a question, but how much did he actually know?
Not where she lived or he’d have come to the house—possibly even kidnapped Nim—though that would have happened over Joe’s dead body.
‘What boy?’ she asked, stalling.
He waved away her pretence, eyes like obsidian boring into hers.
‘He needs to be taken home.’ His voice was glacial now. ‘He needs to know the country he will one day rule.’
‘And just who are you to be making these demands?’
The man drew himself up to an impressive height and seemed to summon a sense of power from the ether.
‘I am Abdul-Malik Madani, I am called Malik, and my name means Protector of the King.’
Refusing to be intimidated, Lauren straightened, and although five feet five wasn’t a very impressive height, she made the most of it with a tilt of her chin and a glare in her eyes.
‘Well, if Nim’s father was the former heir, then you didn’t do too good a job of it!’
She heard his reaction—a quick snatch of breath—and saw it in the stricken look on his face, the sudden bowing of his head to hide his emotion.
She watched his chest expand as he breathed deeply, and knew the depth of his pain when he spoke again, voice strained with grief.
‘You are right,’ he said. ‘I could not save my brother, but it is his son that I must protect now—protect at all costs, even with my life.’
That was a bit melodramatic, but hadn’t all her admittedly brief contact with the Madanis been overly melodramatic?
She closed her eyes, remembering, shuddering, aware of this man’s presence in every cell of her being, trying to focus on what he was saying.
He was either a consummate actor or genuine, but did she really want to find out which?
She moved towards the door, intending to keep walking until she was well away from this man. Somewhere quiet where she could think quietly and halt the panic.
But in two strides he had overtaken her so he now stood directly in front of her—less than a foot away—towering over her with some kind of inner presence that made her feel more queasy than afraid.
Strange, unsettled butterflies rioted in her stomach, zapping their disquiet along her nerves. Up close, the man’s face was beautiful—not in a pretty-boy way but with hard carved features: a thin straight nose separating those deep-set eyes; high ridges of cheekbones; and lips full enough for his mouth to scream sensual but not too full—not fleshy, just there, unsmiling...
‘The child’s name is Nimr!’
The words were like a slap.
So much for her thinking she’d scored a point on him earlier.
‘We call him Nim,’ she retorted. ‘Easier than trying to roll that unfamiliar “r” at the end. But, yes, it’s spelled Nimr on official documents.’
‘And yet you asked what boy?’
Sarcasm iced the words and Lauren felt them cut into her skin—saying Nim’s name had brought back the fear. Just because this man said he’d give his life for Nim, what proof was that?
For all Lauren knew, he could have been behind his brother’s death.
As soon as she thought it, she knew she shouldn’t have gone there—memories threatened to swamp her again and right now she needed to be strong.
As for his assumption that Nim would want to be King of the godforsaken country this man was talking about—well, that was for the future, and for Nim himself to decide!
‘Nim was left in my care and that’s where he stays,’ Lauren said, not adding Lily’s almost hysterical warning of deadly danger. Of people—Tariq’s family members even—trying to track her down to kill her and her son. And Lauren, for her sins, had dismissed it all, sure Lily had been exaggerating—blaming her state on a hormone-fuelled fantasy.
That was until the accident, and then when Nim had been taken...
Don’t go there, she told her frantic thoughts.
‘And now I need to leave,’ she said, taking a side step, hoping to get behind him to the door—
Which proved hopeless.
She tried a glare, one that usually sent overexcited adolescents straight back to their beds, but felt it bounce off him.
‘Perhaps we should begin again, discuss this in more congenial surroundings. As Mr Marshall said, I had some business with the hospital, and thought you might feel more at ease meeting me here with other people’s knowledge of the meeting. But there are other places...’
He touched her, oh, so lightly on the shoulder as he spoke, and fire spread through her body, confirming the danger she’d felt in this man from the beginning.
Was this how Lily had felt when she’d first met Tariq?
‘There’s nothing to discuss,’ she told him, forcing her voice to stay firm. ‘Nim is my child, properly adopted. He stays here!’
‘With security lights all around your house, and alarms hard-wired back to the police station, and a guard to follow him wherever he goes?’
Panic swelled in Lauren.
He did know where she lived! And how they lived! The only thing he didn’t know was her constant fear...
But there was no way this man was going to get her child!
‘He’s not a guard, he’s a nanny,’ she snapped. ‘Most working mothers have them!’
‘Six-two male? SAS-trained? Do most Australian working mothers have such a nanny?’
She stepped back, aware of giving ground, but she couldn’t yell at him successfully when she was so close. Something about the man flustered her and she was pretty sure it wasn’t fear...
She took another deep breath.
‘I lost my entire family in that accident—everyone but Nim—and no one can tell me how or why it happened, or, worse, who the target was. I don’t know whether it was my sister and our parents, or your brother.’
‘There was a doubt about the intended victim?’ he demanded, his voice sharp with tension as he broke into her explanation.
Closing her eyes briefly to regain a little composure, Lauren explained.
‘My father had many business interests in the west, from mining to pastoral holdings and beyond. The police thought...’
She couldn’t go on, remembering the horror of those days when grief had been overwhelming her and policemen had been constantly asking questions—
‘Tell
