Which was what he’d done.
One hell of a sight, he was sure, a guy running up Madison Avenue in a Brioni suit and Gucci loafers, then rushing from the elevator into the foyer of his penthouse.
“Rachel?” he’d shouted. “Rachel?”
“Karim?” she’d said, from the top of the stairs. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” he’d replied, taking the stairs two at a time. “Everything,” he’d added, scooping her into his arms and kissing her. “I missed you,” he whispered, and her face had lit with such joy that he’d carried her straight back to bed.
The second time he’d gone to his office he’d stayed just long enough to go through his calendar, assign whatever had to be dealt with to members of his administrative staff, and instruct his P.A. to cancel his appointments and to tell anyone trying to reach him that he was unavailable.
His P.A. had looked at him as if he’d lost his sanity.
“Unavailable, sir?”
“Unavailable,” Karim had said firmly.
Because he was. Unavailable. Unreachable. Incommunicado to anyone but Rachel.
Or Ethan.
The baby was, without doubt, the smartest, most adorable kid in the world.
He giggled with delight when Karim introduced him to the wonders of “I See.” Belly-laughed when Karim lifted him high in the air. Adored having Karim blow bubbles against his tummy.
Laughter, and the love that accompanied it, was not something Karim or Rami had experienced much in their childhoods.
Which had turned him into a man with a heart so well disguised it had been all but non-existent, and Rami into a man who’d frittered his life away.
In some small measure, Karim hoped he could make up for the emptiness of Rami’s existence by raising his son with all the love possible.
The best part was that it was easy to do.
Who’d have thought that he, the all-powerful Sheikh of Wall Street—a laughable title dumped on him in some foolish internet blog—would change diapers, do feedings, walk the floor with a crying child in his arms, sit in the park with Rachel and a baby carriage and be so content that half the time he suspected he had a goofy grin on his face?
God, he was happy.
Though sometimes he caught a look in Rachel’s eyes that worried him.
A darkness.
Maybe he only imagined it.
He had to be imagining it—except there it was again, right now, as she looked out the window of the restaurant into the night: a sudden shift from smiling to something that wasn’t quite a smile, as if a thought, a memory, had surfaced and brought her pain.
“Sweetheart?” he said softly. He saw her throat constrict as she swallowed. When she turned to him her smile was a smile again. Karim brought her hand to his lips. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.”