The Secret Heir Of Alazar

‘For what purpose?’ Rage choked him, made it hard to speak or even breathe. ‘You didn’t think to tell me any of this?’

‘You didn’t need to know.’

‘I should have been the one to decide that.’

Asad shrugged, unrepentant. ‘You know now.’

Malik forced himself to breathe evenly. He knew from far too much experience that arguing with his grandfather served no purpose. There were other ways to best the old man. ‘So what happened in Prague? You sent her away, I presume?’

‘I bought her off. Fifty thousand dollars.’ Asad’s mouth twisted in contempt. ‘She took it readily enough.’

‘Did she?’ Malik could not assess how he felt about that. He had not thought about Gracie in so long he didn’t know how he felt about any of it. She’d been pregnant. And she’d had no compunction about not letting him know.

‘She cashed the cheque the next day,’ Asad continued. ‘And she had the child. A son. I checked.’

Malik turned away to hide the betraying emotion he was sure would be on his face. A son. He could not even fathom it. Gracie had been raising his son for ten years. ‘How could you keep this from me?’ he demanded in a low, raw voice.

‘Don’t be a fool. Of course I had to keep it from you. The publicity would have damaged your reputation as well as the stability of the kingdom. The boy is a bastard, his blood is tainted.’

‘He’s mine—’ The words rose up in him, a raw, primal howl of possession that shocked him with its ferocity. He’d never felt anything like it before.

‘He is your heir,’ Asad agreed coolly, cutting him off. ‘Now. And for that reason you must secure his future and bring him back to Alazar. Let us hope he has not been too weakened by his lax upbringing. There is time to shape him yet.’

‘And what of his mother?’ Malik demanded.

Asad’s mouth twisted. ‘What about her?’

‘She might not agree.’

‘She will have to. In any case your heir cannot be a bastard. You will have to marry the woman.’ Asad spoke with distaste, even as Malik felt a pulse of—what? He could not identify the emotion. Excitement, perhaps. Desire. Even after all these years. He pushed the feeling away. He had no time for it now. Any marriage he contracted would be one of expediency, not emotion. He would not be controlled by feelings the way his father had, to his shame and destruction.

‘The people might not accept an American bride and heir,’ Malik observed.

‘Then you will have to put her away somewhere remote.’ Asad flicked his fingers in a dismissive gesture. ‘Keep her in purdah in one of our distant palaces. Whatever the cost, you must do your duty.’

‘You do not need to remind me,’ Malik answered, ‘or tell me what to do.’ He straightened, giving Asad a long, level look. ‘I will make my own choices,’ he said, and walked out of the room.

Alone in his private office Malik stared unseeingly out at the domes, spires and flat roofs of Teruk’s old city. He had a son, a child he’d never, ever been aware of.

A shudder escaped him, and he turned from the window. He could hardly believe his grandfather had kept something so monumental from him, even as he acknowledged Asad’s actions, their innate coldness and cruelty, would never surprise him.

And what of Gracie? For a moment he allowed himself to picture her, the tumbling brown hair, the glinting golden-green gaze, the wide, ready smile. Then he closed his mind to her and all the what-ifs that had ended a decade ago. He could not think of Gracie that way now. He would not. No matter what Asad had done, she had wilfully kept his child from him. The only purpose or role in his life now for her was as the mother of his child...and as his convenient wife.

* * *

‘What’s the capital of Mongolia?’

Gracie wrinkled her nose as she considered the answer and then came up with nothing. ‘Sorry, Sam, I have no idea,’ she told him cheerfully. ‘But I’m sure you’ll tell me.’

‘Ulaanbaatar,’ he said triumphantly, and Gracie suppressed a smile. Her son had an insatiable knowledge for facts and was constantly begging her to quiz him. When she ran out of questions to ask, he started quizzing her and left her both amazed and humbled by his knowledge.

‘Teeth and bed,’ she said now, and with a dramatic sigh Sam rose from the table in their small kitchen. For the last ten years Gracie had been living in the converted apartment over her parents’ garage. A tiny kitchen, living room, and two bedrooms and a bathroom were all it comprised, but it was homey and hers and she was grateful to her parents for giving her the opportunity.

Ten years ago, when she’d told them she was pregnant, and by a near stranger at that, they’d been shocked and, yes, disappointed. But they’d rallied around her and Sam, and she’d never once regretted her choice. If she occasionally wished for some way to flee the sometimes stifling confines of her life—well, that was normal, wasn’t it? Everyone longed for adventure once in a while. It didn’t mean she wanted out.

And there was no out, because she needed her part-time job as a classroom assistant at the elementary school, just as she needed her parents’ support, even if it came with the occasional sigh or frown, and the knowledge that out of six children she was known as ‘the Jones screw-up’. The girl who’d gone to Europe and come back pregnant—a warning to any other dreamy teens who might hope for adventure the way she had.

While Sam got ready for bed, making a ton of noise as he did so, Gracie tidied the kitchen, humming under her breath. From the window over the sink she could see the white clapboard house she’d always called home, with its bowed front porch, American flag, and neat flower beds of begonias and geraniums.

Her parents had been incredibly thoughtful about giving Gracie her own space, but the reality was she was living in her parents’ backyard. It wasn’t exactly where you wanted to be when you were staring down the barrel of thirty years old.

Still, Gracie reminded herself as she wiped the table and turned on the dishwasher, she was better off than some. She had a job she enjoyed, a home for her and her son, a few friends who she went out with on occasion. If life felt a little quiet, a little dull, well, so be it. Plenty of people felt the same.

She’d just put Sam to bed when a gentle knock sounded at the front. ‘Gracie?’ Jonathan called.

‘Hey, Jonathan.’ Gracie opened the door to see her brother standing on the top step of the outside staircase, a worried frown on his usually smiling face. ‘Is everything okay?’

‘There’s someone here to see you.’

‘There is?’ Gracie didn’t get too many visitors at home. Since her apartment was so small, not to mention so close to her parents’ house, she tended to meet her couple of girlfriends in town. ‘Do you know who it is?’ she asked. Everyone pretty much knew everyone in Addison Heights.

Jonathan shook his head. ‘I’ve never seen him before. But he’s kind of scary-looking.’

‘A scary-looking man is here to see me?’ Gracie didn’t know whether to be amused or alarmed. She supposed Keith at the service station was a little bit scary-looking. He’d asked her out last week and she’d firmly rebuffed him. She wasn’t interested in dating, and certainly not Keith, not with Sam to consider. She didn’t think the mechanic would actually come to her house, though.

‘Well, I’d better go see who it is,’ she said lightly, and rested a reassuring hand on her brother’s shoulder. At twenty-seven, Jonathan lived at home and worked part-time bagging groceries at a local supermarket. He also spent several afternoons at a care facility for adults with disabilities, and, while he was more than content with his life, change or uncertainty made him nervous. And the last thing Gracie wanted was for Jonathan to be nervous.

They walked across the yard just as dusk was beginning to fall and the crickets started their incessant chorus. It was early June and already hot, although the twilight brought some needed cool. Gracie came around the corner of the house and then skidded to a complete halt when she saw the man who stood, or really loomed, on her parents’ front porch.

Malik.

He looked incongruous amidst the begonias and white weathered wood in his dark suit, expensively cut and tailored. Utterly forbidding. His face was unsmiling and severe.

He turned to look at her, and for a single second the whole world felt suspended, transformed. Gracie felt as if she’d catapulted back in time a decade; she could almost hear the buzz of a moped, the tinkle of water as they stood by the Trevi Fountain and Malik threw a penny over his shoulder...

Then she landed back in reality with a thud so hard it left her breathless. No, they weren’t in Rome, caught up in an impossible, ridiculous one-night romance that hadn’t been real anyway. They were in Addison Heights, and it was ten years on, and everything had changed, even if for a few seconds she’d felt as if it hadn’t.

But why was he here?

‘Malik...’ she whispered, and found she couldn’t say anything else.

‘You know him, Gracie?’ Jonathan asked. He was looking at Malik with unabashed curiosity. Yes, she acknowledged distantly, Malik was kind of scary-looking now.

Malik’s gaze snapped to focus on Jonathan. ‘This is your brother. Jonathan.’

His voice was the same, a gravelly husk, and it reached right inside Gracie and squeezed. And then came an even more painful realisation: he remembered. How...? Why?

‘Yes,’ she managed, her voice barely a breath. ‘Malik, what...what on earth are you doing here?’ It felt strange to say his name, and she saw the answering awareness flare in his own eyes. Memories tumbled through her, painful and sweet and shockingly fierce. Laughter and kisses, dancing in starlight, holding hands... Gracie took a deep breath. ‘I never expected to see you again.’