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‘Oh, Rashid,’ Zoltan said, ‘what a beauty,’ and he surprised the other man by taking the baby and holding her in front of him to look at her properly. Atiyah’s dark eyes were wide and uncertain, the bottom lip of her little Cupid’s-bow mouth ready to start quivering. But before it could, he had the child tucked into his arms and was sitting down on the sofa again, and Rashid blinked at the ease with which he handled the child. To him she was too small, too full of traps for the unwary. ‘You are going to have your work cut out for you when she becomes a young woman.’
Was he? Something else to look forward to. Wonderful.
The baby started fussing and squirming but Zoltan remained unfazed and uncovered her tiny toes and stroked the bottom of her feet with his middle finger. Tiny feet, thought Rashid, looking on, struck by life in miniature.
‘Are you ticklish, little one?’ Zoltan said, and Atiyah’s little legs started pumping, chuckles now interspersed with her complaints. For a while it looked as if Zoltan had the baby’s measure, but soon her face became redder and more screwed up and the chuckles gave way to her cries.
‘Whoa,’ said Zoltan, admitting defeat as her cries became bellows. ‘I think it’s time you went to your big brother, little one.’
And before he could say no, his tiny sister had been deposited into his hands. He stared down at the squawking bundle in his lap, wondering at the weight and her energy and the power of her lungs.
His sister.
His blood.
Who looked nothing like she had when she’d been sleeping.
And his gut churned anew as he tried unsuccessfully to quieten her.
There was no quietening her. The baby screamed and no wonder. Because what did he have to offer her? He knew nothing of what a baby would need. He had no experience—nothing but the shred of a lullaby...
‘Yousra!’ he snapped to the young woman who was watching helplessly on. ‘Take Atiyah. There is somewhere I have to be.’
Zoltan frowned as Yousra took the child. ‘Don’t we have the next meeting with the council coming up shortly?’
‘I won’t be long.’
* * *
Tora’s blood spiked with heat when she saw the name pop into her inbox. She had half a mind to delete the message straight away but the subject header stalled her—Good news.
What would he think would be good news to her—unless he’d had a change of fortunes or mind and somehow managed to recover her funds? She opened the message.
Dear Cousin Vicky
An opportunity’s just come up to make some quick money, so obviously I thought of you!
I’m expecting some funds to come in and meanwhile they’re promised elsewhere. I need half a million dollars fast, just to tide me over, and wondered if you might mortgage your flat for a couple of weeks to help me out? It’s only temporary until those funds come in, and the good news is I’ll be able to pay you a one-hundred-thousand-dollar fee guaranteed.
Let me know ASAP.
Your cousin
Matt
PS Like your folks used to say, blood is thicker than water after all!
Good news? Tora stared incredulously at the screen. Her cousin must think her stupid. First he screwed her out of her inheritance and then he wanted her home? Pigs might fly. And as for blood being thicker than water—after the way he’d betrayed the trust of her parents and of her, he was no family to her at all.
She was about to hit the delete button and send the message to the trash where it belonged. ‘ASAP’ be damned—let him wait for an answer that would never come.
And then she had a better idea. Much better.
So she hit Reply and changed the subject header to Better News! and started typing.
Dear Matt...
She added kisses at the end and then deleted them. No point laying it on too thick. She’d just hit Send with a satisfying click when another message pinged into her inbox. This time she was eager to open it.
We’re on our way! Sally wrote. Next stop, Germany!
Yes! She fired off a quick ‘good luck’ reply and this time added plenty of kisses before she sent it off with a sigh. At least that was going right.
‘Tora,’ she heard Rashid bellowing from somewhere inside her suite. ‘Tora!’ He appeared at the doorway to the terrace. ‘What are you doing out here?’
‘You couldn’t just knock like a normal person?’ she said drily, wondering where the fire was.
‘Why didn’t you bring Atiyah when I asked for her?’
‘Because you summoned Atiyah, not me. And Yousra is perfectly capable of delivering a child for your inspection. She did bring you Atiyah?’
