Heir To A Dark Inheritance. Maisey Yates

at his eyes, black, soulless. Except for that moment in the courthouse when he’d been holding Leena. Then there had been emotion. Fear. Uncertainty. A man who clearly knew nothing about children.

      And he wanted her to be the nanny. He wanted to assume the position as Leena’s father and demote her to staff. This man who had been living his life, a full complete life apart from Leena, now wanted to come and take the heart from her.

      “She’s all I have,” Jada said, her voice trembling, emotion betraying her now “All I have in the world.”

      “So you say no because of pride?”

      “And because I am not my child’s nanny! I am her mother. The idea of simply being treated as though I’m paid to be there…” It hit at her very identity, who she was. She had been Sunil’s wife, and then she had become Leena’s mother. She couldn’t be nothing again. Not again.

      “I would pay you to be there. I can hardly ask you to forfeit whatever job you might have and come be her nanny for free now, can I?”

      “How can you…”

      “I will of course allow you to live in whatever house I install her in. It will be simpler that way for all involved. I have a penthouse in Paris and one in Barcelona. A town house in New York, though I suspect you would find it rather too busy… .”

      “And what about you? Where will you be in all of this?”

      He shrugged. “I will go on as I have. But you have no need to worry about Leena. As the judge pointed out when he opened up my file—I am a wealthy man.”

      “Somehow all of your wealth and power doesn’t impress me very much, not when your idea of raising a child is to install her in a house somewhere in the world while you leave her with staff!”

      “Not just any staff. You. You would be very well-trusted staff.”

      “You bastard!” No. She wouldn’t do it. She couldn’t do it. Couldn’t allow this man who didn’t even want to live in the same home as his daughter to come in and steal everything she had built for herself. For Leena.

      “No,” she said, the word broken, just like everything inside of her.

      “Excuse me?”

      “No. Stop the car.”

      She didn’t know what she was doing. Until the moment the car pulled up to the curb and she looked at Leena, and back at Alik. She thought again of the fear in his eyes as he’d held Leena at the courthouse. Of the way Leena had struggled to escape his arms.

      And she knew.

      “No.” She opened the door to the car. “I am her mother. You can’t simply demand a change of job title. If you think you’re her father because of a magical blood bond then you go and you take care of her.”

      Her heart was in her throat, her stomach pitching violently. But it was her hope. Her only hope. And it was all born out of some insane idea that what she’d witnessed in this hard, inscrutable man’s eyes was truly fear.

      And if she was misreading him, there was every chance she would lose her child forever.

      But if you don’t, he’ll always have the power. He has to know that you’re right. That he needs you.

      She closed the door to the limo, the gray sky reflected in the tinted windows, obscuring Alik, obscuring Leena, from view. Panic clawed at her, tore her to shreds inside.

      She turned away and closed her eyes, trying to breathe. She couldn’t. A sob caught in her chest. And then Jada started walking away. And she just prayed that Alik would follow.

      CHAPTER TWO

      ALIK HAD FACED DOWN terrorists hell-bent on blowing him into pieces and scattering his remains in the ocean. He’d dogged his way across enemy lines, into an enemy camp, to save the life of a friend. He’d spent hours calculating tactical strategies for nations at war, finding the smart way to get in and win the battle.

      None of it had shaken him. A welcome burst of adrenaline, the rush of having survived, he got all of that from it. But never fear.

      He felt it now. Staring down into the dewy eyes of his child. Her little face crumpled and she let out a wail that filled the inside of the limo.

      “Don’t go yet,” he said to his driver. “Don’t go.”

      Leena cried, louder and louder, and Alik had no idea what he was expected to do. He looked out the window, and he didn’t see Jada. She was gone. Somewhere into the shopping center they were near, he imagined, but he didn’t know where.

      Unless she’d hailed a cab and simply left them both. It didn’t seem like something she would do, but he admitted, willingly, he knew nothing about emotion. About mothers who stayed with their children.

      Jada wasn’t even Leena’s mother. But he was her father.

      He didn’t know how to comfort a child. He didn’t have a clue as to how to go about it. No one had held him. No one had sung him songs or rocked him until he stopped crying. It was very possible he had never cried.

      Leena on the other hand, did. Quite well.

      He had always intended to hire a nanny, and when he’d gone out into the hall he’d felt, for the first time in his memory, like he was in a situation he could not control. And when he had seen Jada slumped against the wall, crying into her hands, he knew he’d found the solution.

      But then she’d left. She wanted more, and he had no idea what more it was she wanted.

      Alik had given up on emotion long ago. His body had put all of that into a deep freeze, protecting him from the worst of his experiences while growing up. And by the time he hadn’t needed the protection anymore, it was far too late for anything to thaw.

      He experienced things through the physical. Sex and alcohol, and, in his youth, various other stimulants, had done a good job of providing him with sensation where the frozen organ in his chest simply did not.

      It was how things were for him. It was convenient too, because when he had to carry out a mission that was less than savory, whether on the battlefield, as he’d once done, or in the boardroom, as he did now, he simply went to his mind. Logic always won.

      And after that, there was always a party to go to. He’d learned how to manufacture happiness from his surroundings. To pull it into the darkness that seemed to dominate his insides and light the way with it, temporarily. A night of dancing, drinking and sex. It created a flash, a spark in the oppressive dark. It burned out as quickly as it ignited, but it was a hell of a lot better than endless blackness.

      Except he didn’t feel vacant now. He felt panicked, and he found it wasn’t an improvement. Without thinking, he undid Leena’s seat and pulled her into his lap. She shrieked and jerked away from him, and with that came a punch of something—emotion, pain—to his chest that nearly knocked him back.

      As afraid as he was, she was just as scared. Of him.

      “Mama! Mama mama mama.” The word, just sounds really, came fast and furious, over and over, intermingled with sobs.

      He tried to speak. To say something. But he had no idea what to say. What did you say to a screaming baby? He’d never wanted this. Never imagined it. He truly might have turned away if not for Sayid. If not for the conversation they’d had when he’d left Brussels.

      “You have to claim her, Alik. She is your responsibility. You have so many resources at your disposal, so many things you can provide her with. She is your blood, your family.”

      “I have family without blood,” Alik had said, a reference to Sayid’s family, to whom he had sworn absolute allegiance.

       “A family by choice. She is your family. You are bound to her. To dishonor something so strong would be a mistake.”