The other lie. The bigger one.
Not admitting that Ethan was his brother’s child.
He knew that he was.
She’d seen it in his cold-as-ice eyes. He didn’t have proof yet. That was the only reason he hadn’t pushed the conversation further—but he knew.
What he didn’t know, couldn’t possibly know and absolutely must never know, was that Ethan was not hers.
On the face of it—with Suki gone who knew where and Rami dead—she had as much of a claim to the baby as the Sheikh.
She was his aunt.
He was his uncle.
It should have been a draw—but it wasn’t. He had unimaginable wealth. She worried about next month’s rent. He had power over a kingdom. She had the power to choose which shift she worked at the casino.
Rachel hurried into the bedroom, pulled open dresser drawers, yanked on a bra and panties, T-shirt, jeans, socks and sneakers.
She had to get out of town, and fast.
The baby was still sleeping. Thank God for small favors. She’d let him sleep until she was ready to leave …
Her breath caught.
The door. The front door. Maybe the Sheikh had only slammed it shut to fool her. Maybe he was still here. And even if he’d left, so what?
He had that damned key.
She flew through the tiny apartment, breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that the living room was empty, secured the lock, grabbed a wooden chair from beside a rickety table and jammed it under the knob.
Let him try and get past that.
A sheikh. A prince. An egotistical anachronism who thought the world had stood still for the last few hundred years and that he could do anything he wanted.
Anything.
Like take her baby.
“Wrong,” Rachel said aloud as she went back to Ethan. “Wrong, wrong, wrong. Dead wrong.”
The baby was hers.
Nobody was going to take him from her.
By now, Ethan was awake and fretful. He’d been out of sorts lately; there was a tiny pale spot visible in his pink gums where he was cutting his very first tooth.
Ordinarily she’d have taken him in her arms, settled into the old rocker she’d bought at a Goodwill thrift shop and talked to him—he liked being talked to—but time was a priority now.