Special Deliveries: Heir To His Legacy. Elizabeth Lane

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СКАЧАТЬ true that his was not a heart connection, not the sort of family connection she might mean. His was a blood bond, a sworn oath to protect the ruler of his country with his very life if it came to it. It was a connection that he felt in his veins, one he couldn’t change or deny. Only death could break it. And in that scenario, the death had better be his own.

      She blinked rapidly. “You’ve never been… close to the family. I mean, Rashid said…”

      “Ah. Rashid.” Her use of his brother’s first name was telling. And not in a good way. In a way that might complicate things. If she was the mother of the child, the biological mother, it would be much more difficult to use the legal documents against her. Difficult, though, not impossible.

      And failing that, he would simply create an international incident and bring the child back with him. By force if necessary.

      “Yes, Rashid. Why did you say it like that?”

      “I’m trying to ascertain the nature of your relationship with my brother.”

      She crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “Well, I gave birth to his child.”

      A cold, calm sort of fury washed through him, the ice in his veins chilling the rage as it ran through him. If his brother had done anything to compromise the future of the country…

      But his brother was dead. There would be no consequence for Rashid, no matter the circumstances. He was finished now, with this life. And Sayid was left to ensure that Attar did not crumble. That life went on, as smoothly as possible, for the millions of people who called the desert nation home.

      “And you drew up this agreement—” he produced a folded stack of papers from the inside of his coat “—so that if anyone caught on to the fact that it wasn’t Tamara who gave birth to Aden, they would believe it had been a part of the plan from the beginning?”

      “Wait… what?” She curled her lip, one rounded hip cocked to the side.

      “You conspired to invent the story about the surrogacy to cover up the relationship that you had with…”

      She held both hands up, palms out. “Hey! No. Oh… no. I gave birth to his child, as a surrogate. His and… Tamara’s.” There was a slight wobble in her voice now and she looked down.

      “Why didn’t you come to me?” He wasn’t certain he believed her answer, but he wasn’t going to press, either. Not now.

      “I don’t… I don’t know. I was scared. They were on their way… here when it happened. On their way to the hospital from the airport. I was already in labor, I went a little earlier than anticipated. They were going to have me moved to a private facility, and their doctor was with them during the… everyone who knew was with them.”

      He looked around the room, his top lip curling. “So you brought him here, to your very insecure apartment, to protect him?”

      “No one knew I was here.”

      “It took my men less than twenty-four hours from the discovery of your existence to pinpoint your location, and for me to come to your front door. You are lucky that I am the one who found you. Lucky that it wasn’t an enemy of my brother, of Attar.”

      “I couldn’t be sure that you wouldn’t be an enemy to Aden.”

      “Be sure of that now.”

      Chloe raised her gaze and met hard, dark eyes. She couldn’t believe that Sayid al Kadar was in her living room. She’d been watching the news about Attar carefully since Aden’s birth. Had seen the man assume power with ease and grace, an almost eerie calm, amidst a tragedy that had rocked a nation.

      The sheikh and his wife were dead. As was their unborn heir.

      So everyone had assumed.

      But what no one knew was that the sheikh and sheikha had used a surrogate. And that the surrogate, and the child, were safe.

      She’d had no idea what to do. When the royals’ private doctor hadn’t materialized during delivery, and then Tamara and Rashid hadn’t come, either…

      She could still feel it, the sick, cold dread that had washed over her. She’d known. She’d just known. And then she’d asked a nurse to turn the television on and it had been everywhere, on every channel. The loss of Attar’s royal family and the doctor to the royal family, killed in an accident on a highway in the Pacific Northwest.

      And all she’d been able to do was hold the baby—the baby that wasn’t hers, the baby that was never supposed to be hers, the baby who had no one but her—close to her chest and try not to dissolve completely.

      In the weeks since she’d been in a daze. Mourning her half sister, Tamara, though she’d barely known her, and trying to decide what she was supposed to do with Aden. Trying to decide if she should trust his uncle. Because if it was revealed that Aden was alive, then Sayid was not the ruler of Attar, he was merely regent.

      And the idea of what he might do to preserve his position had frightened her. She knew it was unlikely, ridiculous, even. Rashid had never spoken badly of his younger brother, and neither had Tamara.

      Still, this sort of strange, never-before-felt protectiveness had her in its grip, digging into her like claws, not releasing its hold. Aden was her nephew, and because of that, she did have a connection to him, but it was more. She’d imagined that it wouldn’t be. She didn’t want children, after all. Had never seen herself as the maternal type.

      But she’d carried him in her body. Nurtured him in that way. No matter what she’d believed, it wasn’t a bond that she could simply break. Her head knew one thing, but her body firmly believed another.

      “And you didn’t think to contact the palace?” Sayid asked, his voice deep. Hard.

      “Rashid asked that it be kept confidential. I signed legal documents saying that I would never divulge my involvement. If they had wanted to include you, they would have.”

      “So all of this was out of loyalty?”

      “Well… yes.”

      “And how much were you paid?” he asked.

      Her cheeks heated. “Enough.” She had accepted payment, and she was hardly going to apologize. Surrogates were paid for the service, and while she’d done it in part because Tamara was her half sister, she’d also done it out of a need for the money. Even with all of her scholarships, graduate school was costly. And independence was an absolute necessity for her, which meant money held a lot of importance in her world.

      “Loyalty. I see.”

      “Of course I was paid,” she said. “I wanted to do this for them, but honestly, carrying a child and giving birth? It’s a very big deal, as I have spent the past ten or so months now discovering. I won’t feel guilty for taking what I was offered.”

      “And why exactly did you want to do this for him?” He was still looking at her with a dark, angry light in his eyes and she had a feeling he still didn’t really believe that she’d had no involvement with Rashid.

      “Because of Tamara. She’s my half sister. And I’m not surprised you didn’t know. We СКАЧАТЬ