“It was my brother’s home, not yours. You lived here with him. You were his mistress.”
“Wrong on both counts. This apartment is mine.”
“And my brother just happened to have the key.”
His tone was snide and self-confident, and if it weren’t for Ethan, she’d have slapped it off his all-too-handsome face.
“My mistake for giving him one. He moved in with me, not me with him. And, for the record, I’ve never been anybody’s mistress. I’ve always supported myself and I damned well always will.”
There it was again. Fire. Spirit. Absolute defiance. Her eyes were snapping with anger even as she kept her voice low for the baby’s sake, kept stroking her hand gently down his back.
Karim watched that slow-moving hand.
The feel of it would soothe anyone. A child. A beast.
A man.
Without thinking, he reached out and touched the baby. His fingers brushed accidentally against the curve of the Donnelly woman’s breast.
She caught her breath. Their eyes met. Color rushed into her face.
“The boy is asleep,” Karim said softly.
“Yes. He is.” She swallowed hard. He could see her throat arch. “I—I’m going to take him into the bedroom, change his diaper and put him down for a nap.”
“Fine,” he said briskly.
He watched her walk away with the dignity of a queen, back straight, only the slightest sway of her hips.
He wanted to laugh.
What an act! The personification of dignity in a cheap costume.
It was an act, wasn’t it? The way she held herself. The love she seemed to show the baby. Her adamant refusal to name Rami as the child’s father, as if she suspected what Karim’s next move would be.
She wasn’t stupid; far from it. Surely, she knew he would demand custody of the boy.
And he would get it. A DNA test, quickly performed, would settle things.
She was—whatever she was. A dancer. A stripper. She was broke or close to it, judging by where she lived.
And he was a prince.
There was no doubt which of them would win in a court of law—if this ever got that far.
But there was no need for that to happen.
Rachel Donnelly would not give up the child without a fuss. If he were generous, he’d say it was because she cared for the boy but he was not feeling generous. He was feeling deceived. By Rami. By fate. And now, for all he knew, by a woman who was an excellent actress, making a show of being a caring mother.