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He let his mind assimiliate the incredible words that the man had just spoken, then gave a brief, dismissive smile.
‘You are mistaken,’ he said flatly. ‘I have no brother. I have no living relatives at all. Explain yourself.’
Lara gasped, shocked—and so, judging by the look on Khalim’s face, was he. She doubted whether he had ever been spoken to like that in his life—except perhaps by his wife, but that was different.
Khalim gave a small nod, as though an unasked question had just been answered, and gestured towards a chair. ‘Should we perhaps sit down?’
Darian shook his head, and then slowly turned his head and looked at Lara. For the first time it dawned on him that this man was in her apartment. He glanced at the way she stood there, so wide-eyed and expectant and…yes, there was definitely an air of apprehension about her. What the hell was going on?
But Lara was a distraction. He concentrated instead on one overriding fact, and that was the claim which had just been made.
‘I think I would prefer to stand.’ He looked at this man Khalim, and a vague memory of something he had once heard on the news came drifting into his memory.
A country. Where had he said? Maraban? Yes. Maraban.
‘You are the Sheikh of Maraban?’ he questioned.
Khalim nodded. ‘I am.’
‘And why are you here?’ asked Darian quietly.
‘Because a letter arrived recently at my Embassy in London—a letter from a woman purporting to be your mother—’
‘The woman’s name?’ snapped Darian.
‘Joanna Wildman.’
Darian’s eyes narrowed and he felt the sudden acceleration of his heart. ‘That was my mother’s name.’ His voice sounded like grit being poured onto melting snow. ‘Let me see the letter.’
It was a definite command, thought Lara, wondering how Khalim would react. But he simply nodded as he withdrew the letter from the breast pocket of his suit, almost as though he had been anticipating this request.
Darian’s eyes scoured over it disbelievingly, but there was no doubt that the words were written in his mother’s hand. ‘She died two years ago,’ he said slowly.
‘Yes. As you will read, the letter was not intended to be opened during her lifetime.’ Khalim’s black eyes glittered. ‘And, as you will also read, she claims that my late father, Makim, was indeed your father, too.’
His eyebrows were elevated in question, and the statement he had made was so utterly bizarre that Darian wondered if perhaps he was in the middle of one of those dreams which were so real that you mistook them for reality. Maybe in a minute he would wake up.
But even as he answered he was aware of the first glimmerings of unease. ‘I know nothing of my father. Absolutely nothing.’
‘No.’ Khalim paused for a moment. ‘Your mother was an air stewardess?’
‘Up until I was born.’ Darian’s mouth twisted in derision. There had been no mention of her employment in the letter. ‘You’ve had me checked out!’ he accused softly.
Khalim nodded. ‘But of course.’ He paused. ‘She flew to the Middle East regularly.’
And the missing piece of the jigsaw which had always eluded him began to hover tantalisingly over the gap in Darian’s memory. His mother had spoken of his father maybe once, perhaps twice. He had been a good man, she had said, but a man who was not free and was certainly not in a position to support them. Darian had assumed that his father was married, had noted his mother’s reluctance to talk about him and her distress whenever the subject was brought up.
Children soon learnt to make life easy for themselves. When to pry and when to leave well alone. He had accepted her reticence, just as he had accepted that he looked different from the other children. Darian had been focused on the future, on getting out of the poverty of his upbringing. Whoever his father had been he was not a real figure, not in terms of having any influence in his life, and so Darian had simply closed the door on all his questions.
There had been nothing about him in the papers his mother had left after her death, though at the time it had crossed his mind that now he was in a position to seek out his father without causing his mother distress. But Darian had decided to let sleeping dogs lie, asking himself what end it would serve if he went on such a quest—other than to unsettle him. Why pursue a man who had never felt the need to know his son?
But now the past had been dropped before his eyes, falling like a heavy pebble into a pond, its ripple-like effects spreading down through the ages—and for the first time a very important question did occur to him.
He turned again to look at Lara, where she stood as still and as frozen as a statue. ‘So what does Lara have to do with all this?’
She had been wondering when he would get around to asking. Lara spoke before Khalim had the chance to defend her. She would not shrink from the truth, not any more.
‘I was the one who first read the letter,’ she said quietly. ‘I was working at the Embassy at the time and it came into my hands.’
