take this in,’ she said. ‘You can’t spring this all on me, Malik. Not so suddenly, and then expect me to fall in with your plans without so much as a murmur.’
‘I haven’t suggested any plans.’ But he would. Soon.
‘I know, but...’ Gracie sank her teeth into her lower lip again, and, despite the tension and anger and uncertainty, Malik felt his body respond, a sudden jolt of desire that appalled him. He couldn’t feel even a shred of that for Gracie now. There was no point, and it would only cloud the issue at hand...securing the succession of the throne, and the stability of his country. ‘Give me some time,’ she implored. ‘How about... How about we meet tomorrow? I could meet you at a restaurant...’
Malik gave her a long, hard look. She was trying to manage him. Him, the heir to the sultanate of Alazar, manipulated by a slip of a woman from Nowhereville, USA. His lip curled. ‘Very well. I will arrange a place and send a car for you.’
‘I can meet you...’
‘It is not necessary. The car will come at seven o’clock.’
Irritation sparked in her eyes. She didn’t like being managed, either. ‘Seven-thirty.’
He almost smiled at that. ‘Fine.’ His gaze moved slowly over her, taking in the changes for the first time. Her hair was a shade darker than it had been ten years ago, although it still fell in tumbling curls and waves over her shoulders. Her body was still slender, although perhaps a little bit rounder, a little bit more womanly. Instead of youthful cut-offs and a T-shirt, she wore a khaki-coloured skirt and a summery cotton blouse dotted with tiny pink flowers. She still wore the kind of brightly coloured sneakers she’d had on in Rome, and the realisation almost made him smile again. She might be older, but Gracie Jones had not lost her spark. He was, bizarrely and pointlessly, glad of that.
Deliberately he moved his gaze back up to her face. ‘Tomorrow night, then.’ Malik turned to go. His hand was on the door when she spoke again.
‘Malik...’ Her voice was soft, and yet he stopped in his tracks. ‘You haven’t even asked his name.’
A new, unidentifiable emotion came at him like an arrow, piercing the steel he’d surrounded himself with for so long. His hand clenched on the doorknob, this strange new vulnerability unsettling him deeply. It was too much to process in that moment, too much to reveal. A lifetime of maintaining the armour of cold indifference could not be shed so quickly or easily. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said shortly, the words wounding him as well as her, and then he opened the door and walked out.
* * *
Gracie didn’t sleep at all that night. She lay in bed, the moonlight sifting silver patterns on the floor, as her mind raced and seethed, trying to make sense of Malik’s bombshell of a visit.
Why did he want a father’s rights to his son if he didn’t even care about his name? What was really going on? Anxiety pulsed and writhed inside her as she thought of unleashing this new, frighteningly cold Malik on his son. He was, she feared, turning into his grandfather, a ruthless man interested only in the power he could wield. Or maybe he’d always been that way, and he’d just hidden it well. She didn’t know him, she reminded herself. She’d never known him.
And she would not let Sam experience the same harsh cruelty she’d once felt from Malik—except she might not have any choice. Malik was Sam’s father. As he’d said, he had rights. Rights Gracie might not be able to deny even if she wanted to.
The next morning, bleary-eyed and distracted, she snapped at Sam, who looked surprised and hurt before she pulled him in for a too-tight hug. She couldn’t lose him. She wouldn’t. In the middle of the night, in the darkness of her own frightened mind, she’d feared that Malik might spirit Sam away, snatch him on the way to school or even from his own bed. His horrible grandfather was certainly capable of it.
Now, however, with sunlight streaming through the window and the sound of children’s laughter coming from outside, she wondered if she was being both paranoid and extreme. Surely Malik wouldn’t commit a crime.
She still felt shaky inside that evening as she prepared to get ready for her dinner with Malik. She’d agonised over what to wear and had decided on business attire—a pair of tailored dark trousers and a crisp white blouse. She pulled her hair back with a clip and softened the look with a slick of lip gloss, adding red patent leather flats because sometimes it felt as if a splash of colour was her only reminder of how fun she’d used to be.
Her sister Anna knocked on the door to the apartment.
‘Anybody home?’ she called out before laughing as Sam barrelled into her. ‘Hey, buddy. You ready to get going?’
‘Yeah!’ Sam crowed, and with a strained smile Gracie came into the kitchen.
‘Thanks for having Sam tonight, Anna.’
‘Any time, you know that. His cousins love sleepovers.’ Anna had three young boys and they all adored Sam. Her sister glanced at her outfit, which was severe for her. ‘Um...is this a job interview? For a funeral director? Because you don’t normally dress like that.’
‘Sort of,’ Gracie admitted with a sigh. ‘But not for a funeral director.’ At least she hoped she wasn’t sounding the death knell of life as she knew it.
Sam swung around to goggle at her. ‘You’re getting a new job? But I like you being at my school.’
‘I’ll still be at your school,’ Gracie assured him. ‘This is for something different.’ Already she felt tangled up in a web of lies, but she wasn’t ready to tell anyone about Malik or his visit.
Anna frowned at her. ‘Are you okay? You seem tense.’
Gracie felt as if she might snap in half. ‘I’m fine,’ she assured her sister. ‘Just a little nervous.’
Sam ran to get his stuff for the sleepover and Anna took a step closer to her, her eyes narrowed. ‘Is this really a job interview?’
‘Do I look like I dressed for a date?’ Gracie tried to joke.
‘I don’t know.’ Anna’s frown deepened. ‘Jonathan mentioned someone came to the house to see you last night. He said he looked scary.’
So that hadn’t flown under the family’s radar after all. ‘He was just tall,’ Gracie dismissed with a wobbly laugh. ‘You know Jonathan.’
‘Gracie...you haven’t got yourself into some kind of...trouble, have you?’
Gracie glanced in the mirror and fussed with her hair, needing the distraction. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t know,’ Anna confessed. ‘With money or something...’
‘Money?’ Gracie turned from the mirror. ‘Seriously? You think I had some loan shark coming around Mom and Dad’s?’
Anna had the grace to look slightly abashed at this. ‘I guess not.’
‘I’m fine,’ Gracie said with more conviction than she actually felt. ‘Don’t worry about me, Anna, please.’ She was so tired of being the Jones kid who’d messed up and then made good, only sort of. She didn’t want everyone clucking and sighing over her. She’d fix this. Somehow she’d fix this.
She waited outside on the pavement for the car Malik had said he would send, and then stared as a stretch limo came around the corner and pulled up in front of her parents’ house. She saw curtains twitch at a dozen different windows and felt a surprised smile bloom across her face. Maybe Malik was trying to impress or intimidate, but she kind of liked the idea of the good people of Addison Heights seeing her being picked up in a limo.
Malik emerged from the car, looking devastatingly sexy in a black button-down shirt, open at the throat, and black trousers. His eyes gleamed in his face as he took in Gracie’s appearance. Suddenly she wished she’d worn something feminine and flirty, but how stupid was that? She’d been seduced once by this man. She had no