I look like I dressed for a date?’ Gracie tried to joke.
‘I don’t know.’ Anna’s frown deepened. ‘Jonathan mentioned someone came to the house to see you last night. He said he looked scary.’
So that hadn’t flown under the family’s radar after all. ‘He was just tall,’ Gracie dismissed with a wobbly laugh. ‘You know Jonathan.’
‘Gracie...you haven’t got yourself into some kind of...trouble, have you?’
Gracie glanced in the mirror and fussed with her hair, needing the distraction. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t know,’ Anna confessed. ‘With money or something...’
‘Money?’ Gracie turned from the mirror. ‘Seriously? You think I had some loan shark coming around Mom and Dad’s?’
Anna had the grace to look slightly abashed at this. ‘I guess not.’
‘I’m fine,’ Gracie said with more conviction than she actually felt. ‘Don’t worry about me, Anna, please.’ She was so tired of being the Jones kid who’d messed up and then made good, only sort of. She didn’t want everyone clucking and sighing over her. She’d fix this. Somehow she’d fix this.
She waited outside on the pavement for the car Malik had said he would send, and then stared as a stretch limo came around the corner and pulled up in front of her parents’ house. She saw curtains twitch at a dozen different windows and felt a surprised smile bloom across her face. Maybe Malik was trying to impress or intimidate, but she kind of liked the idea of the good people of Addison Heights seeing her being picked up in a limo.
Malik emerged from the car, looking devastatingly sexy in a black button-down shirt, open at the throat, and black trousers. His eyes gleamed in his face as he took in Gracie’s appearance. Suddenly she wished she’d worn something feminine and flirty, but how stupid was that? She’d been seduced once by this man. She had no intention of succumbing again.
‘I like the shoes,’ Malik murmured, and Gracie blushed, those few words of simple flattery affecting her far too much.
‘Thank you.’
Malik opened the door to the limo and Gracie slid inside, revelling in the soft leather seats, the unabashed luxury. There was a coffee table between the sofa-like seats, along with a huge bouquet of flowers.
‘You could practically live in here,’ she said as she noted the mini-fridge. ‘All you need is a bed.’ Immediately she wished she hadn’t said that.
‘And champagne,’ Malik returned smoothly, magicking a bottle out of seemingly nowhere. Gracie stared at it, transfixed by the memory of another bottle of champagne, another lifetime.
‘What are we celebrating?’ she’d asked.
And he’d replied, ‘Meeting.’
‘Why are you pulling out all the stops like this?’ she asked after Malik had popped the cork and poured two foaming glasses of champagne. ‘Last night you were Mr. Hard-Nosed and now...’
‘I was shocked last night,’ Malik admitted as he handed her a glass. ‘So much of this has caught me by surprise. Discovering I had a son, seeing you again.’ His gaze lingered on her for one sizzling moment before he looked away. ‘I was not at my best. I apologise.’
The words sounded stilted, but the sentiment seemed sincere. Maybe. Surely she’d learned not to trust this man? ‘Well.’ She had no idea how to respond to any of it. ‘Cheers.’
‘Cheers,’ Malik answered, and lifted his glass in a toast before taking a sip, his silvery gaze over the rim of the glass not leaving hers. Gracie had to force herself not to look away. She could feel her composure slipping, notch by notch. She’d wanted this meeting to be brisk and businesslike with her firmly in control, but a couple sips of champagne and she knew it was already spinning away from her.
‘Where are we going to eat?’ she asked. The limo was speeding down the road out of Addison Heights, which only offered a couple of diners and all-you-can-eat buffets. She couldn’t picture Malik at either.
‘Oriole, in Chicago.’
‘What?’ Gracie nearly dropped her champagne. ‘That’s an hour away.’
Malik’s smile gleamed. ‘I could not find a suitable place closer by.’
‘And Oriole...’ The name rang a bell. She’d read about it in a magazine, Chicago’s newest and most exclusive Michelin-starred restaurant. ‘How did you even get a reservation? I read that it’s booked weeks and even months in advance.’
Malik gave a negligible shrug. ‘Such things are not difficult.’
For a sultan. She finished the sentence herself silently. Despite the luxury and his obvious wealth, it was still hard to believe Malik was actually the heir to an entire country. That night in Rome he’d only been a boy, a wonderful boy she’d been head over heels for. The memory made her sad, somehow. Everything had changed.
She glanced out of the window at the road speeding by, the champagne sending pleasant bubbles zinging through her system. She felt weirdly tongue-tied, having no idea how to bridge the chasm of the last ten years. How have you been? seemed an absurd question at the moment.
‘Tell me about our son,’ Malik commanded in a low voice. Gracie tensed.
‘Last night you didn’t even want to know his name.’
‘Peace, Grace. I already told you I wasn’t at my best last night.’
And she hadn’t been, either, spinning with shock from it all. She was still spinning. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘I do want to know his name,’ Malik said, and she heard the barest hint of apology in his voice. She knew instinctively that she wouldn’t get any more than that.
‘It’s Sam.’
Malik was silent, and Gracie turned from the window, risking another glance at his stern, autocratic profile. His mouth was compressed, his gaze shuttered. She had no idea what he was thinking.
‘Sam,’ he finally said. His voice sounded a little hoarse. ‘It is a good name.’
‘I’m glad you think so.’ She was torn between gratitude and irritation, an unsettling mix. Just being with Malik was sending her emotions into a complete tailspin.
She took another sip of champagne, needing the distraction. Malik shifted in his seat, and Gracie was conscious of even that, the stretch of expensive fabric across his powerful thighs, the faint waft of exotic, citrusy cologne when he moved. More memories assailed her, sharp and sweet and so unbearably poignant.
For a second she could feel Malik’s weight above her, his forearms braced by her head, his gaze intense and fiery as he’d moved inside her.
Prickly, shaming heat spread through her whole body. Why was she thinking this way, simply because of a whiff of cologne? But it was the same scent she remembered from a decade ago, and it flooded her senses.
‘So,’ she asked,
