to know.
‘It was only when Nim was snatched they turned their attention to your brother.’
‘Someone took the child?’
His eyes blazed with anger now, but the memories were pressing down on her and she had to get the story told before she broke down from the remembered terror.
‘A police family liaison officer was staying with me. The detectives were there one morning with so many questions, their voices unsettled Nim. He was only tiny. So I took him out for a walk in his pram, and someone hit me on the head and ran off with him.’
She tried to quell the memories of her pain and fear. She had thought that not only had she lost her parents and Lily but the baby as well—the baby she’d promised Lily she’d protect.
Had he read it in her eyes that he steered her back into a chair.
‘Sit, take deep breaths! They found the child?’
He asked the question in the same calm voice he’d used to make her sit.
She nodded.
‘At the airport, dressed all in pink, travelling on a passport as Lucy someone, two parents travelling with her. It was luck, nothing more, that they found Nim—another twenty minutes and they’d have boarded, the plane doors would have shut.’
‘And the couple?
Lauren looked up at the man hovering impatiently in front of her.
‘They admitted to being paid to kidnap the child and take him to the United States, where he could be sold to adoptive parents in some quasi-criminal deal. But they denied all knowledge of the accident. Further police investigations couldn’t prove they’d been involved.’
She read confusion in his eyes and understood it, for those few months of her life still seemed unreal to her.
But this man needed answers, so she picked up where she’d left off earlier.
‘So, yes, I have security to protect my child, but none of it intrudes on his having a normal childhood. That is one thing I work very hard to ensure.’
Lauren paused, needing to catch her breath, needing to see his face—his expression—as she finalised this business.
‘So, really, there’s nothing else to discuss. I’m guessing you spent a considerable amount of money to track me down, but Nim is mine now—a little Australian boy with a future here, not in his father’s country. So I’ll be getting home to my son.’
‘Son? You have adopted him?’
She’d been expecting more objections to her leaving, not this shocked disbelief.
‘Lily left him with me that night, telling me to take great care of him—telling me again of threats. To do that when she was...’ Lauren made a huge effort to pull herself together ‘...gone, he had to be legally mine, so of course I’ve adopted him.’
She looked directly into his eyes this time—into darkness that held no light or shadows, and about as much humanity and understanding as a statue’s blank gaze.
* * *
Malik was only too aware he’d made a mess of this. First the fawning executive, setting up the meeting with this woman as if he was conferring a great honour on her.
And then underestimating the stubborn female who’d had the guts to adopt his nephew. There might not be much of her, and most of what he could see was tired and grubby, but despite the dark shadows beneath her large grey eyes, and the fear, which had been an almost palpable thing in the room, she’d stood up to him.
Though with what she’d been through he could understand that fear...
Coming here, he’d thought she’d be willing to hand the boy over to him—perhaps with due recompense—but every word he’d heard held the cadences of her love for Nimr.
Had he been judging her by her sister, that he’d thought this way? One look at her had dispelled any physical resemblance, and he doubted Lily would have stood up to him the way Lauren had, or taken the extreme measures he now knew of, to keep his nephew safe.
No, Lily had been beautiful, captivating, and could charm birds from a tree, but how much more attractive was the courage and quiet determination of this sister?
Something he hadn’t felt for a long time stirred inside him, something he’d have to think about later, because his business was far from finished.
As far as she was concerned, Nimr was her child and she’d probably have killed him if he’d mentioned recompense.
He looked down at her, close now as she tried once more to get out the door, and he was almost sure he detected a tremble in her body, and definitely saw fear behind the defiance in her eyes.
He touched her gently on the shoulder—felt the tremors running through her and the coldness of her skin and knew he hadn’t imagined the fear, knew he’d caused it, and that wounded him.
‘I’m sorry. This has come as a surprise for you, but I have had top private investigators looking for Nimr for two years now and to suddenly have him so close—well, I wasn’t sure what to do. I thought meeting you publicly through the hospital might be easier for you, but all I’ve done is barge into your life and upset you.’
She’d stepped away from his hand.
‘I have to go,’ she said, slipping behind him as he moved forward, escaping this time, though not for long.
He caught up with her by the time they’d reached the elevator.
‘We need to talk!’ he said, probably too loudly from the stares he got as they entered the already packed space.
She was pressed against him so he couldn’t see her face, but the shake of her head, dark curls moving beneath his chin—brushing his skin—gave him his answer.
Soft dark curls from what he could see, giving off a hint of something he recognised but couldn’t name.
Rosewater?
Back home, it was used in many local dishes—but in hair?
He breathed in the scent again as the elevator reached the ground floor—whatever it was that had stirred inside him earlier stirring again—and they led the exodus out into the corridor.
Expecting her to make a dash for some bolthole he’d never find in the big hospital, he caught her arm.
She spun towards him.
‘I’ll call Security,’ she warned, but his mind was still on rosewater.
‘Is it rosewater I can smell?’
The words were out before he considered how inappropriate they were.
‘Rosewater?’ she demanded, outrage warming her cheeks to a rosy pink. Grey eyes spitting fire, all fear gone. She probably had some kind of emergency call button somewhere on her person—
