wasn’t looking for that kind of invitation.
He went into a different elevator than she’d chosen and waited for it to carry him to the top floor. He felt out of place here, and yet, being away from the palace brought its own relief.
His jaw tightened as the lift rose, tension bunching his muscles to the point of pain by the time the doors slid open. The hallway was narrow, the building broadcasting its age with each creak of the floorboards. Dampness hung in the air, clung to his clothes, his skin, another side effect of the unpleasant climate.
It reminded him of a jail cell. He had never had a reason to come to the United States before. His place was in Attar, in the broad expanse of the desert. Though, now that his duties kept him close to the palace, it felt nearly as foreign as this cold, damp place.
Since his plane had touched down, he’d been struck by the constant wetness. A chill that soaked through everything, wrapped itself around his bones.
Or maybe the chill wasn’t something that could be blamed on the weather. If he were honest, he would admit that he’d been cold for more than six weeks now. Ever since the word had come about the death of his brother and sister-in-law.
And now there was this.
The child. He made it a goal of his to avoid children, babies in particular. But there would be no avoiding this.
He paused at the door that had a thirteen bolted to it and knocked. He could not remember the last time he’d knocked.
“Just a second.” There was a crashing noise, a loud curse and the wail of a baby, then footsteps. He could hear someone leaning against the door. Checking the peephole most likely.
In which case he doubted he would be given admittance. Something else he could not remember facing at any time in his recent memory, at least outside of a combat situation.
He heard a shuffling noise and imagined that the woman who was behind the door was now leaning against it, not opening it, as she’d just seen who was on the other side.
But there was no benefit to Chloe James hiding from him. None at all.
“Chloe James?” he said.
“What?” Her response was muffled by the heavy door between them.
“I am Sheikh Sayid al Kadar, regent of Attar.”
“Regent, you say? Interesting. Attar. Nice country I hear. In northern Africa right near—”
“I am aware of the geography of my country, as are you, in ways that go beyond textbook knowledge. You and I both know this.”
“Do we?”
There was a sharp spike in the crying, the volume rising, the tone growing more shrill. Loud in the contained environment. Louder behind the apartment door, he imagined.
“Um, I’m busy,” Chloe said. “You’ve woken up the baby now and I have to get him back to sleep so…”
“That is what I’m here about, Chloe. The baby.”
“He’s cranky right now. But I’ll see if I can fit you into his diary.”
“Ms. James,” he said, aiming for civility. He could push the door in with relative ease, but he doubted that was the right way to go for this. He didn’t usually care. But not causing an international incident was a high priority to him at the moment, and he imagined breaking in and simply taking the child might create one. “If you will let me in we can discuss the circumstances of the situation we find ourselves in.”
“What situation?”
“The baby.”
“What do you want with him?”
“Exactly what my brother wanted with him. A legal agreement has been signed, and you should know exactly what it says, as yours was one of the signatures. I have it in my possession. Either I go through the court system, or we discuss it now.”
He didn’t want to involve the courts of either the United States or Attar. He wanted this to go smoothly, silently, to not make a ripple until he and his advisers were able to devise a story about how the child had survived, and why the child had been kept from the public in the weeks since the sheikh had died.
Before he did any of that, he had to find out just what the situation was. If the papers that had been drawn up were reflective of the truth, or if there had been more to his brother’s relationship with Chloe James than was documented anywhere.
That could complicate things. Could prevent him from taking the child with him. And that was not acceptable.
The door opened a crack, a chain keeping it from swinging open all the way, and one wide blue eye, fringed with long dark lashes, peered at him through the opening. “ID?”
He released a frustrated sigh and reached into the inside of his coat, pulling out his wallet and producing his passport, showing it to the eye that was staring at him with distrust. “Satisfied?”
“Not in the least.” The door shut and he heard the jingle of the chain, then it opened. “Come in.”
He stepped into the room, the cramped feeling of it squeezing down on him. Bookshelves lined the walls, pushing them in, heightening the feeling of tightness. There was a laptop on the coffee table, more books in a stack to the right of it and a whiteboard on a stand in the corner with another stack of books placed next to it. There was a logic to the placement of everything, and yet the lack of space gave it all a feeling of barely organized chaos. Nothing like the military precision with which he ordered his life.
He let his eyes fall to Chloe next. She was small, her hair a deep, unusual shade of red, her skin pale and freckled. Her breasts were generous, her waist a bit thick. She looked very much like a woman who had just given birth and who had spent the weeks since in a state of sleep deprivation.
She shifted and her hair caught the light, a shock of red-gold burning bright beneath the lamp. If the child was hers genetically, there would be some sign, of that he was certain. She was very unlike his olive-skinned brother and his beautiful, dark-haired bride.
“You realize that you have no security to speak of here,” he said. The crying had ceased, everything in the tiny apartment calm now. “If I had wanted to force my way in, I could have done so. And anyone seeking to harm the child could have done so, as well. You do him no favors by keeping him here.”
“I didn’t have anywhere else to take him,” she said.
“And where is the child now?”
“Aden?” she responded, a chill in her tone. “You don’t need to see him now, do you?”
“I would like to,” he said.
“Why?” She edged around the front of the sofa, as if she meant to block his way. Laughable. She was so petite, and he was a highly trained soldier who could remove a man twice his size without feeling any sort of exertion. He could break her easily if he had a mind to, and she just stood there, a small, flame-haired tigress.
“He is my nephew. My blood,”
