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Three

Farooq stared down at Carmen for a stunned moment.

He had heard about the power of tears before, had had them shed for his benefit on countless occasions, by both women and men. The only power they’d held over him was that of testing the limits of his goodwill. But her tears …

Ya Ullah, hada mostaheel—it was impossible the way they affected him, the way her outburst had.

She thought he intended to take her baby away.

It was only in this moment that he realized he’d stormed in here not knowing what he intended.

He’d gotten the intel sixteen hours ago, had been on his fastest jet within an hour, had spent the time on the nonstop transcontinental, transatlantic haul seething with realizations and convictions. Some of the latter had been of how an exploitative mother didn’t deserve to keep her child.

He now realized those thoughts had colored the way he’d stated his intention of having his daughter, making it sound as if he’d snatch her away from Carmen.

He believed that drastic action should be reserved for women who were a danger to their offspring. But, couldn’t he equate a mother who used her daughter to maintain a luxurious lifestyle with an alcoholic or a drug addict?

Rage shot to another zenith as he looked down into her drenched eyes. Then, to his further fury, her anguish fractured his grip on his convictions.

As their eyes meshed, all he could think of was that this was no act. This wasn’t someone afraid for her income. This was someone who feared something far worse than death.

Could it be true? She’d conceived Mennah for an ulterior motive, but she now loved her? And that much?

He could take her—his—daughter from her as easily as taking a toy from an infant. Considering what she’d done to him, he should at least entertain retribution. The thought only scorched him with mortification.

She had to be some sort of witch.

But then, all he’d meant when he’d declared she couldn’t fight him was that she couldn’t deny him his right to his daughter. She’d taken his words to their worst possible conclusion. That was in keeping with the fear she claimed had driven her to run away. So could he believe that had really been the reason she’d run?

Laa, b’Ellahi. He couldn’t. He knew the truth.

Still, whatever her motives then, for some maddening reason, against a hundred insisting he shouldn’t, he believed her fear now. Worse, he had no desire to see her so anguished. Though he had every right to hurt her, he didn’t want to. Not this way.

Damning himself for a fool a thousand times for feeling he should kneel and beg her forgiveness for making her feel this way he rasped, “I won’t take her away. Now stop crying.”

Among the crashing in her head, the detonations tearing apart her chest, Carmen heard him say, “I won’t take her away.”

Suddenly there was silence. And darkness.

From a timeless void, sounds returned. Blood drumming in her ears to a sluggish rhythm. Another set of heartbeats booming there. Slow, steady, powerful. Coming from the living granite wall her ear was pressed against.

The rest of her senses coalesced. Smell, soaking in the scent of virility and vigor. Touch, transmitting the luxury of cashmere and silk and power. Orientation, placing her in his embrace, her head on his chest, her breasts molded against his upper abdomen, his arms around her back, her thighs. Then her sight focused on the fierceness drawing his winged eyebrows together, chiseling his features deeper, clouding the translucence of his golden eyes.

Such intent. He was carrying her to yet another session of delirium and ecstasy. The tension that had started to gather in her limbs melted into the enervation of expectation, her body readying itself for his onslaught, his possession …

But as each of his strides transmitted their effortless power to her bones, realization seeped through, until everything crashed back into her awareness.

This wasn’t the past. He wasn’t carrying her to his bed, or anywhere else where he’d ravish her with pleasure. This was now. In the oppressive present.

She might have imagined the words he’d said pledging he wouldn’t take Mennah from her.

She convulsed in his arms from the resurrected dread. His scowl deepened, and his hold firmed as he shouldered open her bedroom door. “Be still. You passed out.”

“Put me down. I’m all right now.”

“I’ll put you down on your bed. B’Ellahi, quit struggling.”

She shook her head, crushing his lapels in spastic fingers. “You said you w-won’t …?”

He didn’t answer her amputated question, deposited her on her bed with utmost care, leaning over her with arms flanking her head. His eyes swept down her length as they’d always done, as if he were struggling with the decision about which part of her to ravish first.

When he had her quaking, he swept back up to her eyes, drawled, “I won’t take Mennah away from you, Carmen. I’m not the monster you insist on painting me.”

“I never thought you were a monster.”

“No? The man you claim to think would have forced you to abort your baby, or would take her from you to banish her somewhere, make her live her life unknown and illegitimate so he’d secure his position? If this isn’t a monster, what is?”

“I’m sorry, Farooq. So sorry.” She clung to his forearms as he began to withdraw, desperate to make him understand. He extricated himself as if from slime. She shuddered. “I was so afraid … it was too huge, I couldn’t afford a margin of error, could only consider worst-case scenarios. I was afraid you’d think I’d lied on purpose, meaning to compromise you. I didn’t know you long enough to know how you’d react to perceived betrayals or threats. And then it wasn’t about you, or me. It was about her. Everything is about her. She’s everything to me. Everything.”

Emotions she couldn’t define blasted from his eyes, flaying her. It was a minute before he had mercy on her. He wrenched his gaze away, razing her single bed, her room, instead. She felt him wrestling his temper under control and began to realize the depth of his affront, his fury.

Everything he’d said was the opposite of what she’d imagined. It shriveled her to know she’d taken extreme actions that had hurt him on so many levels …

No. They had hurt him on only one level—where Mennah was concerned. He suffered anger that she’d hid the baby, offense that she’d dared fear him concerning any child, even one conceived without his will and knowledge. What they’d shared was not worth mentioning except to reference her exit act, which he’d made clear had been so pathetic he’d seen right through it.

Suddenly a gurgle tore through the silence. One of the sounds Carmen lived to hear. Mennah’s. As if she was right between them.

Farooq stiffened, his eyes slamming back to hers for a moment of incomprehension. The sounds continued, the cooing and burbling with which Mennah entertained herself upon waking up. Astonishment invaded his eyes as they fell on the miniature receiver buckled on Carmen’s waistband. Then he murmured, clearly not to her, his deepest baritone soft with amazement, “Ya Ullah, she’s awake …”

He exploded to his feet and toward the nursery right next door. Strength flooded Carmen’s limbs and she flew after him, catching his arm as his hand gripped the door handle.

“Let me go in first.”

His gaze burned down on her for a moment, accentuated by Mennah’s happy babblings emanating from the receiver and through the door. The feel of his muscles flexing in her grasp screamed down her nerves.

He turned away, a shake of his arm making her hands fall away like shedded leaves, making her believe he’d disregard her request.

He stared sightlessly at the door for one more moment then exhaled heavily. “Zain. Fine. Again I ask you to show me my daughter, Carmen. I hope you won’t faint again to put it off.”

Her body heat shot up another notch, this time not with awareness. “You think I was pretending?”

A growl rumbled from his gut, impatience made into sound. “Does it matter what I think?” Before she cried out a denial he ground on, “Laaken Laa … no, I don’t think even you can pretend such a dead faint. Now quit stalling.”

“Great,” she grumbled. “To be exonerated from a con, only because you think my acting abilities aren’t up to pulling it off. And I’m not stalling. You think I’d leave her alone for long even to thwart you? Now, can you move aside? I’ll call you in when …”

He seemed to expand, blocking her way like a barricade. “I’m letting you walk in ahead, not alone. Don’t test my patience anymore, Carmen.”

“Or you’ll do what?” she bristled.

He raised both eyebrows. “So, the falling-apart act is over and now comes … what? The hellcat one?”

She exhaled forcibly, letting out some of her tension. She couldn’t walk into Mennah’s nursery seething. “Who’s wasting time now? Now move out of my way so I can go to my daughter. She’s content to lie in her crib yammering to herself when she wakes up, but I never leave her alone for more than a few minutes.”

He gave a theatrical gesture, inviting her to precede him.

She opened the door a crack.

“You make her sleep in the dark!”

The hiss lodged between her shoulder blades. She closed the door, glared up at him. “You have a problem with that?”

His scowl was spectacular. “You should leave a night-light on. She’ll get scared if she wakes up in pitch-black like that.”

Her lips twisted. “And this is your expert opinion as an experienced dad?” Again the growl rumbled from in his gut, softer, no doubt because he feared Mennah might hear. She challenged him again. “Does she sound scared to you?”

His jaw muscles clenched in what she could only describe as grudging concession.

God, had he always looked that—that indescribable?

Struggling to bring yet another pang of response under control, she found herself saying, “My mother never made me sleep in the dark, and I developed a phobia of darkness. It took me years of agonizing self-conditioning to get over it.”

Why was she explaining her actions as if she was defending her maternal ability? He could hear with his own ears that Mennah wasn’t in the least disturbed to be awake in a dark room, had already conceded that, no matter how unwillingly.

And what was that strange expression that flared in the depths of those lion’s eyes of his?

Slowly she started to reopen the door. He took the door from her, closed it again. “This is the first time you’ve mentioned your mother.”

She stared up at him, huffed a sarcastic breath. “And you’re what? Surprised I had one?”

“Had?” he probed. “She’s dead?”

She nodded, her throat closing all over again. “Cancer.”

“When?”

“Just over ten years now. She died on my sixteenth birthday.”

His eyes narrowed, the amber intensifying. “On the very day?”

She nodded, tears she hadn’t shed then brimming.

What was he doing, interrogating her this way? What was she doing, pouring out information about herself? She’d never talked about her past with him. There was so much she’d never wanted to share with others, especially someone as blessed as he was.

Their time together had been consumed in conflagrations of mindless passion. When they had talked, it had been about their tastes, fantasies, beliefs. She’d assumed he’d run a background check on her, had a full report with her statistics somewhere in his security files, one he probably hadn’t bothered to read. And why should he have? He surely didn’t clutter his mind with the particulars of the steady parade of women who warmed his bed. And she’d already known of his background, since he was such an international figure.

She broke contact with those eyes that made her feel turned inside out for his inspection. “We’ll go in now. But I’m warning you … when Mennah sees you, she may be upset, may even cry. She doesn’t like strangers.”

“I’m not a stranger.”

He was so close he singed her cheek, the side of her neck with the heat of his vehemence, the intoxication of his breath. She shuddered, leaned on the door.

“You’re still one to her …” The words petered out on her lips, in her mind, evaporated by the intensity in his gaze.

Mennah’s yammering took on an excited edge. She must have sensed them even through the noise she was making. Carmen opened the door, turned up the dimmer, drenching the cheery room in soothing illumination. Mennah let out a squeal, started kicking her legs in welcoming delight as soon as she saw Carmen.

“Oh, darling, me, too.” Hungry strides took her to Mennah, before she froze. Farooq had clamped her shoulder.

Suddenly Mennah’s happy noises ceased, her smiles dissolving into a look of surprise. She’d seen Farooq towering behind Carmen.

Wide-eyed, she stuffed both hands in her mouth and stared at him, chewing on her chubby fingers. Carmen felt apprehension rising, thoughts streaking over how to stop what she knew would come. The wobbling chin, the down-turning lips, the whimpers and tears and the arms outstretched for her.

She wondered why she’d want to spare him that.

The answer formed alongside the question in her mind.

She’d misjudged him, deprived him of Mennah’s first precious months of life. He should have been the second person who held her, whom she saw. She should have been secure in his presence from her first moment of life, should be squealing her pleasure at the sight of him now, too. If, after Mennah’s delightful welcome to her, she whined and whimpered at Farooq, Carmen didn’t know what she’d …

“Ya Ullah, ma ajmalhah.”

Farooq’s awed words jolted through her heart. How beautiful she is. Being fluent in Arabic had secured her the opportunity of organizing his conference, the reason she’d met him.

He went on, in a more ragged rasp, as if to himself, “Ma arwa’ha, hadi’l mo’jezah as’sagheerah!”

How marvelous she is, this little miracle.

And he had no idea just how miraculous Mennah was. The baby everyone had sworn Carmen would never be able to conceive. Now, after her hysterectomy, the only baby she’d ever conceive. Mennah was beyond a miracle. She was Carmen’s every reason to go on living.

Overloaded with emotion, she felt him brushing past her, watched with breath gone and heart stampeding as he leaned down in leashed eagerness, reaching one powerful finger to brush Mennah’s cheek, a sound of agonized enjoyment escaping him.

Transferring his gentleness to the hands still half-stuffed in Mennah’s mouth, he whispered, “Ana abooki, ya sagheerati.”

I’m your father, my little one. Delivered in a vocal caress that was delight soaked in wonder and pride and possessiveness and a dozen other emotions.

Carmen’s heart splintered.

Oh God. Oh God. If she’d had the least doubt before, she no longer had it. He wanted Mennah. Fiercely wanted her.

And she’d once had a taste of how fiercely he could want …

Her eyes snapped to Mennah, dread of her reaction mounting, every muscle ready to snatch her up at the first whimper, to soothe her, ameliorate his disappointment, promise she’d soon get used to him. Not that she had any idea how Mennah would do that, when she had no idea how he intended to be in her life from now on, at best as a long-distance father …

Mennah’s piercing squeal had her heart almost kicking her off her feet. She surged forward, but Mennah was … she was … She was smiling!

And not any smile, but a huge, dimpled one. Then she was eagerly rolling to a sitting position, holding up her arms, her chubby hands closing and opening, beckoning, demanding to be picked up. By Farooq!

Farooq whooped in elation, scooped her up. “Erefteeni, ya zakeyah!” He held her up, his large hands spanning her rib cage. “You’re so clever you recognized me at once.” He tickled her and she kicked her legs, screeching sharp sounds of pleasure, reaching out both hands to his face, her palms landing anywhere. He let her paw him, his chuckles escalating into guffaws.

Suddenly he took her to his chest, enfolded her, closed his eyes on a deep, long groan. Carmen’s heart swelled so fast, so hard she felt it might burst. Next moment, it almost did.

Mennah mashed her face into his neck and went still. Closed her eyes, too. As if to savor her father’s feel, inhale his scent, absorb his power and protection.

And Carmen’s tears wouldn’t be held back anymore.

She swung around, ran out, needing to get as far as possible before a storm of anguish like those that had overcome her all through her pregnancy overtook her.

She closed the door to the bathroom, slumped on it as sobs shredded through her.

To see them together, father and daughter, to know what she’d deprived them of, to know she hadn’t had to run, to endure all the pain alone, that he would have been there for her, if only for the sake of the daughter she’d been carrying …

A knock at her back almost heaped her to the floor again.

“Mennah wants to see you now, Carmen.”

Farooq’s voice was … tender. It had to be the distortion of hearing it through the door … But no, it was tender for Mennah. She would never know anything soft or indulgent from him again.

She wiped both sleeves over her eyes, ran shaking fingers through her mess of tangles. Then she opened the door and stepped back into the hall. The sight that greeted her almost sent the dammed anguish flooding again.

Farooq had discarded his jacket, now stood with shirt half unbuttoned, raven mane mussed, glossy locks raining down his leonine forehead, with Mennah perched on his left hip, looking at her gleefully as if asking her to share this incredible find, this giant she’d already twisted around her little finger. He, too, was smiling hugely. She knew it wasn’t at her. This was his pleasure at holding Mennah, his whimsy at his unbridled reaction to her.

“So this is what a bundle of joy is.” He looked down on Mennah, giving her a playful squeeze. She squealed, buried her face into his chest, her fingers going for the hair. He winced, his lips spreading wider with her first pull. He carefully disentangled her fingers. “Ma beyseer, ya kanzi es-'sagheer. It doesn’t work that way, my little treasure. Your father’s hairs remain where they are. Let me give you something else to maul.”

He dipped into his pocket, produced what Carmen assumed was a cell phone. It had probably been designed for him. He pushed a button, had it displaying a video of animals in the wild. Mennah grabbed it in eager hands, lost interest in the moving pictures in just seconds and decided to find out if it was chewable.

Carmen groaned. “Farooq, she’ll ruin it.”

He gave her an imperious glance. “What if she does?”

“Oh, no, you’re not!”

“I’m not what?”

“You’re not walking into her life and showering her with grossly overpriced stuff and letting her tear it apart. I’m not letting you turn her into a brat who thinks nothing has value.”

Imperiousness gave way to scorn. “A harping mother already?”

“A responsible adult, you mean. Maybe you don’t know what that is, having been born submerged in golden spoons, but I’m not letting you do that to my daughter.”

“You’re contesting my parenting methods? When I haven’t had ten minutes to put them into practice? You think I’ll indulge her into becoming a thoughtless, useless, destructive creature? Another assumption, Carmen?”

Mennah saved Carmen from withering under his barrage by performing her favorite trick. Testing gravity. The phone clattered on the hardwood floor.

Carmen swooped down to pick it up, looked at him accusingly.

He shrugged, secured Mennah on his hip as she tried to pluck out his buttons. “It’s too sturdy to be damaged by anything Mennah can do. That’s why I gave it to her.”

She simmered. “That’s not the point. Now she’ll think it’s okay to throw stuff that isn’t her toys around.”

Imperiousness rose further. “She won’t. I’ll see to it.”

“I’ll see to it. As long as you don’t sabotage my efforts.”

Their eyes locked, dueled. Carmen felt her heat rising, her breath shortening as she hauled all the height she could into her five-foot-seven frame in answer to his straightening from his relaxed pose for their confrontation, dwarfing her in size and aura.

Challenge suddenly drained from his eyes, intimidation flooding in its wake. “Who were you waiting for?”

She blinked at the abrupt change of subject. “The super. I have a short in the laundry room. He was supposed to come fix it.”

One eyebrow rose. “You make filet mignon au champignons for him whenever he comes to install a lightbulb?”

“It’s for Mennah.”

His lips twisted on derision. “Of course. Because filet mignon is a staple of a nine month old’s diet.”

“I gave her a taste two days ago and she’s refused to nurse ever since, so I thought if I gave her another taste, she might …”

The rest of her words backed up in her throat. At the word nurse, his gaze moved to her breasts. Breasts that immediately throbbed, their nipples conquering the thickness of her clothes, jutting their hunger. And that he could do this to her with a look, that he should see her helpless response …

His eyes dragged back to hers, pupils almost engulfing the gold in blackness. “So you were waiting for the super. Who didn’t come.” She jerked a nod. “Show me your problem.”

“I’m sure it’s just a short. I would have investigated it myself, but I was almost electrocuted once …”

“When was that?”

“I was twelve …” She groaned. “What’s with the interrogation?”

“You have quite a lot of hang-ups.”

“And you what?” She kept her tone sweet for Mennah. “Think someone who has a couple of phobias shouldn’t be a mother?”

He smiled down at Mennah, drawled, “You said it, not me.”

“You mean you do think it!”

“I mean you said it, not me.” The words were sharp steel, the tone softest silk. Of course for Mennah, too. “I say exactly what I mean. You’d do well to remember that, Carmen.”

She held her tongue as he haughtily gestured for her to lead the way. At the laundry room, he handed her Mennah. Then, without needing a ladder, he stretched up his six-foot-five frame, examined the bulb socket by the light coming from the corridor. In a few precise actions, with the screwdriver she kept handy on a tool shelf, he dismantled it, did something to the wires inside, put everything back together, screwed the bulb back in place then flicked the switch. The light burst on.

Mennah yelped. Carmen croaked, “I’m amazed.”

His lips twisted. “That I know basic maintenance techniques?”

“Considering you have hordes of people waiting on your every blink, I’m wondering why you deemed to pick up the skills.”

“I was taught every survival skill early on, then made myself fully self-sufficient. I can do anything anyone does for me better than them. I only abide others’ services to save precious time for the more important things only I can do.”

Okay. Whoa. “So you’re Sheikh MacGyver, huh?”

He smiled. But not at her, at Mennah, held out his arms to her again. Mennah pitched forward, eagerly throwing herself at him.

Carmen berated herself for her stupid reaction. He’d said he wasn’t taking Mennah from her, and she shouldn’t feel jealous of Mennah’s instantaneous and unrestrained delight in him. He was her father. He deserved the same love Carmen got from her.

His lazy drawl aborted her chaos. “About that filetmignon …”

She gulped down the silly tears. “What about it?”

“You say Mennah loved it, and it did smell delicious when I came in. It’s a pity to let it go to waste.”

“You want to eat?”

“I’ve been known to indulge in the practice.”

“But it’s already cold.”

“You do have means to reheat it, don’t you?”

“Reheating will overcook it, destroy its buttery softness …”

“Let me …” He dropped a kiss on Mennah’s downy cheek as if compelled before going on, “Let us worry about that.” Suddenly all ease evaporated, suspicion flaring in eyes that slammed back into hers. “Are you sure you’re not waiting for someone?”

“Someone?” she jeered, seeing red. “You mean my ‘sponsor'? One of many, no doubt. You think I entertain men in rotation, a few feet from my sleeping infant? Why don’t you just call me a whore? C’mon, get it off your chest. I know how men of your culture view easy women and I was easy, with you. But I never let you ‘sponsor’ me. Oh wait, I did. I shared your ‘privileges.’ But surely you didn’t think that was enough for me. You must have checked your collection of priceless cufflinks to make sure I hadn’t ‘shared’ more than your hundred-star existence. I trust you weren’t too disappointed to find everything accounted for.”

His eyes spat danger, sending a frisson of anxiety radiating through her limbs. “Such caustic wit and a rapier tongue. You hid them well.”

“I didn’t hide them. There was no reason for them to surface. You weren’t a domineering brute back then.”

The flames in his eyes leaped. “The domineering brute would have walked in here with bodyguards and diplomatic attachés, snatched his daughter and walked out over your weeping, begging body. I am still waiting for you to remember basic courtesy and invite me to share the meal you were preparing when I arrived.”

And if it were possible to die of mortification, she would have keeled over.

Embarrassed, cornered and mad as hell about it, and at him, she mumbled sourly, “Okay. Fine. But if the meat is leathery and the sauce is congealed, I don’t want to hear it.”

He pursed his lips. “Eat in silence, you mean?”

She rolled her eyes. “As if.”

He smiled then—a slow, hot smile, all for her this time, amused at her wisecrack.

She didn’t know what held her up all the way to the kitchen.

Once there she shakily tried to take Mennah to put her in her high chair. He declined, did it himself as if he’d been doing it every day. Then, without being told, he placed Mennah’s toys on her tray and she immediately began the game of throw and fetch.

After her bones solidified enough in her limbs, Carmen began the reheating procedure then turned around, only to be stabbed in the heart again by the poignant sight Farooq and Mennah made together, so alike, sharing such an elemental, almost tangible bond.

She located something resembling her voice. “You’re taking to your father role spectacularly. And I’ve never seen her like this with anyone. Not that she’s seen many people.”

“She recognized me. As I did her. The bond is … elemental.”

What she’d just thought. “Yes,” she choked. “And I—I’m truly sorry for depriving you of-of …” She made a helpless gesture at them, her hand trembling. “This. But please believe I thought I was doing the best thing. For her.”

He said nothing to that. Not out loud. His eyes said he believed nothing she said.

Oh, well. He wouldn’t get over his anger that fast.

She inhaled before she blacked out. “I’ll cooperate in any way so you’ll be a part of her life, be with her whenever possible.”

“I will be with her always.” This wasn’t a statement. This was a pledge. A decree.

“A-always? B-but you live halfway across the globe …”

His gaze hardened. “And so will she.”

“But you said …”

“I said I won’t take her from you, and I won’t. You will both be with me. We will marry.”