met his gaze without flinching. ‘I don’t know you any more. I have to be sure that you’re no longer the man you used to be. You have to convince me that you’ve changed. I don’t want Leo mixing with gamblers or heavy drinkers, or witnessing a stream of women parading their bodies in front of him.’
His mouth twisted. ‘You mean you want to vet me?’
‘Can you blame me?’ she retorted. ‘But we also need to discuss what to say to him. If you’re going to meet Leo after all this time, we need to present a united front.’
Dimitri felt his body tense as she stated her demands. As if what she wanted was the only thing which mattered. There was no sense of remorse that she’d kept this information from him for so long, was there? Not a flicker of it...
Anger bubbled up inside him and suddenly he felt the need to lash out. Without thinking, he caught hold of her arms—thinking how slim they felt beneath the borrowed sweater. She jerked her head back in surprise so that the light caught the cheap, fake pearls which were woven into her hair. Her lips were parted, her green eyes were dark and, although her face was wary, he realised that she still wanted him. That in the midst of everything, there was desire. Of course there was. No female remained immune to him for long. He could feel sexual hunger pulsating in the air around them as his gaze flickered to the twin thrust of her nipples pinpointing against the soft wool of the sweater. He thought how easy it would be to burrow his hands beneath. To caress those hard little nubs with the skill which could sometimes make a woman come, just by doing that. For a nanosecond he was tempted beyond measure, his fingers longing to creep over those tiny mounds and play with them.
Until he remembered that this was the woman who had deliberately concealed his son from him. Who had written him out of her life as if he no longer existed. How could he possibly desire a woman like that? Abruptly, he dropped his hands, wondering if she was aware that disappointment was written all over her face as he did so. A flicker of triumph coursed through him as she bit her lip and he took a moment to enjoy her obvious frustration.
‘So what were you planning to do after your wedding?’ he questioned. ‘Were you coming back here to the café with your new husband to parade your shiny new ring for all to see?’
‘No. We’d...we’d planned to spend a long weekend at a hotel in the country. Chico took my suitcase down there yesterday.’
‘For your honeymoon?’ he scorned.
‘I suppose you could call it that. It was intended to make our marriage seem more authentic to the authorities, that was all.’
‘So Leo knows about the wedding?’
There was silence for a moment. ‘Of course he does,’ she said. ‘He likes Chico. We were... We were all going to live together in a lovely house in the country.’
‘A fake marriage to a gay man—with separate rooms, I presume?’ he said. ‘How the hell was that supposed to work?’
‘We would have made it work,’ she defended. ‘I was thinking about Leo’s future. About giving him the financial security I could never guarantee him!’
‘What kind of example is that to set for a child?’ he demanded bitterly, because he was discovering a nerve which was still raw, even after all these years. ‘Basing your life on lies and deception?’
Nervously, she glanced out of the window. ‘I don’t want to talk about it any more. At least, not now,’ she said, her voice growing strained. ‘Because we’re nearly there.’
He followed the direction of her gaze to the grey, treeless streets outside. ‘And will my son be there?’
She flinched a little, as if it hurt to hear him use the possessive phrase. Well, tough, he thought grimly. She was going to have to get used to a lot more than that.
‘No. He’ll still be at school. He won’t be back for a couple of hours.’
Dimitri flexed his fingers as he forced himself to think about practicalities, because he could see that she was right. He couldn’t just burst in, unannounced—and although it went against his every instinct, he could see that the process should be gradual. Yet his discovery about the boy could not have come at a worse time, because he was due to travel to Jazratan tomorrow, for some delicate end-stage negotiations with the Sheikh of that oil-rich land. It was a deal which had been a long time in the making, and Saladin Al Mektala was not a man whose presence you could postpone. But Dimitri recognised suddenly that this discovery was more important than any deal—and the realisation surprised him almost as much as the unexpected twist of his heart when he thought of his unknown son. Because he was a man who put business above everything—who never allowed his personal life to intrude on his material ambitions.
He glanced at Erin, but she wasn’t looking at him. Her head was bent and the fake pearls were glinting in her dark hair. He guessed he could start getting to know Leo when he returned from his desert trip, but he was reluctant to let her out of his sight. What if she disappeared while he was away, taking Leo with her? If she was determined for him not to meet his son, he wouldn’t put it past her. He wouldn’t put anything past her.
Unless... Restlessly, he tapped his finger against one taut thigh as he began to sift through all the options which lay open to him and the germ of an idea came to him. It wasn’t perfect, but it was simple—if he could persuade her to accept it. His mouth hardened, knowing he would make her accept it, whether she liked it or not.
‘So if the wedding is off and you were due to go away for the weekend, then Leo won’t be expecting you home?’ he said.
‘N-no,’ she answered uncertainly, as if sensing a trap.
‘Then listen to me very carefully, Erin—because this is what you are going to do. You will go and pack yourself another bag.’
She stilled. ‘What for?’
‘Think about it. You said that you needed to get to know me and that we needed to present a united front when I meet Leo—so that’s exactly what we’re going to do. As it happens, I’m booked to go to Jazratan this weekend to stay at the royal palace—’
‘Not with the horse-mad Sheikh?’
Her instant recall of his business dealings made him give a reluctant nod of satisfaction. ‘That’s the one.’
‘You’re not still trying to buy some of his oil wells?’
‘Indeed I am. And I am this close...’ he held up his thumb and forefinger, with a distance of an inch between them ‘...to succeeding. Which is why the trip cannot be cancelled—and why you will be accompanying me.’
‘Me?’ Her voice was a squeak as her hands tightened into balled fists. ‘Why on earth would I come with you to Jazratan?’
‘Why not? It will provide us with the space we need. I’ll have to run it past the Sheikh’s advisors first, but I can foresee no problem. You were the best secretary I’ve ever had and you’ve worked on some of the negotiations with me in the past. I can say that I want you beside me if and when I sign the biggest deal of my life.’
She stared at him. ‘Are you...out of your mind?’
Abruptly, his mood seemed to change. Gone was the element of negotiation and in its place was a steely determination she recognised only too well.
‘No, I am not out of my mind,’ he iced back. ‘I am trying to work out a solution and I am fighting every instinct I possess not to go in there and tell that little boy the truth. To tell him that not only is his mother a liar, but that she has kept me completely out of the loop. I don’t think the courts look very favourably on that kind of behaviour these days. A mother denying her child access to his father is seen as selfish, not noble—and gone are the days when a father has no rights. So are you going to accept my suggestion, Erin—or are you going to waste time by arguing with me, when we both know I always get what I want in the end?’
Yes, he