Heir To A Dark Inheritance. Maisey Yates

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СКАЧАТЬ do with herself?

      Her shoulders shook and a sob worked its way up her throat, her body shuddering with the force of it. People were walking by, trying not to stare at her as she dissolved, utterly and completely, in the hall of the courthouse.

      And she didn’t care. What did it matter if a bunch of strangers thought she was losing her mind? She might very well be. And if they felt uncomfortable being in the presence of her grief, she didn’t care. It was nothing compared to trying to live inside her body. Nothing compared to contending with the pain she was dealing with.

      “Ms. Patel.” That voice again.

      She looked up from her position on the floor, and saw the man, the man who had taken her baby from her. There was only one thing that stopped her from going for his throat. Only one thing stopping her from opening her purse, finding her mace and unleashing her fury on those stormy gray eyes.

      Leena.

      He was holding a squirming Leena in his arms. And she was squirming to try to get to Jada. She could only stare at her daughter for a moment, hungry to take in every detail. To remember every bit of her.

      Jada scrambled to her feet and extended her arms. Leena leaned away from Alik’s body, and he had no choice but to deposit the fussing, wiggling child into her arms.

      Jada clung to her daughter, and Leena clung to her. Jada closed her eyes and pressed her face into her daughter’s silky brown hair, inhaled her scent. Lavender shampoo and that sweet, wonderful smell unique to babies.

      She didn’t feel like she was drowning now. She could breathe again, her heart finding its rhythm.

      “Mama!” Leena’s exclamation, so filled with joy and relief. And Jada broke to pieces inside.

      “It’s okay,” she whispered, more for her benefit than her daughter’s. “It’s okay.” And she knew she lied. But she needed the lie like air and she wouldn’t deny herself.

      “She does not like me,” Alik said, his voice frayed. For the first time since she’d seen him, he was betraying his own discomfort with the situation.

      “You’re a stranger,” she said.

      “I’m her father.” He said it as if a one-year-old child cared about genetics.

      “She doesn’t care if you’re related to her or not. Not in the least. I am her mother as far as she’s concerned. The only mother she knows.”

      “We need to talk.”

      “What about?”

      “About this,” he said, his voice slightly ragged, a bit of that smooth charm of his finally slipping. “About what we need to do.”

      She didn’t know what he meant, but she knew that right now she was holding Leena, so the rest didn’t matter.

      “Where?” she asked.

      “My car. It is fitted with a car seat.”

      “Okay,” she said. Going with him should feel strange; after all, she didn’t know the man. But the court had found no reason he couldn’t be a fit father. That meant they were going to send her baby off with this man, by herself. So she was hardly going to hesitate over getting in his car with him, all things considered.

      She swallowed hard. There was no one else to do this. She was the final authority here, the only one who could change things. And she would take every second with Leena she could get.

      She followed him out of the courthouse and down the steps. He pulled out his phone and spoke into it. She wasn’t sure what language he was speaking. It wasn’t Russian, English or Hindi, that much she knew. A man of many talents, it seemed.

      A moment later a black limousine pulled up against the curb and Alik leaned over, opening the back door. “Why don’t you get her settled.”

      She complied mutely, putting Leena, who was starting to nod off after her traumatic afternoon, into the seat and then climbing in and sitting in the spot next to hers. She hadn’t wanted to take any chances that he might drive off while she was rounding the car. Paranoid, maybe, but there was no such thing as too paranoid in a situation like this.

      She was momentarily awed by the luxuriousness of the car. She’d ridden in a limo after her wedding, but it hadn’t been anywhere near this nice. The seats lined the interior of the limo, leaving the middle open. There was a cooler with champagne in it.

      That made her bristle. Had he been planning on celebrating his victory over champagne? A toast to stealing her child away? She wanted to hit him. To hurt him. Give him a taste of what she was dealing with.

      “What is it you wanted to speak to me about?” she asked, her voice sharper than she intended.

      He closed the door behind him and settled into place. “Drink?”

      “No. No drink. What is it you wanted to talk about?”

      “How did you meet the child’s mother?”

      “Leena,” she bit out. “Her name is Leena.”

      “What sort of name is that?”

      “Hindi. She’s named for my mother.”

      “She should have a Russian name. I’m Russian.”

      “And I’m Indian, and she’s my daughter. And really, aren’t you some kind of arrogant, thinking you can come and just take my child away from her home, away from her mother and then, on top of it all rename her?”

      His dark brows shot upward. “I will not rename her. It is not a bad name.”

      “Thank you,” she said, cursing her own good manners. She shouldn’t be thanking him. She should be macing him.

      “Now,” he said, straightening, his posture stiff, like he was about to start a business meeting, “how did you meet Leena’s mother?”

      “Just…through an adoption agency. She told me the baby’s father was dead and that she couldn’t possibly raise the child on her own. It was a semi-open adoption. She was able to choose the person she wanted to take her. It wasn’t easy for her.” She remembered the way the other woman had looked after giving birth, when she’d handed Leena to Jada. She’d looked so tired. So sad. But also relieved. “But it was right for her.”

      “And the adoption?”

      “Normally they’re finalized within six months of placement. In Oregon the birth mother can’t sign the papers until after the birth, which makes it all take a bit longer. And we were held up further because…because while she listed the birth father as dead, it wasn’t something that was confirmed. She had your name, but there was no record of your death, and neither could you be found to sign away your rights. And it hadn’t been long enough for you to simply be declared absentee.”

      “And then they found me.”

      “Yes, they did. Lucky me.”

      “I am sorry for you, Jada. I am.” He didn’t sound it at all. СКАЧАТЬ