It was crazy. Totally and completely. But she had nothing left here, not without Leena. No reason not to accept the insane offer.
You don’t know him.
No, she didn’t know him. But if she didn’t go, her daughter would. Without her there to protect her. No. That couldn’t happen. It wouldn’t. No matter the cost.
Unbidden, she thought of her own wedding day, more than eight years ago. She’d been so young. So full of hope for the future. And so very much in love.
Marrying Alik, making him her husband, she felt like it made a mockery of that. Felt like she was putting Alik in a place that should be reserved for another man. The man that she’d loved with all of her heart.
Oh, Sunil, please forgive me.
She didn’t know if he would have been able to. She wasn’t sure if he’d truly understood her desire to have children. If he’d realized how deep it went. Or maybe he had, and he simply couldn’t acknowledge it, because for him, it would mean facing how much he’d failed her. But she’d never seen it that way. She would have been happy, even then, to adopt.
Still, just for a moment, she wished she had him back so she could lean on his strength. Feel his arms around her, in comfort, just one more time.
It was a strange disconnect, though. If she still had Sunil, she wouldn’t have Leena. And she needed Leena.
Truly, marrying Alik was marrying for love. For the love of her child.
Then another thought occurred to her. One that made her feel scared and hot at the same time. She didn’t know if it was angry heat, embarrassed heat, or something else entirely. It was the something else entirely that really worried her.
“You said there would be very little difference between my position as nanny and my position as wife. Were you planning on sexually harassing me as your staff or are you planning on keeping your hands off me if I’m your wife?”
“It is of no matter to me. If you want sex, I’m more than willing to give it.”
The thought made a rash of heat spread over her skin. The way he said things like that, so bald and open, was something she just didn’t understand. She wasn’t a prude, but she wasn’t going to start offering sex to a stranger either, as if it wasn’t a bigger deal than choosing between pizza or dal for dinner.
“If I want sex?”
“You make it sound strange. Don’t you like sex?”
She nearly choked. “I…I don’t…It’s not a recreational activity.”
“Perhaps not to you.” The smile that curved his lips told her he, indeed, thought of it as such, and she felt her toes curl in her shoes. Oh, good grief, he wasn’t that hot. He was inappropriate. “Either way, the choice is yours. If you want it, I am willing.”
“And if I don’t?” she asked.
“As I said, it is of no matter to me. I’m not intending to pledge my faithfulness either way.”
“You’re not?” she asked, annoyed by that for some reason. Perhaps because in this plan, Alik seemed to be giving up nothing, while for her, everything was changing.
“I have a short attention span where women are concerned. My life is not conducive to relationships.”
“I don’t know that anyone’s is. That’s why people work at their marriages, you know?” For all that she’d loved her husband, they’d had their problems, but everyone in a long-term relationship did.
“Do you want my faithfulness?”
She half snorted half laughed. “Hardly.”
“Then why make an issue of it? I won’t demand yours, either. So long as Leena is cared for, I can’t be bothered by what you do or who you’re doing it with.”
“Did you honestly just question whether or not I will care for Leena? I’ve been doing it for the past year—it’s hardly going to change now. It’s all I want to do. She’s what I want.”
“And because of that you have no interest in relationships?”
“I had a relationship,” she said, feeling, for some reason, like claiming Sunil as a husband, considering the conversation, might cheapen it in some way. “He was all I ever wanted in a man, and he’s gone now. That part of my life is gone. Over. Leena is my life now.”
“Very noble of you.”
“Hardly. I just know that I already had what a lot of people spend a lifetime looking for. No one gets that lucky twice.”
He skipped over her words, as though he hadn’t even been listening. “As I said, I don’t care either way.”
She felt numb. Light-headed. There was only one answer she could give.
“I will have to collect my things,” she said, her words detached, as though they were being spoken by a stranger.
“I can send someone to do that for you.”
Of course he could. He was a billionaire and all. “When would the marriage take place?”
“As soon as possible. In fact, I know just the place to have the wedding.”
“Wedding?” she repeated, knowing she sounded dull.
“Of course we will have a wedding. We want it all to look authentic. For Leena’s sake if for no other reason.”
Just like that, she was treated with a welcome burst of anger. She stood from her chair, Leena still in her arms. “And your being seen with other women won’t seem abnormal to Leena? I hope to God it does.”
“She won’t know about it,” he said.
“How?”
He smiled, bright white teeth against tanned skin. “I’m a ghost, Jada. You don’t read about me in the news, and there’s a very good reason for that.”
“You don’t read about me in the news, either, and the reason is that I’m boring.”
“Oh, I am not boring, and if the press ever got wind of me? I would be a headline.” Coming from another man it would have sounded like bragging. Like he was talking himself up. But Alik said it like he was stating the most mundane of facts. And it made her believe him. “As it is,” he continued, “they know nothing about me, and I intend to keep it that way.”
A shiver ran up her back, the hair on her neck standing on end. “You have a high opinion of yourself and your media appeal.”
Granted, he would have media appeal in spades. Even if it was just because he had model good looks. She looked at him harder. No, perhaps he didn’t have a model’s good looks. Models usually possessed some sort of androgynous beauty, while Alik was hard. A scar ran through the center of his chin, one marring the smooth line of his upper lip. His hands were no better. Rough, looking as though the skin on the backs of them had been, at some point in his life, reduced to hamburger, and had since healed badly.
She hadn’t noticed at first. She’d been too bowled over by his presence in general to take in the finer details. And now she was wondering exactly who this man was. This man she’d agreed to marry.
She had a feeling that she didn’t really want to know.
“I’m simply realistic,” he said. “However, anonymity suits me. It always has.”
“Well, that’s good, because it suits me, too.”
“Glad to hear it.” He picked up his cell phone and punched in a number. “Bring the car to the front of the coffee shop. And map the route to the airport.”
“The