by Annie West
Foreigners who had been sympathetic but, for reasons of their own, avoiding the authorities. She’d wondered if they were smuggling contraband.
‘They were on their way to the Maldives and took me with them. Once there I made contact with the Australian authorities.’
‘You crossed the border from Za’daq into Assara,’ Ash said. ‘We made enquiries in neighbouring countries, but using official channels it was a slow process with no leads. It was only recently that a witness came forward. A driver passing through on his way to a family wedding. Recently he returned to visit his village again and heard about the search for you. He remembered three foreigners boarding a yacht in a deserted cove.’
Tori digested that. ‘And from something so vague you located me?’ It was remarkable! She could barely imagine the resources, or sheer luck, required to find her.
‘Eventually. Fortunately the yacht was distinctive, so it could be tracked. Your trail was easy from the Maldives, after I knew you’d escaped and where you were headed.’ His mouth twisted ruefully. ‘If we’d exchanged full names and addresses it would have saved time.’
Heat tickled Tori’s throat. Despite their physical intimacy they’d never got past first names. It seemed strange now.
‘Well, you found me. I’m glad.’ She smiled up at him. Despite the complications she’d now have to face, it was wonderful to know he’d survived. ‘It’s good to see you alive.’
‘And you, Tori.’
His look seared her and she shifted in her seat. It wasn’t just relief she felt. Her emotions were complex and she found herself growing nervous all over again.
The longer she sat with him, the more she realised how little she knew about Ash, despite the way her body hummed with awareness. He seemed light-years away from the stoic man with whom she’d shared intimacies in the desert.
She couldn’t imagine—
No, that was wrong. She could imagine all too easily the urge to be with him again. The realisation sent heat spiralling through her middle and surging up her throat to scald her cheeks.
Yet it wasn’t sexual awareness stretching her nerves tight. It was apprehension. For she knew next to nothing about him. His life, hopes, expectations. How he’d react when faced with what she had to tell him.
For a craven moment she wondered if she could avoid that. It would be taking a giant step into the unknown. But it had to be done.
She moistened her lips, ready to speak, but he was too fast for her.
‘So, Tori. Or should I call you Victoria?’ He leaned closer, his black-as-night gaze pinioning her to the seat. ‘Are you going to tell me about my son?’
CHAPTER FOUR
IF ASHRAF HAD had any doubts about the child being his, they were banished by Tori’s reaction.
The flush colouring her face disappeared completely, leaving those high-cut cheeks blanched like porcelain. Her gasp filled the silent room.
His investigators had provided a photo—part of a slim dossier on Victoria Miranda Nilsson. A photo of a tiny child with dark hair and what might be dark eyes, though the shot had been taken from too far away to be sure.
Now he was sure. She’d had his baby.
Another surge of adrenaline shot into his blood, catapulting around his body. It took everything he had to sit there, holding her gaze, instead of erupting to his feet and pacing the length of the room.
But Ashraf had learned in childhood to control his impulses, even if later he’d made his name by giving in to them. No, that wasn’t quite right. Even when he’d gone out of his way to provoke with scandal and headlines his actions hadn’t been impulsive, even if they’d seemed so. They’d been carefully considered for maximum impact.
But now wasn’t the time to think of his father and how they’d always been on opposing sides. Now he was a father.
Ashraf registered awe as the reality of it sideswiped him. As he thought of this slim, self-possessed woman fruitful with his child. How had she looked, her belly rounded with his baby? Did that explain the urge he now battled to feel her pliant body against his again? Because she’d borne his child? He wished he’d been there, seeing her body change, attending the birth. So much he’d missed out on. So much she’d had to face without him.
‘I was going to tell you, Ash. I was just...’ She waved her hand in a vague gesture at odds with the determined tilt of her chin.
How wrong he’d been—imagining she’d deliberately withheld the news of his son.
Satisfaction eddied in his belly that his first assessment of her appeared right after all. He’d thought her practical, brave and honest. He’d admired her, wanted to believe she’d got away. Yet when finally he’d received proof that she had, doubts had filtered in. Because she hadn’t informed him about the baby.
Now he knew why.
What had she gone through, having his child alone? Without, as far as he could tell, family support? She’d believed him dead. Her shock on seeing him had been no charade. Ashraf tried to imagine how she’d felt, struggling with the effects of trauma alone when she’d most needed assistance.
‘You’re still in shock. You thought me dead.’
‘It’s true! I did.’ She spoke so quickly she must have read something in his expression.
‘I believe you.’
‘But?’
He lifted his shoulders, spreading his hands. ‘In my work I sometimes appear on the television news. It seemed likely you’d see me.’ That had been one of the reasons he’d feared for her—feared that she was dead or unable to contact him.
‘Do you? You must have an important job.’
When he merely shrugged she laughed, the sound short, almost gruff.
‘My father is a politician. Years of being force-fed a diet of politics means I avoid the TV news.’
Cynicism threaded her soft voice. A dislike of politicians or just her father?
‘Especially news from Za’daq.’ Another wide gesture with her hand. ‘After what happened I’ve actively avoided reports from that part of the world.’
Now he saw it in her eyes. Not prevarication but a haunted look that spoke of pain and trauma. Her abduction had left scars.
His hand captured hers, reassuring. He was pleased to feel its warmth. She looked so pale he’d imagined her chilled. Yet when they touched there was a definite spark of fire.
‘Besides,’ she went on, ‘new mothers have priorities other than TV current affairs programmes.’
The baby. His baby. That had been her priority.
Now it was his too.
Ashraf would do everything necessary to ensure his son had the sort of life he deserved.
‘Tell me about him.’
She looked down at his hand enfolding hers, then away. ‘He’s the most important thing in my life.’
‘As he will be in mine,’ he vowed.
Startled eyes flashed to his. Ashraf felt the shock of contact, read the flare of...was that fear? Then Tori looked away. This time she slipped her hand back into her lap, curving her other hand protectively around it.
* * *
Tori looked into those gleaming eyes and her heart stuttered. Had she ever seen a man so intent?
Yes. The night she and Ash had made love, finding solace in each other’s arms. Finding rapture.
For so long she’d wondered what it would be like if Ash hadn’t died. If he’d been at her side through the pregnancy and birth, and later to care for Oliver. The thought was a secret refuge when the burdens she’d faced grew too heavy.
Now she discovered her fantasy was real—too real, given her response to him. And Tori had to remind herself that he wasn’t the embodiment of her exhausted daydreams but a man with his own agenda.
A shuddery sigh began deep in her belly and travelled up through lungs that contracted hard, stealing her breath, making her turn away.
> Ash had done that to her fifteen months ago—stolen her breath, her senses, her self-possession. Now he was doing it again, without trying.
She was in deep trouble. If she’d learned one thing about him, it was that he followed through. When he determined to do something he did it.
Now he’d staked a claim on his son.
Her son. Her precious Oliver.
Suddenly, as if she’d taken an unwary step and plunged off a precipice, Tori was out of her depth.
The working part of her brain told her she should be used to that by now. After her kidnap and escape. After childbirth alone and unsupported by anyone except the competent, kind midwives who’d delivered her son. After relocating to the far side of the country to build a life for her darling boy free of her father.
But this time it felt different. Perhaps because what she shared with Ash was so personal. Not merely her body and her passion, but her son.
Did he expect her to give Oliver up? She knew little of Middle Eastern culture but guessed fathers might have more authority there than mothers.
Her gaze slewed back to Ash to find him watching her with a stillness that did nothing to assuage her nerves. It was the stillness of a predator.
Tori dragged in a deep breath. She was overreacting. Ash wasn’t a bully. He was...
She didn’t know what he was.
‘You’ll want to see him.’
Even saying it sent a wobble through her middle, as if she was walking a tightrope and one misstep would send her tumbling.
He inclined his head. ‘Of course.’
‘That’s why you came.’
Now it became clear. If he’d hired investigators to find her they would have discovered she’d travelled to Western Australia accompanied by her infant son.
Tori wrapped her arms around herself.
One dark eyebrow climbed that broad forehead. ‘I was searching for you, Tori. And when I discovered you’d given birth to a child nine months after the night we spent together...’ His straight shoulders lifted in a fluid shrug. ‘Of course I wanted to come myself. To hear your explanation.’
Explanation. As if she’d done something wrong—namely deprived him of his child. Was he here to punish her for that? Perhaps by taking Oliver from her?
No, that was unfair. Nothing she’d learned about Ash that night indicated he was anything but decent and admirable. Besides, would she have liked him if he’d learned about her baby and ignored the fact? If he’d shied away from responsibility?
The nervous roiling in her stomach settled a little as the thought penetrated. She was allowing fear to build upon fear, when the little she knew about Ash should have reassured her.
The Ash she’d met last year.
This man, in his hand-stitched suit with an air of assurance in the plush executive suite, was someone she had yet to know.
‘If I’d known you were alive I’d have told you about Oliver.’
‘Oliver...’ He said it slowly, rolling the name around his tongue as if testing it.
‘Oliver Ashal Nilsson.’ Fire climbed her throat and moved higher, making her ears tingle.
‘Ashal?’ Both eyebrows arched this time. ‘That’s an Arabic name.’
So his investigators hadn’t got as far as checking the birth certificate. For some reason that made her feel better.
‘I know. I wanted...’ She dropped her gaze to her knotted hands. ‘I wanted him to have something from you so I gave him your name—or as close to it as I could find. I wasn’t sure if Ash was your real name.’
She looked up to see Ash staring at her as if he’d never seen her before. He swallowed and she tracked the movement of his strong throat, finding it strangely both arousing and endearing, as if it indicated he was affected by the revelation.
Perhaps her imagination worked overtime.
‘I found Ashal in a list of baby names. It means light or radiance.’
‘I know what it means.’
Ash’s voice was so low Tori felt it trawl through her belly.
‘It’s a fine name.’ He paused. ‘It was very generous of you to give him a name that honoured my heritage.’
Tori spread her hands. ‘It seemed apt. He’s the light of my life.’
Awareness pulsed between them. Not sexual this time, but an unprecedented moment of understanding. The sort she imagined parents the world over shared when they discussed their beloved children. It reassured her as nothing else had.
‘So what is your name? Is it Ash?’
‘Ashraf.’
‘Ashraf.’ She said it slowly, liking the sound.
‘It means most honourable or noble.’ His mouth kicked up at the corner, lending his expression a fleetingly cynical cast. A second later the impression was gone. ‘Ashraf ibn Kahul al Rashid.’
He watched her closely as if expecting a reaction. Something about the name tickled her memory but she couldn’t place it.
When she merely nodded he went on, ‘Sheikh of Za’daq.’
‘Sheikh?’ Weren’t they just in books?
‘Leader.’ He paused. ‘Prince. Ruler.’
Tori’s mouth dried. She swallowed, then swiped her bottom lip with her tongue. ‘You’re the ruler of Za’daq? Of the whole country?’
For the second time in half an hour the world tilted around her. Hands braced on the chair’s cushioned armrests, she fought sudden dizziness.
Oliver’s father was a king?
‘That explains the bodyguard.’
If she’d known what waited for her in this room, would she have entered or turned tail and run?
‘Basim? He’s head of my close personal protection team.’
No wonder Ash—no, Ashraf—had spoken of his people scouring the land, searching for her. His protection team must have been beside themselves when he was abducted.
‘Do many people want to kill you?’ Tori’s thoughts had already veered to her tiny son and his safety.
‘Not any more. Za’daq is actually a peaceful, law-abiding country. But it’s customary and sensible to take precautions. Besides, it’s expected that a visiting head of state will bring a security detail.’
Head of state. There it was again—that horrible slam of shock to her insides, creating a whirl of anxious nausea.
‘Breathe.’
Firm hands clasped hers, anchoring them to the arms of the chair. A waft of spice and heat surrounded her, tantalising.
Tori stared up into fathomless eyes that looked like pure ebony even now as Ash... Ashraf...leaned in. Eyes so like Oliver’s, and yet their impact was completely different from the feelings evoked when she looked at her son.
‘I’m breathing. You can let me go.’
Even so it took one, two, three rapid beats of her heart before he released her. Was she crazy to think she saw regret in his expression?
‘It’s hard to believe after our abduction, I know, but you could travel in that same area unharmed today.’
‘You said he was your enemy?’ Tori murmured. ‘That man—Qadri. In Australia, even in politics, when you speak of an enemy you don’t mean someone who’d have you executed at dawn.’ Even if the backstabbing and political manoeuvring in her father’s world was violent in its own way.
Ashraf sat back and the tautness in her chest eased. When he’d leaned in, capturing her with his intense regard as much as his touch, she had felt ridiculously overwhelmed.
‘Qadri was a relic of the past. A criminal who, because his powerbase was in a remote province, was allowed to remain untouched for too long.’ Ashraf’s mouth thinned. ‘My father, the previous Sheikh, had no appetite for tackling intractable problems like ousting a vicious bandit who preyed on his own people. It was too far away from the capital and too hard when there were other, easier initiatives that would win him praise.’
So Ashraf and his father hadn’t seen eye to eye? It was there in his voice and the slight upward tilt of his chin. Tori could relate to that.
‘So you sent in your soldiers to kill Qadri?’ That would explain his violent retaliation.
Ashraf’s mouth curled in a small smile. ‘Is that how things are done in Australia? In Za’daq the Sheikh upholds the law, rather than breaks it.’
He was laughing at her naivety, making a point about Za’daq being a country as enlightened as hers.
‘But, given your experience, it’s not surprising you thought otherwise. And it’s true that centuries ago the Sheikh would have ridden in with his warriors and slaughtered such a man.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘Deprived him of his powerbase. Introduced schemes to bring the province out of the Dark Ages with adequate power, water and food. Began establishing schools and employment opportunities.’ He shook his head. ‘I’d only been Sheikh for half a year when we met, and the initiatives were in their infancy, but still they’d had a powerful effect. So had enforcing the law. I had police stationed locally to arrest Qadri’s stand-over men when they tried to intimidate people. Qadri realised that soon the people wouldn’t see him as the power in the region. They’d have choices and laws they could rely on.’
‘So he had you kidnapped?’
‘Unfortunately I made it easy, riding with only Basim and a guide into a deserted location to view a new project. The guide was in Qadri’s pay.’ Another twist of the lips. ‘Clearly the security assessment was flawed, but no doubt some would say I was reckless.’
Tori frowned. That didn’t gel with the man she knew. He was strong and astute, a strategic thinker and formidably determined.
And he was here for his son.
The reminder was a crackle of frost along her stiff spine.
‘You can be assured that Za’daq is now safe to visit. As safe as your country.’
Was that code? His way of telling her that Oliver would be okay in his father’s homeland? Did he mean to take Oliver from her?
Firming her lips, Tori beat down rising panic. She was jumping to conclusions. No one was going to take her son. There were laws about that. Hadn’t Ashraf just taken time to prove he valued the law?
