at home.’
‘The women, huh?’ she said, but a lot of her tension was gone, and he kind of thought her soft pink lips might be trying hard not to smile.
Pleased they’d seemed to reach some kind of armistice, he raised both hands in surrender.
‘I will not get into an argument with you about women’s rights! I’m a believer in them myself. In fact, that’s one of the reasons I’m so anxious to take Nimr home. My country needs to be dragged into the twenty-first century, and as his regent I could at least begin the task.’
She studied him for a moment, not bothering to hide the suspicion that had flared in her wide eyes.
‘And you can’t do that without him there—a boy of four? Surely, if you’re related and next in line after him, you can get started without his presence.’
Malik sighed. He’d had a long journey, spent far too long convincing the finance man to arrange his meeting with this woman, thinking it was better to do it with an authority figure to introduce them—as it would have been at home. And now she was demanding answers to questions that could take hours to explain.
‘I’ve got to get home,’ she said, halting any further conversation. ‘Joe goes to swimming training and I have to be there for Nim.’
‘Nimr,’ Malik corrected automatically, giving the ‘r’ on the end of his nephew’s name the slight roll it required.
‘Whatever!’ his companion snapped. ‘But we’ll never get through any conversation if you’re going to correct his name every time I say it! And you know nothing about Australian kids if you imagine he could get through childhood with a rolled “r” on the end of his name without incessant teasing, so here he’s Nim!’
And she stalked away, her anger back, and clearly seen in the straight shoulders and swift strides that somehow drew his attention to strong, shapely legs and a trim figure.
Kept his attention for an instant too long...
He sighed again.
He had more important matters at hand than a woman with grey eyes and a trim figure. Although Tariq had always been the practised negotiator—when he’d bothered—he, Malik, had stepped in often enough to be a competent one. But he’d blown it this time. He could understand her fighting him if she’d grown fond of the boy—that would be understandable—but part of her resistance had definitely been fear.
At least he knew where she lived.
In fear?
* * *
Rattled by the encounter, Lauren made her way out of the hospital by the nearest exit, finding herself in the wrong car park, so by the time she’d found her small vehicle she was shaking with the tension the stranger’s appearance had generated.
Tension and fear—and something else, something she really didn’t want to acknowledge.
She unlocked the door and slumped gratefully into the driving seat, opening windows and starting the air-conditioning as the vehicle, after standing in the summer sun all day, was like an inferno. Even the steering wheel was too hot to touch, so the idea of resting her forearms on it and having a wee cry had to be denied.
Not that she’d let that man make her cry! She’d shed enough tears four years ago—enough to last a lifetime. Although admittedly there’d been more, when Nim had been a baby and, teething or not well, impossible to settle, she’d felt totally alone.
Then Aunt Jane had sold her parents’ house for her, found the duplex for them on the other side of the country, set up the security, and made it safe enough for her to finally give Nim a home.
It was time to get home to her son. She couldn’t let Joe down. Without Joe she’d be lost, she and Nim.
And no matter what that man said, Nim was hers and hers he was going to stay. He could grow up as an ordinary Australian boy and need never know much at all about that strange place thousands of miles away where his birth mother had lost her bearings.
Oh, Lily.
With a huff of impatience at the sudden sense of loss inside her, she drove out of the parking area and headed for home, her mind back on practical matters.
Did she have to stop at the shops for fruit for Nim’s lunchbox tomorrow or had Joe called in on his way back from kindy?
He probably had and she couldn’t think of anything else they needed.
Except perhaps a magic carpet to whisk Sheikh whoever he was back to where he’d come from. But magic carpets were fairly rare in Abbotsfield, for all it was a thriving regional city.
Regional city?
How had the man found her here, thousands of miles from where she’d grown up in Perth? All the police reports on the so-called accident had put the family’s place of residence as Perth. And after that she’d disappeared. The family’s assets had been frozen so she’d borrowed enough from Aunt Jane to buy the campervan, and she and tiny baby Nim had lived like gypsies, moving constantly, she doing anything to keep him safe.
Lauren’s mind was lost in the past and, driving on autopilot, it was only as she was using the remote to open the outer gate that she saw the sleek black luxury vehicle parked outside.
The fear she’d felt earlier turned to terror and she dropped the remote as if it would burn her fingers. She parked behind the ominous car, only too aware of who would be inside it.
Or inside her house?
Dear heaven, surely not!
She shot from her car, and strode towards the limo, hauling open the driver’s door so suddenly a slim man in a blue suit and matching cap almost fell out, his cap coming askew on his head.
‘Who are you and what are you doing here?” she demanded, hoping Joe was inside with one finger poised above the alarm.
‘He’s my driver. He owns the hire car.’
Sheikh whatever was emerging from the back seat on the passenger side. ‘I had no time to waste finding my way around your city, small though it might be.’
‘Oh, and I suppose your city is ginormous!’ Lauren shot at him, and immediately regretted it as this wasn’t the argument she should be having.
Especially as the wretched man had the nerve to smile.
Well, she supposed it was a smile—he’d definitely moved his lips and revealed a dazzling array of perfectly aligned white teeth, but it was a crocodile that came to mind rather than rapprochement.
‘Would you feel easier discussing the situation here?” he continued, as smooth as custard.
‘There is no situation to discuss,’ she said, hoping she sounded a lot more determined than she felt. Seeing the man who might just be a murderer standing outside her home had brought back all her fear, yet in some offbeat section of her brain she was simply seeing the man.
Bizarre, to say the least.
It
