One Reckless Decision: Majesty, Mistress...Missing Heir / Katrakis's Last Mistress / Princess From the Past

“I will stop at nothing to locate a child of my blood,” Tariq said softly. There was a chilling finality to his words then, as if he was making a vow. He took a step toward her, and it took everything she had to stand her ground before him. “I have believed I am the last of my blood, my family, for five years, Jessa. The very last. If that is not so…”

He didn’t finish. But then, he did not have to finish.

Jessa still could not speak. It was as if everything inside her had shut down, turned off.

“You can only remain silent for so long,” he said. His voice was like a whip, cracking through the room hard enough to leave welts against her skin. “But do not doubt that there is only one outcome to this situation. I will find out. The only question is how much of your life I will destroy in the process.”

“Do not bully me!” she cried, surprising herself as well as him, the words ripping from her as if she had torn them from her heart.

“You think I am bullying you?” He was incredulous, pronouncing bullying as if he had never heard the term before.

“Threats, intimidation.” Jessa pressed one hand against her temple. “Is there another word for it?”

“I am not threatening you, Jessa,” he said matter-of-factly, with that ruthlessness underneath. “I am telling you exactly what will happen to you if you continue this. You have no right to keep the truth from me. These are promises.”

“What kind of man are you?” she whispered. She wasn’t sure why she said it. She wanted to sob, to scream, to somehow release the tension that felt as if it swelled up from inside her.

Their eyes locked across the few feet that separated them. He looked as if he had never seen her before, as if she was a perfect stranger who had wounded him. She realized in that moment that she never wanted to be responsible for his pain. That it hurt her, too. But understanding only made the riot inside swirl faster, swell harder, cause more damage. Jessa made herself hold his gaze, though it cost her.

Tariq looked away from her then, as if he had to collect himself before he did something he would regret.

“I suggest you rethink your position,” he said quietly.

Suddenly her tongue was loose. And foolish. “I suggest you—”

“Silence!” He slashed a hand through the air, and said something in what she assumed was Arabic. “I am done listening to you.”

He did not look at her again, but strode toward the bedroom door. Jessa could not believe it. Relief flooded through her. He was leaving? That was it? Could she really be that lucky?

And what was the part of her that yearned, despite everything, for him to stay?

“Where are you going?” she asked, because she wanted to confirm it.

“Shocking as it might seem to you, I have matters of state to attend to,” he growled at her. “Or do you think my kingdom should grind to a halt while you spin your little lies? You can consider this conversation postponed.”

“I am not going to sit around and calmly wait for you to come back and be even more horrible to me,” she told him fiercely. “I am going home.”

He turned when he reached the door to the rest of the suite, his eyes narrow and his mouth hard.

“By all means,” he said, his voice as dark as his gaze, and his warning clear, “go wherever you like. See what happens when you do.” Then he turned his back on her, seemingly still unconcerned with his nudity, and strode from the room.

His sudden absence left a black hole in the room that Jessa feared might suck her in, for a dizzy, irrational beat or two of her heart. For long moments, Jessa could not move. She told herself she was waiting to see if Tariq would return. She told herself she was merely being cautious. But the truth was that she could not have moved so much as an inch if her life depended upon it.

Eventually, when he did not come back, Jessa moved to the edge of the bed and sat down gingerly, carefully, unable to process what had just occurred. Unable to track the course of the past two days. She remembered going to work in the letting agency that morning, having no idea that her whole world would be turned on its ear. That normal, everyday morning felt as far away to her now as if it belonged to someone else, as if it were a part of some other woman’s life. She felt as if she’d just been tipped from a roller coaster at its height and sent tumbling to the earth. She raised a hand to her mouth, surprised to find her hand shook.

She almost let out a sob, but choked it back. She could not break down. She was not safe from Tariq or his questions simply because he had left her alone for the moment. He would be back. She knew that as surely as she knew the earth still turned beneath her feet. He was an implacable force, and she did not know how she had failed to recognize that five years ago. Hadn’t she known this would happen? Wasn’t this why she’d set upon this course in the first place, to divert his attention?

That is not the only reason… a traitorous voice whispered, but she couldn’t allow herself to listen to it. Nor could she savor the heated images of the night before. None of that mattered now.

Jeremy is his child too, the same treacherous voice whispered, and Jessa felt a wave of old grief rock through her then, nearly knocking her over with all the strength of what might have been. If he had been who he’d said he was. If she had been less infatuated and less silly. If his uncle had not died. If she had been able to care for her newborn child as he deserved to be cared for. If.

She balled her hands into fists and stood, ignoring her trembling knees, her shallow breaths, the insistent dampness in her eyes that she refused to let flow free. Tariq would be back, and she did not want to imagine what new ammunition he would bring with him. She was not at all sure she could survive another encounter like this one. In truth, she was not even certain she had survived. Not intact, anyway.

But she couldn’t think of that, of what more she might have lost. She told herself she had to think of Jeremy. She could take care of herself later.

She had to make certain that whenever Tariq returned, she was long gone.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

IT WAS not until Jessa arrived at the Gare de Lyon railway station with every intention of escaping Tariq—and France—that she realized, with a shock, that she did not have any money with her.

Getting out of Tariq’s Parisian home had been, in retrospect, suspiciously easy. She had forced herself into action knowing that the alternative involved the fetal position and a very long cry, neither of which she could allow herself. So after she had taken a shower in the luxurious bathroom suite, scrubbing herself nearly raw in water almost too hot to bear, as if that would remove the feel of him from her skin, Jessa had pulled on one of the seductively comfortable robes set out by the unseen staff and tried to see if she could find something to wear. Her blue sheath dress from the night before had been a crumpled mess, and, in any case, she’d been unable to bring herself to wear it again—she couldn’t bear to remember how he had removed it. How she had wanted him to remove it.

She’d snuck down to the lower levels of the house, looking for the guest suites that she knew must be somewhere, because how could there fail to be guest rooms in such a house? The house was, as she had only noticed in passing awe the night before, magnificent. Glorious works of art by identifiably famous artists graced the walls, a Vermeer here, a Picasso there, though Jessa had not spared them more than a glance. A sculpture she was almost positive she’d seen a copy of in a London museum occupied an entire atrium all its own.

She’d wondered where Tariq’s offices were—purely because she’d wanted to avoid him, she told herself—and had frozen in place each time she’d heard a footfall or a low voice, or had eased open a new door to peer behind it. She’d finally found what she was looking for in a set of rooms hidden away in a closed-off wing on the second floor: a closet filled with women’s clothes in a variety of sizes.

She’d pulled on a pair of black wool trousers that were slightly too big, and the softest charcoal-gray linen button-down blouse she had ever worn, that was a bit tighter across the chest than she would have chosen on her own. Then she’d found a pair of black-and-brown ballet-style flats, only the tiniest bit too big for her feet. A black wool jacket completed the outfit and, once she smoothed her hair into some kind of order, had made Jessa look like someone far wealthier and much calmer.

It was remarkable, she’d thought, peering into the standing mirror in the corner of the dressing room, that she could look so pulled-together on the outside when she was still too afraid to look at the raw mess on the inside.

She had felt it, though. The sob that might take her at any moment, might suck her down into the heaving mass of emotion she could feel swirling inside, ready to spill over at the slightest provocation…

But there had been no time to think about such things. She had shaken the feelings off, reminding herself that there was only Jeremy to think about, only his welfare and nothing else. She had to get out of Tariq’s house, and as far away from him as possible, before she was tempted to share with him things she had never shared, not in their entirety, with anyone.

Jessa had expected it to be difficult to find her way out of the house—had expected, in fact, to be apprehended by Tariq or his staff or someone—and had found herself a curious mixture of disappointed and elated when she’d simply walked down the impressive marble stair and let herself out onto the elegant Paris street beyond.

It had been chillier outside than she’d expected, and wet. She hadn’t made it to the first corner before it had started to rain in earnest, and the clothes she’d liberated from the closet were little help. Her mind had raced with every step she took. She couldn’t go home to York, could she? It would be the obvious place for Tariq to look, and if he was as serious as she worried he must be about tearing into her life, he was much more likely to stumble upon something there than anywhere else. Jessa had walked until she hit a major boulevard, and then had looked at a map at one of the kiosks. She could hardly take in the fact that she was in Paris, one of the most celebrated cities in the world. She had been much too focused on Tariq and what he might do, and how he might do it.

While she walked, the perfect solution had come to her. Friends of hers from home had gone on a holiday last year, and had taken the train from Paris to Rome. Rome was even farther away from Jeremy. Should Tariq come after her as he’d threatened to do, she would be leading him away from his true quarry. So she’d found the train station on the map, happily located not too far away, and had walked.

She walked and walked, down streets she had only ever seen in photographs, the borrowed shoes rubbing at her cold toes and slapping the pavement beneath her feet. She walked past the soaring glory of the Arc de Triomphe and down the Champs-Elysées, the wide boulevard glistening in the rain, achingly beautiful despite the overcast skies above. She walked in and out of puddles in the Jardin des Tuileries, still crowded with tourists under bright umbrellas, toward the iconic glass pyramid that heralded the entrance to the Louvre. She took shelter from the rain in the famed arcades that stretched beneath the great buildings along the Rue de Rivoli, filled with brightly lit shops and the bustling energy of city life.

And if tears fell from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks as she walked, tears for Tariq and for herself and for all the things she’d lost, they were indistinguishable from the rain.

It was only when she’d finally made her way into the impressive rail station with the huge clock tower that reminded her of Big Ben back home in the UK that the reality of her situation had hit her.

She had no money. And, worse, no access to any money.

She’d tucked her bank card into her evening bag before she’d left her home in York last night, but she hadn’t thought to bring it with her when she’d left Tariq’s house. She’d been entirely too focused on getting out of there to think about such practicalities.

Once again, she was a fool.

All of the emotions that Jessa had been trying to hold at bay rushed at her then like a tidal wave, forcing her to stop walking in the middle of the crowded station. She thought her knees might give out from under her. She was nearly trampled by the relentless stream of commuters and holidaymakers on all sides as they raced through the building, headed for trains and destinations far away from here. But Jessa was trapped. Stranded. How could she possibly keep Jeremy a secret if she couldn’t even take a simple train journey to somewhere, anywhere else? She was soaked through to her skin: cold, wet, miserable, and alone in Paris. She had no money, and the one person she knew in the city was the last person on earth she could go to for help.

What was she going to do?

She felt a hand on her arm and immediately turned, jostled out of the dark spiral she was in.

“Excuse me,” she began, apologetically.

But it was Tariq.

He wore another dark suit, expertly fitted to showcase his lean hunter’s physique, and a matching scowl. He held her elbow in his large hand much too securely. She did not have to try to jerk away from him to know she would not be able to do so if he didn’t allow it. She had no doubt she looked pathetic—like a drowned rat. Meanwhile, he looked like what he was: a very powerful man at the end of his patience.

She hated the way he looked at her, as if she had done something unspeakable to him. When she had only ever acted to protect Jeremy! Hadn’t she? She hated that he did not say a word, and only seared her straight through with that dark glare of his. She hated most of all that some part of her was relieved to see him, that that same traitorous part of her wanted him to rescue her, as if he was not the one responsible for her predicament in the first place!

Her eyes burned with tears. He only stared at her, his dark eyes penetrating, implacable. She felt her mouth open, but she could not speak.

What could she say? She didn’t know whether to be relieved or appalled that he was beside her, even though he was what she had run from. She only knew there was an ache inside that seemed to intensify with every breath, and it had nothing at all to do with sex. It had to do with the way he looked at her, as if he was disappointed in her. As if she had wounded him in ways words could not express. She couldn’t imagine why that should hurt her in return, but it did.

“Come,” he said, his voice a powerful rumble yet curiously devoid of anger, which made the dampness at the back of her eyes threaten to spill over again. “The car is waiting.”

The damned woman was likely to catch her death of pneumonia, Tariq thought darkly, which would not suit him at all, as she still kept so many secrets from him. As he stepped outside the station, two of his aides leaped to attention, umbrellas in hand, and sheltered them both as Tariq led her to the sleek black car that waited by the curb. Not that an umbrella would do her any good at this point. She might as well have jumped, fully dressed, into the Seine.

His driver opened the back door and Tariq handed Jessa inside, then climbed in after her, sitting so he could look at her beside him. He watched her settle into her seat and told himself he did not notice the way the soaking wet shirt clung to her curves, leaving nothing at all to the imagination. Not that he needed to imagine what he could still taste on his tongue and feel beneath his hands. He wordlessly handed her a bath towel as the car pulled into traffic.

“Thank you.”

Her voice was hushed. Almost formal. She looked at the towel on her lap for a moment and then raised her head. Her eyes seemed too wide, too bright, and haunted, somehow. To his surprise, the anger that had consumed him earlier had subsided. Which was not to say he was happy with her, or had forgotten what she’d done to him—the lies she was still telling with her continued silence—but the fury that had seized him and forced him to walk away from her rather than unleash it in her presence had simmered to a low boil and then faded into something far more painful. Anger was easy, in comparison.

He didn’t know why. He had been coldly furious all day, and doubly so when she’d left the house. He had had his people monitor her movements as a matter of course, and had seethed about it while he ought to have been concentrating on his official duties. When it became clear where she was headed and he had called for the car, he had felt the crack of his temper, but somehow the sight of her standing in the middle of the busy train station had gotten to him. She had looked so forlorn, so lost. Not at all the warrior woman with more fire and courage than sense who had made love to him all night long. Who had stood up to him consistently since he’d walked back into her life. By the time he’d reached her side, he had been amazed to discover that the angry words on his tongue had dissolved, unsaid.

Yet he still had the echo of what she’d said earlier ricocheting in his head, close as it was to something his uncle had said to him years before: What kind of man are you? The kind who terrorized women into risking pneumonia on the streets of Paris, apparently. The kind whose former lover defied him to her own detriment, throwing herself out into a cold autumn rain rather than tell him what had become of their child. What kind of man was he, indeed, to inspire these things?

He watched her towel off her face, then try to tend to the sopping mass of her hair. She shivered.

“You are cold.”

“No,” she said, but there was no force behind it.

“Your teeth are about to chatter,” he said with little patience. Would she rather freeze to death than accept his help? Obstinate woman. He leaned forward to press the intercom button, then ordered the heat turned on. “See? Was that so difficult?”

She looked at him, her eyes dark and wary, then away.

“I hope you had a pleasant walk,” he continued, his tone sardonic. “My men tell me you nearly drowned in a puddle outside the Louvre.”

She looked startled for a moment. “Your men?”

“Of course.” His brows rose. “You cannot imagine that a king’s residence is left so wide open, can you? That any passerby could stroll in and out on a whim? I told you what would happen if you left.”

“I didn’t…” She broke off. She swallowed. “You have security. Of course you do.” She shrugged slightly. “I never saw them.”

Tariq leveled a look at her, lounging back against his seat, taking care not to touch her. Touching her had not led where he had expected it to lead. He had meant to control her and rid himself of this obsession, and instead had risked himself in ways he would have thought impossible. Felt things he was not prepared to examine. Damn her.

“If you saw them, they would not be very good at their jobs, would they?” he asked idly.

Silence fell, heavy and deep, between them. She continued to try to dry herself, and he continued to watch her attempts, but something had shifted. He didn’t know what it was. Her desperate, doomed escape attempt that had proved her brave, if reckless? Or the fact that she looked not unlike a child as she sat there, as bedraggled as a kitten, her eyes wide and defeated?

“Why did you stop walking in the station?” he asked without knowing he meant to speak. “You were nearly run down where you stood.”

She let out a rueful laugh. “I have no money,” she said. She met his gaze as if she expected him to comment, but he only lifted a brow in response.

“And what now?” she asked softly, that defiant tilt to her chin, though her hair was still dark and wet against her face, making her seem pale and small. “Am I your prisoner?”

There was a part of him that wanted to rage at her still. But he had not forgotten, even in his fury, even now, how she had somehow touched him once again, gotten under his skin. He, who had believed himself inviolate in that way. How he had yearned for her all of these years, though he had made up any number of lies to excuse it. How he had waited for her to wake this morning, loath to disturb her. He suspected that a great deal of his anger stemmed from that knowledge, that even as she defied him and lied to him, insulted him and dared him to do his worst, he admired her for it. It had taken him hours, and perhaps the sight of her dogged determination to get away from him in order to keep her secrets no matter what the cost to herself, to understand that truth, however uncomfortable it made him.

What kind of man are you?

And could he truly blame her for what she’d done, whatever she’d done? asked a ruthless inner voice. Given what she knew of him back then—a liar, a wastrel—why would she want to share a child with him? It was as his uncle had told him. He had not been a man. He had had nothing to offer any child.

“I need to know what happened,” he said quietly. He did not look at her, watching instead the blurred Parisian buildings and monuments as they sped past.

“So the answer is yes. I am your prisoner.” She let out a breath. “For how long?”

He could have said, for as long as he liked. He could have reminded her that he was a king, that he could have absolute power over her if he wished it. Instead, he turned to her and met her troubled gaze.

“Until you tell me what I want to know,” he said.

“Forever, then,” she said, her voice hollow. “You plan to hold me against my will forever.”

“When have you been held against your will?” he asked, though his voice held no heat. “I do not recall your demands to leave last night. And I did not prevent you from leaving this morning.”

“With no money,” she said bitterly. “Where was I supposed to go?”

“If you are without funds, Jessa,” he replied evenly, “you need only ask.”

“I have my own money, thank you,” she said at once, sharply.

“Then why didn’t you use it?” he asked. She sighed and dropped her gaze to her hands. Again, silence stretched between them, seeming to implicate them both.

“Isn’t this where you threaten me some more?” she asked softly, her attention directed at her lap. Yet somehow her voice seemed to tug at him. To shame him. “That you’ll tear apart my whole life, make it a living hell?”

What kind of man are you?

Tariq expelled a long breath and rubbed at his temples with his fingers. When he spoke, he hardly recognized his own voice.

“You must understand that when I say I am the last of my bloodline, I am not only talking about lines of succession and historical footnotes that will be recorded when I am gone,” he said, not knowing what he meant to say. Not recognizing the gruffness in his own voice. “I was orphaned when I was still a child, Jessa. I was not yet three. I don’t know if the little I remember of my parents is real or if I have internalized photographs and stories told to me by others.”

“Tariq.” She said his name on a sigh, almost as if she hurt for him.

“My uncle’s family was the only family I ever knew,” he said, with an urgency he didn’t entirely understand. She bit her lower lip and worried it between her teeth. “I thought I was the only one left. Until today.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” she whispered, her voice thick.

“Do I have a child?” he asked her, appalled at the uncertainty he could hear in his own voice. He didn’t know what he would do if she threw it back at him as he knew she could. “Is my family more than simply me?”

Her eyes squeezed shut, and she made a sound that was much like a sob, though she covered her mouth with her hand. For a long moment they sat in silence, the only sound the watery swish of traffic outside the car, and her ragged breathing. He thought she would not answer. He felt a new bleakness settle upon him. Would he never know what had happened? Would he be condemned to wonder? Was it no more than he deserved for the way he had behaved in his former life, the way he had treated her, the way he had treated himself and his family, his many squandered gifts?