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‘I can’t believe you thought you could just turn up here and whisk a three-year-old child off to another country, when he doesn’t even know you,’ Erin threw at him. ‘Kazim is little more than a baby, for heaven’s sake, who has just lost his father. Didn’t it occur to you that he would be terrified at being dragged off by a complete stranger?’
‘I was not going to drag him anywhere,’ Zahir snapped, stung by her criticism. ‘I came here alone today, rather than with my usual team of staff, so that he would have a chance to get to know me. My brother must have known I would come for him once I learned of his existence,’ he added harshly. ‘I assumed Kazim’s nanny had been instructed to continue caring for him until I arrived. I have already employed a highly qualified and experienced nanny to take charge of him in Qubbah.’
Fear gripped Erin, and her confusion intensified, but she hid both emotions. ‘Well, I’m sorry you’ve had a wasted journey,’ she said, forcing herself to sound calm. ‘But Faisal made it clear that he wanted Kazim to grow up in England—with me. He asked me to adopt Kazim, and I was happy to do so.’
‘In that case, why did he make no mention of you in his letter?’
Zahir had voiced the question that Erin could not answer, but she was saved from having to try when Gordon Straker stood up.
‘I’m sorry to interrupt, but it looks as though the weather is getting worse, and I have a train to catch,’ he said apologetically. He was already pulling on his coat, glancing worriedly out of the window at the heavy sky that warned snow was likely to continue falling for many hours yet. ‘Erin, if you need my advice at all…’ He hesitated and turned his eyes briefly to Zahir before moving them back to Erin. ‘Please contact me at my London office, any time.’ He walked towards the door, but paused when Zahir spoke sharply.
‘Are you sure there is nothing in the will about the child? No clause stipulating who should care for Kazim—no financial provision made for him?’
‘No,’ the solicitor replied simply. ‘Your brother left everything to Erin—in the expectation, I imagine, that she would provide for Kazim.’
‘Which I will,’ Erin burst out fiercely, infuriated at Zahir’s plainly sceptical expression. ‘I love Kazim as if he was my own child.’
‘Really?’ Zahir swung away from her and gave a harsh laugh. Erin sounded convincing, but he found it impossible to believe that she was prepared to devote her life to a child who was not her own flesh and blood out of love. Not when his own mother had abandoned him.
He had barely given his mother a thought for the past decade, Zahir realised with a jolt. Georgina had been his father’s second wife, an American who, according to his three older half-sisters, had found it difficult to settle to the life of strict protocol demanded of wife to the King of Qubbah. Zahir had not known that, and as a young boy he had simply accepted her frequent trips back to the US and waited impatiently for her to return to the palace. But when he was eleven she had not returned, and he’d never seen her or spoken to her again.
His father had explained that she was busy looking after her sick mother and couldn’t come back. Zahir had missed her desperately, and for a long time after she had gone he had kept her silk robe hidden beneath his pillow and wept into it every night. But when he was fourteen he learned the truth—that she had refused to live in Qubbah any longer and had accepted a huge financial settlement from his father in return for not seeking custody of her only son.
She had sold him—and he had never cried again after he’d found out, nor spared her another thought. But he had learned a valuable lesson about love and trust, Zahir conceded bitterly—a lesson that had been reinforced six years ago, when he had been betrayed by the only other woman he had ever loved.
Noises from beyond the library door catapulted him back to the present: the sound of a child crying mingled with a distinctive, broad Yorkshire accent. A moment later the door was flung open and a woman appeared with a hysterical toddler her arms.
‘Sorry to disturb you.’ She addressed Erin, oblivious to the tension in the room. ‘But Kazim has banged his head on the kitchen table. You know how he runs everywhere. Look, there’s a lump the size of an egg come up on his forehead, but he won’t let me console him—he wants you.’
Quickly Erin held out her arms and took the sobbing child from the cook, her heart clenching when he wrapped his arms around her neck and burrowed close. ‘Shh, it’s all right, darling. Let me look at your head.’ She brushed his dark curls off his brow and inspected the livid bruise, before applying the ice pack Alice had handed her. ‘That’s quite a bump you’ve got there, but there’s no real harm done.’
Kazim’s sobs gradually subsided as she cuddled him. He smelled deliciously of soap and baby powder, and the intensity of her love for him squeezed her heart like a giant fist. She had adored him since he was three months old, and nothing would ever make her give him up, she vowed fiercely. But when she glanced up and saw Faisal’s brother watching her, with his dark, forbidding gaze, she was filled with a sense of foreboding.
Alice heaved a sigh of relief. ‘Kazim’s a little daredevil,’ she cheerfully informed the two men. ‘He’s always running and climbing, and he’s constantly getting into mischief. Erin has her work cut out, looking after him.’
Erin saw Zahir frown and groaned silently. Thanks, Alice—that’s a real help.
‘Shouldn’t you seek medical advice for his head injury?’ he queried coldly.
Kazim was squirming in her arms, wanting to get down and clearly none the worse for his accident. ‘He’s fine,’ Erin said tersely. ‘He’s a lively three year-old, for goodness’ sake, I can’t keep him wrapped in cotton wool. I’m a fully trained nanny and qualified in first-aid,’ she continued, when Zahir looked unconvinced. ‘I’m perfectly capable of looking after him.’
She lifted her chin and her eyes clashed with his cold, faintly contemptuous gaze. She hated his arrogance, but she could not look away from him. As she watched heat flared in those dark depths, and for a split second raw, sexual hunger gleamed beneath his heavy brows before his thick lashes fell, concealing his thoughts.
Shaken, she glanced at Gordon Straker, who was edging towards the door. ‘Erin, I’m sorry, but I really must…’
‘Yes, of course.’ Making a swift decision, she set Kazim down and turned to Alice. ‘Will you keep an eye on him while I see Mr Straker out?’
She hurried across the hall after the solicitor, and stopped him as he was about to open the front door. ‘Mr Straker, when did Faisal give you the letter he instructed you to send to his brother after his death? Was it when he married me?’ she queried huskily.
‘Oh, no, it was about a month before he died. Until then I hadn’t known Faisal had any family, and I see that the revelation has come as a shock to you too,’ he added gently.
Erin bit her lip, feeling a sudden urge to confide in the kindly solicitor. ‘From the moment Faisal learned that he was dying he was desperate to secure Kazim’s future,’ she explained urgently. ‘I’ve cared for him since he was three months old. Faisal’s wife died as a result of complications while giving birth, and when Faisal’s illness was diagnosed a year ago he asked me to marry him to make it easier for me to adopt Kazim. He told me he had no other family and he didn’t want Kazim to grow up in care—like I had.’
She hated talking about her past, and dropped her gaze from Gordon Straker’s face as she continued in a low voice, ‘My mother was a drug addict, who died when I was ten, and I spent the rest of my childhood in the care of Social Services. I was a troubled teenager, and I don’t know where I would be now if I hadn’t been fostered—maybe working the streets to pay for my next fix like my mother,’ she confessed thickly. ‘My foster father worked here at Ingledean, as a gardener,