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 did.
Always.
Erin tried to get her head around his words. Accompany him to Jazratan, to stay in a desert palace?
He couldn’t force her...yet if she turned him down, her refusal to cooperate would surely impact on Leo. Her gaze strayed to his stony profile and she saw a nerve flickering at his temple—an indication he had reached the limit of his patience, a quality for which he had never been renowned. And she knew he was right. There was no point in fighting him. Because he would win.
‘It seems I have no choice,’ she said.
He smiled, but the smile didn’t touch his eyes. ‘That is possibly the first sensible thing you’ve said all day,’ he said. ‘So go and get your stuff together and explain to your sister that there’s been a change of plan.’ He pulled a card from his pocket and handed it to her. ‘This is my private number. She can contact you via this should the need arise while we’re away.’
Erin took the card from him as the limousine drew up at the end of her road and thoughts of escape overwhelmed her as she reached for the door handle. What if he turned up at the appointed time and she and Leo weren’t there—he would have to leave for Jazratan without her, wouldn’t he?
But almost as if he’d read her mind, he reached out and caught hold of her and Erin could feel her pulse rocketing as his fingers curled over her wrist.
‘This is going to happen, make no mistake. So don’t keep me waiting and don’t even think about running away,’ he said softly. ‘You have precisely one hour and then my car will return for you. Do you understand?’
Erin was still shaking as she watched him drive away, taking a moment to compose herself as she pushed open the door of the Oranges & Lemons café, which her sister had named after a famous nursery rhyme about the church bells of London. It was a bright and cheerful place, decorated with framed paintings of the fruits done by local children, and usually Erin enjoyed that first explosion of colour whenever she walked in. But today all she could think about were a pair of icy eyes and the harsh words