Shelley’s freckled face and bright blue eyes were troubled below her mop of brown curls. ‘Well, then, what are you planning to do?’
‘I don’t want to tell Jai... To be frank, I don’t want anything more to do with him,’ Willow admitted unhappily. ‘I’ll work this out without bothering him for help. Somehow I’ll work it out even if it means living on welfare benefits to survive.’
Two weeks later, while Willow was at work, Shelley had to deal with the surprise of Jai himself turning up on the doorstep asking after Willow because he hadn’t heard from her. Aware that her friend wanted no further contact with him, Shelley lied and said that Willow had moved out and hadn’t yet sent her a forwarding address. Jai left his mobile number with her.
* * *
Thirteen months later, the private investigation agency Jai had hired to find Willow finally tracked her down and, in the midst of his working day in his London office, Jai immediately
settled down with a sense of urgency to flick open the ominously slim file.
The first fact he learned was that the investigation team had only contrived to find Willow by covertly watching and following her friend, Shelley. Jai was disconcerted to learn that Willow’s friend had lied to him when he had only had Willow’s best interests in mind. He would have been satisfied with the assurance that she was safe and well. He assumed that Willow had confided in her friend and it was conceivable that that night he had spent with her had muddied the water in her friend’s eyes and made his motivations seem more questionable, he conceded grudgingly.
After all, what could Willow possibly have to hide from him? Why would she get lost and neglect to get in touch with him when he had been so specific on that point? Had he offended her to such an extent?
He knew he had not been tactful. He had been too outspoken. He had embarrassed her, hurt her, he recalled unhappily. But he had been very shocked to realise that he had taken advantage of her innocence and his self-loathing on that score had still to fade, as had his recollections of that night. It seemed even worse to him that the memories of her still remained so fresh. Averse as he now was to any kind of casual encounter, he had not been with a woman since then. He had broken his own code of honour unforgettably with Willow and had buried himself in work while struggling to come to terms with that depressing truth.
Her disappearance and continuing silence had seriously worried him and had only made him even more determined to locate her.
The bald facts of what came next in the file shook Jai to his essentially conservative core and he was instantly grateful that he had refused to give up on his search for her because she was in trouble. Willow had had a child and was now living in a hostel for the homeless, waiting for the local council to find her more suitable accommodation. A child? How was that possible in so short a time frame? Had she turned to some other man for comfort after he had left her? He focussed back on the printed page and his blood ran cold in his veins when he saw the birthdate of the child and then, startlingly, his own middle name... Hari.
* * *
Far across London, Willow knelt on the floorboards while Hari sat on his little blanket and mouthed the plastic ball he was playing with. Everything went into his mouth and she had to watch him like a hawk. He was almost seven months old and, although he couldn’t yet crawl, he had discovered that he could get around very nicely just by rolling over and over so that he could get his little chubby hands on anything that attracted his attention. And everything attracted Hari’s attention, which meant that she needed eyes in the back of her head to keep him safe.
She had not known that it was possible to love anyone as much as she loved Hari. Her love for the father she had continually failed to please paled in comparison. From the moment Hari had arrived he had become her world and she was painfully conscious that as a mother she had nothing to offer in material terms. Sadly, moving into the hostel had been a necessity to get on the housing list. Shelley hadn’t wanted them to move out of her apartment but staying any longer hadn’t been an option in the chaos that she and Hari had brought to her friend’s life. So she might be, for the moment, a less than stellar mother to her son, but in time she would get better and provide him with a decent home where their life would improve.
The knock that sounded on the door made her jump and she peered through the peephole to identify another resident, the woman from the room next to hers, before she undid the lock.
‘Reception asked me to tell you that you have a visitor waiting down in the basement,’ the woman told her.
Willow suppressed a sigh and bundled Hari, his blanket and a couple of toys up into her arms. Visitors weren’t allowed to enter the rooms in the hostel, but the basement was available for necessary meetings with housing officials, social workers and counsellors. Willow hadn’t been expecting anyone, but the number of people now involved in checking up on her and Hari and asking her to fill in forms seemed never-ending.
My goodness, maybe somewhere had finally been found for her and Hari to live, she thought optimistically as she walked down the steps to the basement to enter a large grey-painted room furnished mainly with small tables and chairs, few of which were occupied. She hovered in the doorway and then froze when she saw Jai standing by the barred window that overlooked a dark alleyway.
Jai looked so incredibly out of place against such a backdrop that she could not quite believe her eyes and she blinked rapidly. Clad in a black pinstriped suit teamed with a white shirt and gold tie, he looked incredibly intimidating. But he also looked impossibly exclusive and gorgeous with that suit sharply tailored to a perfect fit over his tall, powerful frame. The stark lighting above, which flattered no one, somehow still contrived to flatter Jai, enhancing the golden glow of his skin and the blue-black luxuriance of his hair and accentuating the proud sculpted lines and hollows of his superb bone structure. He was stunning as he stood there, absolutely stunning, his light eyes glittering in his lean, strong face, and she swallowed convulsively, wondering how he had found her, what he wanted with her and how on earth she could possibly hide Hari from him when she was holding him in her arms.
* * *
Jai noticed Willow at almost the same moment, lodged across the room, a tiny frail figure dressed in jeans and an oversized sweater, against which she held a child. And he stared at the child in her arms with helpless intensity and, even at that distance, he recognised his son in the baby’s olive-toned skin and black hair. His son... Jai could not work out how that was possible unless Willow had lied to him about it being safe for them to make love without him taking additional precautions. But just at that moment the how seemed less significant than the overpowering and breathtaking sense of recognition that gripped him when he glimpsed his infant son for the first time.
Willow walked towards him and he strode forward to greet her, noticing that she was struggling to carry the child along with the other things she held. Without hesitation, Jai extended his hands and lifted the baby right out of her arms.
Hari chortled and smiled up at him. Evidently, he was a happy baby, who delighted in new faces. Jai looked into eyes as pale a blue as his own, his sole inheritance from his British mother, and knew then without a shadow of doubt that, hard as he found it to credit, this child had to be his son, his child, his responsibility. He moved away again, and Willow hovered, feeling entirely surplus to requirements, until one of the four bodyguards seated at a nearby table surged forward to pull out chairs at another table and Jai took a seat with Hari carefully cradled in his arms.
Willow dropped into the seat beside Jai’s and Hari grinned at her while he tugged at Jai’s tie. ‘How did you find me?’ she whispered.
‘A private detective agency. They’ve been trying to trace you for months,’ Jai imparted, his wide, sensual mouth compressing at that unfortunate fact. ‘I only wish I’d found you sooner.’
‘I can’t imagine why you’ve been trying to find me,’ she confided.
‘But isn’t it fortunate that I did?’ Jai traded smoothly as he stroked a gentle finger through the spill of Hari’s black hair. ‘You must realise that you cannot stay in such a place with my son.’
Paper pale at that quiet declaration, Willow gazed back at him. ‘Your...son?’ she almost whispered, shaken by the certainty with which he made that claim.
‘He is my image. Who else’s son could he be?’ Jai parried very drily as if daring her to disagree or throw doubt on the question of his child’s parentage. ‘And as this is not somewhere that we can talk freely, I would like you to go back to your room right now and pack up all your belongings to leave.’
‘I can’t do that. I’m here waiting to get a place on a council housing list and if I leave, I’ll lose my place in the queue,’ she protested in a low intent voice.
Jai settled Hari more securely on his lap. ‘Either you do as I ask...or I will seek an emergency court orde
r to take immediate custody of Hari as he is at risk in such an environment. That is unacceptable. Be warned that I hold diplomatic status in the UK and the authorities will act quickly on my behalf if I lodge a complaint on behalf of my heir. The usual laws do not apply to diplomats.’
In sheer shock at that menacing information, Willow went rigid, her blood chilling in her veins. ‘You’re threatening me with...legal action?’ she gasped in astonishment, barely able to believe her ears. ‘Already?’
Jai sent her an inhumanly cool and calm appraisal, the dark strength of his resolve palpable. ‘I will do what I must to put right what you have got wrong...’
Stabbed to the heart by that spontaneously offered opinion, Willow bent her head. No judgement here, she thought sarcastically, but she was so deep in shock that Jai would actually threaten her with losing custody of her child that she didn’t even know what to say back to him. She didn’t want to take the risk of being too frank, didn’t want to row in public, didn’t want to make a bad situation worse by speaking without careful forethought. She sensed that the Jai she had thought she knew to some degree was not the Jai she was currently dealing with. This was Jai being ruthless and calculating and brutally confrontational, which, logic warned her, had to be qualities he had acquired to rise so high and so fast in the business world. Unluckily for her, it was not a side of him she had seen before or had had to deal with.
‘We will not argue here in a public place,’ Jai informed her in the same very polite tone. ‘We will both ensure that the needs of our child remain our first consideration.’
‘Of course, but—’
‘No, there will be no qualification of that statement,’ Jai interposed levelly. ‘Now, please pack so that we can leave this place behind us.’
Willow leapt upright and reached down for Hari.
‘I will look after him while you pack,’ Jai spelt out as he too stood up, towering over her in her flat heels with Hari still clasped in his arms.