Heir to a Dark Inheritance Read Free

Only one thing stopping her from opening her purse, finding her mace and unleashing her fury on those stormy gray eyes.
    Leena.
    He was holding a squirming Leena in his arms. And she was squirming to try to get to Jada. She could only stare at her daughter for a moment, hungry to take in every detail. To remember every bit of her.
    Jada scrambled to her feet and extended her arms. Leena leaned away from Alik’s body, and he had no choice but to deposit the fussing, wiggling child into her arms.
    Jada clung to her daughter, and Leena clung to her. Jada closed her eyes and pressed her face into her daughter’s silky brown hair, inhaled her scent. Lavender shampoo and that sweet, wonderful smell unique to babies.
    She didn’t feel like she was drowning now. She could breathe again, her heart finding its rhythm.
    “Mama!” Leena’s exclamation, so filled with joy and relief. And Jada broke to pieces inside.
    “It’s okay,” she whispered, more for her benefit than her daughter’s. “It’s okay.” And she knew she lied. But she needed the lie like air and she wouldn’t deny herself.
    “She does not like me,” Alik said, his voice frayed. For the first time since she’d seen him, he was betraying his own discomfort with the situation.
    “You’re a stranger,” she said.
    “I’m her father.” He said it as if a one-year-old child cared about genetics.
    “She doesn’t care if you’re related to her or not. Not in the least. I am her mother as far as she’s concerned. The only mother she knows.”
    “We need to talk.”
    “What about?”
    “About this,” he said, his voice slightly ragged, a bit of that smooth charm of his finally slipping. “About what we need to do.”
    She didn’t know what he meant, but she knew that right now she was holding Leena, so the rest didn’t matter.
    “Where?” she asked.
    “My car. It is fitted with a car seat.”
    “Okay,” she said. Going with him should feel strange; after all, she didn’t know the man. But the court had found no reason he couldn’t be a fit father. That meant they were going to send her baby off with this man, by herself. So she was hardly going to hesitate over getting in his car with him, all things considered.
    She swallowed hard. There was no one else to do this. She was the final authority here, the only one who could change things. And she would take every second with Leena she could get.
    She followed him out of the courthouse and down the steps. He pulled out his phone and spoke into it. She wasn’t sure what language he was speaking. It wasn’t Russian, English or Hindi, that much she knew. A man of many talents, it seemed.
    A moment later a black limousine pulled up against the curb and Alik leaned over, opening the back door. “Why don’t you get her settled.”
    She complied mutely, putting Leena, who was starting to nod off after her traumatic afternoon, into the seat and then climbing in and sitting in the spot next to hers. She hadn’t wanted to take any chances that he might drive off while she was rounding the car. Paranoid, maybe, but there was no such thing as too paranoid in a situation like this.
    She was momentarily awed by the luxuriousness of the car. She’d ridden in a limo after her wedding, but it hadn’t been anywhere near this nice. The seats lined the interior of the limo, leaving the middle open. There was a cooler with champagne in it.
    That made her bristle. Had he been planning on celebrating his victory over champagne? A toast to stealing her child away? She wanted to hit him. To hurt him. Give him a taste of what she was dealing with.
    “What is it you wanted to speak to me about?” she asked, her voice sharper than she intended.
    He closed the door behind him and settled into place. “Drink?”
    “No. No drink. What is it you wanted to talk about?”
    “How did you meet the child’s mother?”
    “Leena,” she bit out. “Her name is Leena.”
    “What sort of name is that?”
    “Hindi.