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He nodded, his silver-gray hair like a beacon around his gaunt face even as his arm tightened around her. “I don’t want you believing that a good, decent man would ever consider abandoning you. Not like your mother abandoned us.”
She stiffened. Of course he was right, she knew that, but a part of her was cynical enough to wonder if a mother could leave her own child, what chance did she have of a man sticking around?
“I wish I could believe that,” she said softly.
“I wish you did too, munchkin.”
The next second she was looking down at her father in a hospital bed, his face chalky white and his eyes closed. He was fighting for his life, but she knew his fight was coming to an end. She kissed his forehead and whispered, “Dad, it’s okay if you need to leave, I’m going to be all right.” A tear slipped down her cheek as his heart monitor machine beeped loudly. “I’ll always love you.”
Chapter Fifteen
Liam drove slowly over the cattle grid and along the pot-holed, unsealed road, but there was nothing slow about his determination. He’d been a fool letting Harper slip through his fingers, and if he had to fight the sheikh to get her back he’d use everything in his arsenal to do just that.
The trees soon gave way to paddocks and he glanced out his side window, noting that the three horses in the paddock had grown to seven. He smiled. He was happy for her. She was on her way to financial success.
It wasn’t until he topped the rise ahead that he pushed on the brake pedal and blinked at the house that no longer looked like wrack and ruin. It looked...incredible. It was as if he was staring at another house altogether.
He let out a whistle. The sheikh had been busy. Harper would be ecstatic and no doubt forever grateful to Korian. Liam clenched the steering wheel until his knuckles went white. He loosened his grip. He wasn’t without his own wealth and resources. More importantly, his feelings were already invested.
Aside from money, he doubted the sheikh had anything more to show Harper other than lust.
He released the brake pedal and cruised forward, his every cell vibrating with an urgency to see her again. He wasn’t giving her up without fight, not this time. Not ever again.
He’d been a hypocrite of the highest order to look at her as mercenary. He and his brothers had done everything imaginable to earn money while working hard and enduring all kinds of criticism as they brought their dreams into reality and became wealthy in their own right.
The dream she’d shared with her father meant she was also willing to make any sacrifice necessary to bring their dream into fruition.
He sighed heavily. His lack of trust had led him to believe she’d betrayed him. But the truth was he’d been ready to condemn her at the first opportunity just to save himself from future heartbreak. In matters of the heart, he was a slow learner. It’d taken him three weeks to figure out just how much Harper meant to him and how much his parents fake happiness and then their deaths had affected him.
He should have listened to Ned’s sage advice when he’d questioned him giving up on her and that she deserved better than the sheikh.
He slowed his car to park next to Harper’s white SUV. He only hoped Korian hadn’t bought Harper’s soul in her trying to fulfill her and her dad’s dream.
He pressed his car’s horn to make sure she was aware of him. After all this time she wouldn’t be expecting him now. Though, no doubt, the sheikh was a regular visitor.
He pushed open his car door and slammed it shut behind him with more force than necessary. Korian had been a viper slithering between the cracks of Lim and Harper’s budding relationship before they’d had time to blossom together.
