. I meant no harm by it. I just wanted to take a peek at the house in the hope that...in the hope that if I saw the Sheikh I might speak with him.’

Her teeth clamped down on her lip as the man’s perusal suddenly grew more interested, and she found herself hostage to an uncharacteristic wave of self-pity.

With her voice quavering, she said, ‘I read in the newspaper that he had moved here. I used to work for him, you know?’

‘Then if you wanted to see him again, you should have rung his office and made an appointment.’

‘I’ve tried doing that, many times, but I was told by his secretary that he had to agree to it first. She never got back to me, no matter how many times I tried. In truth, I don’t think he even got my messages.’

‘I am sure he did. Perhaps His Highness has his reasons for not contacting you?’

‘Rashid.’

The deep bass voice behind them had them both immediately turning their heads. The impressive Arabian attire of the owner of the voice added to Darcy’s profound sense of shock when her gaze fell upon his features. His sublimely carved face was etched deep into her memory, but the last time she’d seen it their time together had culminated in a deed that had devastatingly broken her heart. Yet, despite that, her instinct was to greet him with familiarity.

Zafir...

Thankfully she checked the impulse just in time. His haunting black eyes were staring at her hard, she saw, piercing her like the glowing points of a dagger. Although she shuddered, she still drank him in, realising that although he looked a little older he was still as handsome as sin and must still set women’s hearts fluttering from here to Kathmandu.

He had also grown his hair.

It fell way past his magnificent shoulders in glossy black waves. The disturbing recollection that the dark strands were like the finest silk to touch made her guiltily yearn to experience running her fingers through the new length...

‘The young lady fell off the wall, Your Highness,’ the guard interjected, sounding inexplicably protective, ‘and she is hurt.’

‘Hurting is what she is good at.’

Stung by the bitterly voiced statement, Darcy opened her mouth to protest. He was the one who was good at hurting...not her. Or had he so quickly erased that little fact from his memory?

‘What are you doing here, and why are you trespassing on my property?’

‘I’ll tell you why—because you wouldn’t take my calls or return my messages. You wouldn’t even let me make an appointment to see you. God knows how many times I’ve tried. This was a last resort. In all honesty I would have preferred to have left you alone...but I had to see you.’

His glance suspicious, the autocratic man in front of her responded grimly, ‘I have never, to my knowledge, received any such messages.’

Darcy’s mouth turned sickeningly dry. ‘You’re joking? Why wouldn’t you have received them? I always told your secretary that it was urgent and confidential. Why didn’t she believe me?’

‘Never mind that right now... If what you say is true then I will be making my investigations. More to the point, what is the reason you want to see me, Darcy? Did you not believe me when I said I never wanted to set eyes on you again? You could hardly have expected any good to come out of our meeting.’

He leaned down to her, and even as she breathed in the exotic scent of agar that highlighted his cologne she saw the expression on his carved face was disturbingly accusing.

‘How long have you known that I was here?’

Her eyes widened nervously. ‘I only recently found out. There was an article in the newspaper.’

‘And you saw the opportunity to get back at me for what happened in the past?’

Her blood ran cold for a moment. ‘No! That wasn’t the reason I wanted to find you, Zafir. Did you imagine my aim was to try and blackmail you in some way? If you think that then you couldn’t be more wrong.’ Tears stung the backs of her eyelids like hot springs. Swallowing hard, she continued, ‘The article said that you are engaged to be married.’

‘And no doubt you want to congratulate me?’

‘Don’t make light of my pain like that.’

As was her habit, when she was fuming at some injustice or another, she indignantly folded her arms. The movement was a little sharp, and it somehow ricocheted down to her injured ankle. She wasn’t able to suppress the groan of pain that rose up inside her.

His ebony eyes darkening in concern, Zafir turned to his immaculately suited companion. ‘Dr Eden. Please give the young lady some water and take a look at her ankle...now. It might be broken.’

Appalled that that might be the case, with a tremulous sweep of her hand Darcy pushed back her hair and stared. ‘I’m sure you’d relish that, wouldn’t you?’ She all but grabbed at the silver flask that was proffered and imbibed a deep gulp of icy liquid before she said anything else.

As he rose to his full height, the Sheikh’s expression was clearly perturbed. ‘While you deserve to be punished for what you did to me, I do not take any pleasure in the fact that you have been injured. And just one more thing’

As the slim, middle-aged doctor lithely dropped down to his haunches to examine her foot, the Arabian’s black eyes glinted a warning.

‘Do not call me Zafir. The use of that name is permitted only to a select circle of family and friends and clearly, Miss Carrick, you should speak in deference to the hierarchy of my position...you are my subordinate.’

It jolted her that he’d used her surname, and it gave her little satisfaction that he’d so strongly emphasised the ‘subordinate’ part. The suggestion of fury in his voice made her heart contract even more. She hadn’t immediately succumbed to tears at this latest encounter with him but Darcy felt like crying now.

Once upon a time she’d loved this man more than life itself. Now he sounded as though he hated her. And all because he’d believed his brother’s vindictive lies...

‘Although I can’t say for certain until it’s X-rayed, I think what we have here is a severe sprain, Miss Carrick.’

The doctor’s slim, cool fingers were gently checking her bones for breakage and prodding the puffy skin around her ankle to inspect it. Straight away his calm assertion along with his professional expertise reinstated her hope that things weren’t as disastrous as she’d feared.

A relieved sigh escaped her but then she quickly frowned. Just who did she think she was kidding? Things were about as disastrous as they could get. And, having intuited the mood he was in, she suspected that Zafir didn’t intend to let her get off lightly for shinning up his garden wall in order to force a meeting. He was the eldest son of the ruling family in the kingdom of Zachariah, and consequently not just important but powerful too, and she knew that if her motivation hadn’t been solely to tell him that he had a son and heir she would never have attempted to see him at all.