Wanted: A Baby by the Sheikh(34)

She shook her head. “I can’t.”

“You’re protecting him.”

She shook her head and he went out and closed the door behind him without another word.

No, she thought to herself, I’m protecting you.





CHAPTER SEVEN





Taina looked out the window with eyes that stung from lack of sleep. They were passing across the coastline of Estonia. Soon they’d see the waterways, lakes, and forests of Finland through the misty morning light. She closed her eyes. Thank God they were back. The flight had been a nightmare. Daidan had barely spoken two words to her. The bedroom lay unused. Daidan had remained in his office working—barking commands at people if they entered his office and glaring at anyone else—while she’d remained seated, trying to figure out how the hell she could make things better between them when she couldn’t tell him the one thing he wanted to know. Who the baby’s father had been. How she’d been conceived.

If she told him Daidan’s world would come crashing around his shoulders. He’d react with violence no matter how much he thought he was in control. If he’d sent a man to hospital for flirting with her, how much worse would this be? And it would impact the business as well. She couldn’t do that to him on top of everything else. She just had to hope that he’d somehow come to terms with not knowing and carry on. Because already she missed the man she’d come to know—missed his companionship, missed his warmth, and his loving. He’d come round, she told herself. He’d come round. But she felt cold inside. Cold and afraid that he never would come round.





“Just find him.” Daidan slammed down the phone and stood up from his desk, pushing his fingers through his short hair. Another trail had hit a dead end. He twisted round his computer and entered a few commands. He’d gotten further than he had done in the past. Because he knew she’d had a baby and so that narrowed down the search. But still he couldn’t nail down what had happened. Who’d she’d been with. There had been no scandal, no relationships that had hit the papers, no lover that anyone knew anything about. She’d been the same dignified person, attending parties, leaving alone. Not once had she slipped up that he could see. He was crazy with jealousy. All the time he hadn’t known that she’d had other men, he’d been able to persuade himself that, like him, she hadn’t had an affair during their separation. But now he didn’t have that luxury. She’d confirmed the truth. And he knew it was the truth. He could see it in her eyes and besides, it made sense. She’d lost the child, she wanted another.

From what he’d read losing a child, even if it was an unwanted one, could be a painful psychological experience. But it turned out it wasn’t painful for only her. It was beyond pain for him, too.

He sat back down at the computer, searching through the photographs that his contacts had found for him. Not once had she been photographed with another man other than in a group function. Only by herself, or with other women. He had his staff going over the receipts once more in the offices but they found nothing new. Only receipts from Aspen, the Maldives and New York. And there the trail stopped suddenly.

It seemed the only aberrant behavior from Taina was leaving him on their wedding day. Apart from that her public life was as immaculate as she wanted it to appear. But only he and she knew different. He’d always thought of her as “his” Taina, “his” woman, even when she was away from him, but now, as irrational as he knew it to be, he felt she wasn’t “his” any more. And the thought killed him. If he could only lay his hands on the man who did this to her he’d— He stopped abruptly at that thought, suddenly realizing that that was exactly why Taina would never tell him. She was afraid of what he’d do. Afraid he’d lose his control and end up in jail. He couldn’t blame her. It nearly happened once before. But once was enough. He’d changed, even if she didn’t realize it.

Trying to re-focus, he went through his emails. Yet another report of something a Russian had said to one of his staff. This time in New York. The repeated threats were becoming less veiled, more explicit. The threats, together with what Sahmir had said, had meant he’d have to step up security, especially leading up to the launch. Nothing must go wrong. He’d waited his whole life for the chance to create something of his own and he was determined not to have it ruined now. The business might have started off as Taina’s family’s business—and that image was still being used as its brand—but he now owned half, and the infrastructure and plans for expansion were all down to him. If he hadn’t stepped in when he had, the company would still be content to be a big fish in the small pond of Finland. Under his control, it was about to go global.