Page 9 of The Innocent Carrying His Legacy

He stood in front of her, muscled arms folded across his wide chest. The black robe he wore belted around his waist had loosened, revealing the bronze skin of his throat and upper chest, and she found herself staring at it for some inexplicable reason.

It looked smooth, velvety almost, with a scattering of crisp black hair, and she found herself wondering what it would feel like to touch it.

Why are you thinking about touching his skin?

She had no idea. It wasn’t something she’d ever thought about a man before and it disturbed her.

Forcing her gaze from his chest, she glanced up at his face, ignoring the little thrill of heat that darted through her.

Not that staring at his face was any better, not with those icy eyes staring back at her, so sharp and cutting she could almost feel the edges of them scoring her.

Her mouth felt dry, more arid than the desert outside the walls of the tiny guardhouse, but she resisted the urge to grab back the glass. She’d give him the explanation he wanted, determine what he wanted re the baby, then she’d go from there.

‘Okay,’ she said calmly. ‘So, I have...had a very dear friend of mine who desperately wanted children. She didn’t have a husband or partner and so was planning to conceive via a donor. However, she was also in the middle of treatment for cancer and was unable to carry a child herself. I didn’t want her to stop her treatment—she had an excellent prognosis initially—so I offered to be her surrogate. I’m not planning on having children myself and it seemed the least I could do for her.’

The warlord said nothing, no expression at all on his face.

‘She agreed,’ Ivy went on. ‘So she picked out a donor and though she had some eggs frozen, they ended up not being viable, so we decided that she would use some of mine. It all went very well and then...’ Grief caught at her throat and she had to take a second before continuing. ‘The cancer became aggressive. Her treatments failed. I found out I was pregnant while she was losing her battle. I hadn’t planned on having children—I have a job that makes it impossible and I don’t have enough support financially—and Connie knew it. Before her death, we discussed what options there were, but we both agreed that continuing the pregnancy was important. She told me to contact the donor, to at least let him know he was a father, in case he wanted to be in the child’s life. Neither of us wanted the child to have to go into foster care, but...’ She stopped again, the worry and grief catching her once more despite all her efforts to contain it.

Poor Connie. She’d so desperately wanted a child and Ivy had been desperate to help her. It had been risky given Connie’s illness, but both of them had tried to be optimistic. It wasn’t to be, however.

Now Ivy was pregnant with a child she’d never intended to bring up herself, a child that she’d very consciously refused to think of as hers, because it wasn’t. The child was Connie’s, even though the genetics would prove otherwise.

Fulfilling Connie’s dying wish to find the child’s father had consumed her, because foster care... Well, it was an option, but not one Ivy wanted to contemplate. Not for Connie’s child. She knew the effects the foster system had on kids, and though she tried to mitigate it as much as possible at the home she managed, sometimes there was no fighting a rigid system.

The man standing in front of her didn’t move and there was no break at all in his expression, no lessening in the absolute focus of his gaze.

She felt like a mouse under the sharp eye of a hawk.

The urge to keep going, to keep talking to fill up the terrible silence, gripped her, but she ignored it. Instead she reached for the glass again and he made no move to stop her this time. She took a delicate sip, letting the cool liquid sit on her tongue, fighting the urge to swallow the whole lot again.

‘So you came to Inaris, all the way from England. Somehow tracking down a guide who knew how to find me and then paying him no doubt an exorbitant amount of money to bring you here. Then you stand out in the hot sun for hours, enduring dehydration and putting yourself and your baby at risk so you can tell me that I have a child.’ His voice was cold. ‘And all for some promise to a friend?’

Ivy lifted her chin. ‘She was a very close friend. And I keep my promises.’

‘I am a notorious warlord, both violent and vicious. That didn’t put you off? Didn’t make you reflect on whether in fact I’d be someone who’d you’d want to chase up for paternal rights?’ He said the words flatly, as if he had no thoughts or feelings or anything else about the fact that he was going to be a father.

Ivy took another delicate sip of lemonade then made herself put it down. True, tracking this man down hadn’t been easy, but it hadn’t been until she’d arrived in Inaris that she’d realised the full extent of the trouble she’d be getting herself into with him.

The rumours about him had, indeed, been terrible. And she might have given up and turned back for England then and there, because even the promise she’d made to Connie wasn’t enough if the child’s father was nothing but the murderer he was reputed to be.

But Connie had already pieced together some information on him when she’d found out she was terminal and had given Ivy a contact in Mahassa, the capital of Inaris. According to the contact, the rumours about the Sheikh were largely exaggerated and, though he was ruthless, he’d also been known to sometimes help those who came to him.

It wasn’t much, but it was enough for Ivy to make it worth the risk. Because she wasn’t only doing this for Connie, though that was a decent part of it. She was also doing it for the child. She’d grown up without a parent or a family, and it was a terrible thing; she’d seen the effects first hand in the faces of the children in the care home she managed.

‘My friend had a contact who knew your approximate location and that you weren’t quite as bad as the rumours would indicate.’ She narrowed her gaze at him. ‘Are you?’

He ignored that. ‘A phone call would have been easier.’

‘Yes, it would,’ she said tartly, ‘but when I looked up “vicious warlord” on the Internet, there was sadly no contact information.’

He didn’t smile. He didn’t even blink, merely continued to stare at her in that direct way, the power of his gaze almost a physical force pushing at her.

Her jaw clenched tight. ‘Mr Al Rasul—’

‘You may call me “sir”.’

A streak of annoyance rippled through her. ‘I will do no such thing.’

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