Read An Heir to Bind Them for Free Online Page B

outside where the change of scenery calmed him.
    Evie remained stiff in his arms, inconsolable. They slid into the limo like bank robbers after a heist and the driver pulled away.
    “You might have told me so I could have had proper car seats installed. This is dangerous, Theo.”
    Damn. His name sounded better than he remembered and made him hunger to hear it against his ear.
    “So?” she prompted. “Who are they?”
    “Can he be trusted?” he asked in a murmur, nodding at the driver. “Because I couldn’t risk a phone call that might have been heard over the radio. I was texting one-handed—” He was interrupted by Jaya’s sudden query to Evie.
    “ Pyaari beti, do you have to use the potty?”
    Evie’s distressed face nodded vigorously.
    For the second time today, Theo’s mind blanked with panic. She was on his knee!
    “Oscar—” Jaya turned to say, but the driver was ahead of her, already slowing outside the terminal building.
    “Wait—” Theo said as Jaya plunked Androu onto the cushion beside her and scooped up Evie.
    “There’s no waiting at her age. What is she, two?” She was out the door as the limo halted, the little girl wrapped onto her hip like a monkey.
    Theo clenched his teeth and did the math on discoverability. He didn’t dare let himself calculate the odds on Jaya stealing the toddler. He made himself believe he knew her better, even though he didn’t. Not really. Not when he’d treated her the way he had.
    Sleeping with Jaya had been wrong.
    He wasn’t a man who got anything wrong. Mistakes were a luxury he had never been able to afford.
    Something about Jaya eroded his discipline, however. Two years ago, he’d started allowing himself to fantasize about an employee. Then he’d begun finding reasons to stay an extra day in Bali, to review reports he could generate himself. He’d rationalized a one-night affair and taken her to bed knowing it was not just unwise and bordering on unethical, it was downright stupid. She was sweet and generous, not the worldly, here-for-a-good-time kind of woman who would forget him as quickly as he forgot her.
    God, he wished he could forget her.
    The best he’d managed was not to return her tentative few calls. It had been a cruel-to-be-kind favor in her best interest. Not that he expected her to see it that way, but he had warned her they had no future. Surely she wouldn’t hold a grudge when he’d been honest about that much?
    Skipping his gaze between Androu, who was turning himself and scooting backward off the opposite seat, and the terminal doors that remained closed and reflected the black windows of the limo, he evaluated how much of a chance he was taking letting Jaya whisk Evie into public.
    This airstrip catered to private aircraft belonging to celebrities and Europe’s high society, which meant most people would have very little interest in anyone but themselves. It was a tempting place for paparazzi to hang around looking for the shot of their career, though. Evie’s parents were scrupulous about keeping her out of the limelight. Dressed in her hotel uniform, Jaya would be dismissed as a flight attendant or a nanny. Since Evie’s almond eyes and black pigtails didn’t match either her adoptive father’s blond hair or her mother’s green eyes, the chances of anyone recognizing her were narrow.
    It was still an interminable wait as Androu rocked his still learning feet across the short expanse to clutch at Theo’s knee. “Mama,” he said.
    Oh, hell. Theo stared into innocent eyes that could have belonged to his little brother, Demitri, at that age. “I know, buddy,” he said, even though he didn’t know a damned thing except that Adara had done this surrogate parenting at a far younger age than he was, so he had to man up and make this work.
    Adara had had Jaya’s instincts, though. Somehow she’d hung on to them through the war ground that was their childhood and look what she’d made: Androu was a happy little cub