One Year Later…
“Shhhh…” Jina soothed, bouncing gently. “Hush little baby don’t you cry…” she sang softly, watching her six-month old daughter’s eyes slowly settle against her chubby cheeks, “Momma’s gonna sing you a lullaby…”
Bouncing and walking, humming softly, bouncing, walking, humming…more bouncing…standing by Lika’s crib…bouncing as she slowly lowered her daughter onto the mattress… “and if that lullaby won’t work…” Lika jerked ever so slightly as her back hit the mattress and Jina held her breath, praying that Lika wouldn’t wake up again. “Momma’s gonna go just a little nuts….” She whispered, still singing along with the tune but changing the words. She was desperate now. It was after eleven o’clock at night and Jina had been up with her teething daughter since about four o’clock that morning.
Jina was exhausted after having worked all day and trying to soothe her daughter all the other hours. She just wanted to sleep! A shower would be nice, but sleep was her top priority at the moment.
She continued to hum as she slowly backed out of the room, dimly lit by the night-light in the corner.
When Jina finally had the door closed, she exhaled slowly as she leaned against the door. Sleep, she almost cried. She was going to sleep until Lika woke up again. She might only have a few hours, but she was going to take whatever she could get.
She stepped into her bedroom and saw the full sized bed, almost crying at how inviting it looked. Inch by inch, she slid herself onto the still unmade bed, pulling her pillow closer. The cool sheets against her skin felt wonderful! She couldn’t remember a bed ever feeling so amazingly good. Not even….
Jina sighed and banished those thoughts. He was safe. That’s what mattered. Goodness, had this mattress ever felt this soft? She didn’t think so.
Just no dreams tonight, she prayed just as her eyes drifted closed.
She was asleep moments later, drifting off to that dreamland.
The doorbell woke her up and her first thought was that someone was going to die! She jerked out of the bed and looked around, wondering if she’d just dreamed the sound. Glancing at the clock, she realized she’d been asleep for about five minutes and her whole body ached at the denial of the essential sleep.
When the doorbell sounded again, she growled, literally growled as she swung her closet door open. She fumbled for only a few moments in her tiny toolbox until she found what she was looking for. With the hammer in her hand, she stormed to the door, determined to stop the possibility of that sound ever happening again.
If she’d had more sleep, Jina might have realized how irrational her next move was. But she was so tired that her bones ached. Right now, Lika was still asleep but that could change at any moment. Her daughter was exhausted too, which was probably the only reason she wasn’t screaming her head off at the moment.
Hammer in hand, she swung the front door open and, with one well aimed slam, bashed the doorbell into smithereens! With a satisfied nod, she breathed a sigh of relief that the doorbell couldn’t go off again. She then walked back into her apartment, closed the door and was halfway across her living room when she stopped.
Her mind was losing it, she thought.
Malik wasn’t outside her door. That was impossible! He was thousands of miles away in Sarkit!
He could not be here!
“Oh no!” she gasped and ran back to the door. Opening it again, she found the man in question still staring at the shattered doorbell, half of it hanging from the wall and the other half in pieced on the ground.
Jina couldn’t worry about the doorbell right now. All her worry was for this man. “What are you doing!” she gasped and grabbed him by the lapels, pulling him inside. That wasn’t an easy thing to do since the man towered over her. He was a huge man after all, muscles protruding in all the right places and, since she was wearing only socks on her feet, he was about nine inches taller than her.
The only reason she was able to get him into her apartment at all was because of her desperation and his surprise. When he was finally inside, she slammed the door then pulled the curtains closed.
She then turned to look at the man, her eyes wide with fear. “Why are you here?” she demanded. “I’m dreaming this, aren’t I?” She pushed her hair out of her eyes and rubbed her face. “This isn’t happening. This is all a dream.” She looked down at her ratty sweatpants and oversized shirt that should have been thrown away two centuries ago. “No, you are not seeing me dressed like this.” She shook her head and plopped down on her sofa. “Nope. This is not a dream. This is a nightmare. Yep,” she nodded her head. “It is a nightmare and I’m going to wake up from this and everything will be back to normal.” With those words, she sighed and laid her head down on one of the sofa pillows, curling her legs up and started falling back to sleep.
“Jina! What the hell is going on?” Malik demanded as he watched his ex-fiancé drift back to sleep. Had she completely lost her mind?
And what the hell had happened to her? During their entire relationship, she’d never looked this…worn out. There were dark circles under her eyes, her long, dark hair was sticking up at odd angles and her features were pale. He could barely discern her lips because they were the same color as her white skin.
Good grief, had she been stealing her clothes from the garbage cans lately? Those sweatpants were atrocious! Why would she be wearing something…stained and ill-fitting?
If it weren’t for Uncle Charles’ illness and the man’s command to find out why Jina had left him, He still wouldn’t have come. Now…well, he only had more questions.
She jerked upright again and looked around, her eyes still not focusing very well. But when they caught him once again, those beautiful, blue eyes widened, obviously forcing her more awake.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded and stood up. “You can’t be here! You have to get out of here!”
She glanced around her apartment, trying to figure out what to do. Were they watching even now? They’d sent her pictures throughout the months, proving that they were still watching, still ready to kill Malik if she even thought about going back to him. “Oh no!” she gasped and ran over to him. “Listen Malik, I know this sounds crazy but you have to believe me. Please, just get back on your plane and go back to Sarkit. I’m begging you. That’s the only thing that will…” she stopped, realizing how crazy she sounded. “Just leave,” she whispered desperately, trying to sound firm but the words came out sounding more like a plea.
Malik had arrived here determined to get answers. Had she just stopped loving him? Had he done something to hurt her? She’d left so abruptly. One night they were tangled in each other’s arms and the next day, she was at the airport, buying a ticket with tears in her eyes. When he’d seen more of the video from the airport, he’d been convinced that she’d just left him for no apparent reason and he’d been furious. But now, looking at her in such a bedraggled state, he wasn’t so sure that the video had told the whole story.
Something wasn’t right.
“What’s going on, Jina?” he demanded.
She pushed a hand through her hair, messing it even further. “Oh no! You’re guards are outside aren’t they? They’re watching out for you! They’re probably stationed in the parking lot and on the stairways! They’ll see!”
Malik was becoming concerned. “What are you talking about? Of course my guards are outside!”
Her eyes widened and she looked up at him. “They have to hide! They have to find cover! I don’t know what will happen to them!” She stopped talking and covered her mouth with her hand. “Maybe they won’t hurt the guards,” she said, obviously talking to herself, pacing back and forth in her small apartment.
She turned back to Malik, more tears forming on her lashes and falling to her pale cheeks. “Please. Couldn’t you just…walk away? Pretend that you never found me?” she begged.
Malik was furious that she would even suggest such a thing. Especially when he was now suspecting that she was ill. “Not a chance,” he told her firmly.
The wail of a baby startled both of them. His eyes caught her body jerking only moments before she hurried to the back of the apartment.
Malik didn’t understand. Surely that wasn’t…no, she hadn’t….
“Oh please,” she whimpered, rubbing her eyes. “Lika, baby, sweet girl. You need to sleep,” and Jina walked back into the small bedroom, closing the door once more so that the light wouldn’t wake up her daughter even more.
Malik stared at the closed door, his confusion turning to rage as the sound filtered through his brain and he understood that there was a baby in that room, in his ex-lover’s arms! The sound didn’t stop but he heard her cooing to the baby and his curiosity wouldn’t allow him to stand there doing nothing. He had to investigate. Because the possibility that Jina, his beautiful Jina, had a child was inconceivable! That would mean that another man…
Impossible!
But as he stood in the doorway, he watched with morbid fascination as the woman who had haunted his dreams, his former fiancée, bent over a crib and lifted a tiny, crying baby into her arms. Her gentle hands cradled the soft, fuzzy head even as she started bouncing the baby, trying to soothe the infant’s temper.
“You woke her up!” Jina snapped. The baby started crying louder and Jina bounced harder.
“It’s going to be okay, my love,” she soothed. Jina slipped her finger into the baby’s mouth but Malik had no idea why. Somehow that seemed to soothe the child even as Jina reached for something on the baby’s dressing table with the hand that was holding the infant. Apparently she’d grown a couple of limbs in the time it took her to disappear because there was no way two arms could be accomplishing everything. “Here you go, love. This will help. Just let me…” she handed the tube to Malik. “Can you open this for me?” she asked.
Malik looked down at the item she handed to him and realized that it was teething gel. That started to make sense and he opened the top. What he knew about babies could fill a thimble but he had heard that babies teethed and they cried a lot. Among other actions that they did a lot, he thought with revulsion.
“You have a baby,” he growled, trying to come to terms with the fact that his Jina was a mother now. He was furiously jealous, he could barely stand still.
Jina ignored him, focusing all of her attention on the tiny girl in her arms. She squeezed a bit of the teething gel out onto her finger, then rubbed the infant’s gums. Instantly, the baby stopped crying but Jina still lifted the child into her arms again. “Yes, I have a baby,” she told him finally.
“How old is this child?” he demanded. He wanted to know how soon after she’d left him that she’d jumped into another man’s bed.
“She is six month’s old,” Jina replied and sat down in the rocking chair, holding her daughter close.
Malik stood in the center of the room, his mind mentally doing the math. If this child was six months old, that would mean that Jina…she’d been three months pregnant when she’d left him!
That would mean that…he stared at the baby in Jina’s arms, his mind frantically trying to come to terms with what that meant.
“Jina…?” He looked at the little girl with the dark head of fluff. Not hair yet, but it would soon be hair. It was just soft fuzz at this point. “Is that…?”
Jina patted the baby’s back as she rocked back and forth, trying to get the baby back to sleep. “Is this your daughter?”
Malik could barely nod his head.
“Yes. This is Lika,” she finally admitted. “This is your daughter.”
Jina watched as the emotions flitted across Malik’s handsome face. She was startled by the final one. Awe was a powerful emotion, she realized and Malik moved closer, his hand reaching out to touch her baby girl. His baby girl. She watched with fascination as his strong fingers touched his daughter for the first time. He was so tentative, almost nervous.
“I have a child?” he asked, still not believing it.
She nodded her head, unaware of the tears that slipped down her cheeks. The past year had been so hard and so wonderful. She’d had to leave this man, leave him so that he was protected. But the realization that she was pregnant with his child had helped her through the devastation of leaving him. She’d always thought that God had been cruel to have ripped the man she loved out of her arms but then she’d discovered that she was pregnant with his child and she realized that God had given her a piece of Malik to cherish forever.
But then she realized what was going to happen and fear welled up inside of her. She looked down at her daughter, falling asleep once again, her dark, brown eyes, so similar to her father’s, were closed now.
“You have to leave,” she urged as panic threatened to choke her. “You have to leave and pretend that you don’t know anything about Lika. Please, Malik. Get out and never come back!”
Malik couldn’t believe what he was hearing! Leave his daughter? Leave her now that he’d just discovered that he was a father?
“That is out of the question,” he told her without hesitation. He lifted his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed a number. “Come quickly,” he said in Arabic, obviously to his guards.
Moments later, her apartment door burst open and five very large, heavily armed men stormed into her apartment, weapons drawn and looking around for the danger to their ruler.
Malik walked out, lifting his hands to calm them. “I have a daughter,” he told them, shocking each and every one of them. “We need to get both of them to a secure environment.”
The lead guard lifted his radio and spoke rapid commands. From that moment on, Jina knew that her night was gone. She’d get no rest tonight and she almost cried at that realization. “Please,” she begged. “Don’t do this. I’m so tired and Lika is tired. She’s teething and we haven’t slept very well for the past few nights.” Jina tried very hard to pull herself together, but she was just so tired! And Malik was so handsome, she just wanted to throw herself into his arms and sob out her fear and sadness over the loss of what could have been between them. What could never be!
Malik looked down at the woman holding his child and he hardened his heart. “You and the baby will be taken care of,” he told her.
She shook her head. “No! You don’t understand! They told me…” she bit her lip, not wanting to scare him.
Malik caught her slip and his eyes narrowed on her pale features. “What were you going to say, Jina? Has someone threatened you?” he demanded. That would make some of her earlier comments make sense.
Jina’s lips compressed. Once she’d retreated to New York, a phone call had relayed her additional threats. She’d been told not to say anything, that it would only make it worse. Just get out of Sarkit, the raspy voice had commanded. If she stayed away without giving anything away, no one would get hurt. If she told anyone, there would be more casualties.
Malik looked down at her and knew that there was a great deal more to the story. But she wasn’t going to say anything and he recognized the terror in her eyes. Something had happened. And damn it, he should have come after her sooner! This was his fault, he berated himself.
“Let’s go,” he told her.
She shook her head. “Please Malik. Just leave,” she whispered desperately.
Malik moved over to her, taking her upper arms in his hands and that’s when he realized how badly she was trembling. “We’re leaving, Jina. I have to get you and the baby to a secure area. My guards can’t protect us here and I’m not leaving without you and the baby.” His eyes looked down into her blue ones, trying to convey how serious he was about this. “If there is danger, then staying here will only increase the odds that someone can get to me or you. Or the baby,” he added, looking again at the infant now sleeping in Jina’s arms. “You know me. You know that I won’t leave now. So…”
“Fine!” she snapped. “Let’s go! But you have to promise me that, once you’ve heard everything, you’ll leave and forget us.”
He almost rolled his eyes. “I am eager to hear everything,” he promised. There was no way he was going to pretend that he didn’t know that he had a child though. And if what he suspected was true, he would be married to this woman by the end of the day. Glancing at his watch, he corrected himself. He would be married to her by the end of tomorrow since there was only a half hour left in the current day.
She followed Malik out of the apartment but stopped, grabbing her keys. “I need…”
“You don’t need your car, Jina,” he told her firmly.
“I need the car seat in my car. Lika needs to be safe,” she told him, not budging on this issue.
Malik looked at her for a moment, then nodded his head to one of his guards.
“The car seat is by the door,” she told him. And I need the bag there too. Both bags,” she told the guard who lifted the first one. “Oh, and I need my briefcase,” she announced and started back to her room. She hadn’t finished the work she’d brought home because Lika had been crying all night. The pain in her gums had been too much for the little lady to handle. Jina had planned on getting up early tomorrow morning to get the work done.
“You’re no longer working,” Malik announced with an air of absolute authority.
Jina heard those words and shook her head. “Yes I am,” she told him and slipped the briefcase stuffed with work on her shoulder. “I have to pay the rent.”
Malik didn’t respond. There was no way his woman was going to work any longer. “Are you still working at the United Nations?” he asked.
“Yes. And they have an important meeting tomorrow. I’m on the schedule to translate.”
Malik didn’t say a word, but he gave his guard a look. The other man nodded his head, knowing that phone calls would have to be made. By morning, Jina would no longer be eligible to work at the United Nations. One couldn’t be married to a ruler and still work in the United Nations. He wasn’t sure it was a written rule, but he’d wager a great deal of money that it was a pretty strict guideline.
It took several minutes to get the car seat tightened properly in the limousine. But once it was in, Jina transferred Lika to the carrier and gently strapped her in without waking her up. The fact that she slept through all of this only proved how exhausted her tiny daughter really was.
Fifteen minutes later, the limousine was pulling into the underground parking lot of the Ritz Carlton and the guards were fanning out, looking for dangers. Jina carried her still-sleeping daughter into the hotel, right up to the penthouse suite. “Goodness,” she sighed, remembering the luxury that always surrounded Malik.
“Put her in one of the rooms and then let’s talk.”
Jina shook her head. “Could we please talk later?” she asked, setting Lika down and rocking her gently.
Malik nodded his head. “You’re right. We have other priorities.” He turned to his guard and raised an eyebrow.
“Five minutes,” the guard stated.
Malik nodded. “Fine. Do you want to change clothes?” he asked Jina.
Jina shook her head. “No. I’m fine. I just need to sleep.”
“Here,” he said and handed her a glass filled with a dark liquid.
Jina glanced at the glass briefly but shook her head. “I can’t.”
He stared at the liquid. “You used to love brandy,” he told her accusingly.
Jina stood up and looked at Malik. “I can’t drink alcohol. Not while I’m…” she couldn’t finish that sentence. Her cheeks turned pink and her mind blanked out.
Malik didn’t understand. “Why not?” he demanded. “You were never a heavy drinker before. What’s changed?”
Jina shifted on her feet. “I just…can’t,” she told him and turned back to Lika, adjusting the blanket unnecessarily over her daughter. She had trouble looking at Malik when discussing something so intimate.
Malik stared at the top of her head, wondering what was going on. He rubbed the back of his neck and tried to come to terms with everything he’d learned tonight, hoping something would make sense.
“Jina…” he started to say only to be shushed by her.
“She’s asleep and she’s going to stay that way. She’s so tired,” and Jina touched her daughter’s head softly.
“You are exhausted as well. And you’re not making sense, Jina. Or at least, no sense that you’re willing to explain to me.”
The door opened behind her and a new man walked in.
Jina stared at the man, confused.
“Who is he?” she demanded, worried about any strangers.
There was quite a bit of shuffling as the guards consulted with Malik who had a short conversation with the stranger. In the end, no one really explained anything, but Jina was too tired to understand, so she didn’t care. As long as Lika slept, she was happy. Well, she’d be happier if she could also sleep, but…
Malik took her hands in his and turned her to the other man. Guards stood on either side of them and the man started speaking.
“Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?” he asked Malik.
“I do,” he said quickly. Jina’s mouth fell open with those words.
Turning to Jina, the stranger said, “Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?”
Jina looked at the man, stunned. He was marrying them? Impossible! “No!” she snapped and started to pull back.
Malik turned her to face him. “Jina, we are to be married. And it has to be quickly and in secret. This man is here to marry us in the quickest way possible. And then we’re going to get to the bottom of all the issues surrounding your abrupt departure a year ago. So just say the correct words and we can move on.”
Jina shook her head but Malik squeezed her hands, telling her that she wasn’t getting out of this. “I do,” she finally said but her eyes were blazing her fury at him. A fury that was hiding her fears.
The man continued to mutter some words but Jina didn’t hear anything after that. The man bowed, slipped a piece of paper for both of them to sign and moments later, he walked out. Jina stood there, stunned.
She looked around and found Malik conferring softly with his guards. They all looked extremely serious as they looked up to him and she shivered, thinking she’d just sentenced this man to death.
“Please, Malik. Tell me that we weren’t just married!”
Malik turned and looked over at her, surprised to find her almost in tears again.
He walked over to her and took her hands. “Will you please explain?” he asked softly.
She knew that she was gripping his hands too tightly but her fear was overwhelming her. “They’re going to kill you! He told me that!”
Malik didn’t even blink an eye. “Who is going to kill me?”
“I don’t know!” she sobbed. “I didn’t get to see his face. I only know what he said.”
The guards moved closer, obviously furious that someone had breached their security. “Where did it happen? What day?” He held up a hand to stop her. “Wait, it was the day before you left me, wasn’t it?” he guessed.
Jina nodded her head, clasping her hands behind her back.
“And you left me without telling me what was going on?” It was a question, but she didn’t really think she needed to answer it.
“I wasn’t…”
“Stop, Jina,” he told her, his voice more gentle now. “I understand.”
She shook her head. “No. You don’t understand anything. But I’m too tired right now to help you understand.” She glanced at her watch and sighed. “I have about three hours before I have to be up and get ready for work. I’m going to find a place to fall asleep and then I’ll get out of your life again tomorrow.”
She should probably head back to her apartment tonight but everything was just too confusing. She didn’t want to deal with this right now. She just needed a bed and…nope, she didn’t even need a pillow. A bed would suffice. Even flat surface would work.
She opened the first door she came to and found an empty bed. Carrying Lika into the room, she set her on the floor, then curled up next to her daughter, worried that Lika would wake up in the middle of the night and not know where she was. She pulled the covers and the pillows down to the floor, curled up and was instantly asleep.