It didn’t feel wrong, or even like a lie, not when she’d told it to protect her child. Jada had spent her life behaving, following the rules, but there were no rules for this situation. There was no right, no wrong. There was only need. The need to keep Leena with her.
“And you thought that since I had to travel halfway around the world on short notice, I would be forced to miss it. Too bad for you I have a private jet.”
He didn’t look like the kind of man who owned a private jet. He didn’t look like a man ready for a court hearing. He was wearing low-slung jeans, held onto his lean hips with a thick belt. He had a rumpled button-up shirt on that somehow looked all the better for being wrinkled, the sleeves pushed up past his elbows, revealing muscular forearms. And aviator sunglasses. Like he was some sort of rock star or something.
He turned his hand and adjusted the buckle on his watch, revealing a dark tattoo, an anchor, on the underside of his wrist. She wondered, briefly, how much something like that had hurt. She wondered what it said about him. He was danger personified, and just looking at him made a shiver course through her body.
On the plus side, his blatant lack of regard for convention made her feel more and more confident about her chances. She’d had Leena in her custody for a year, after all. And this man, her father, had no claim on her beyond the genetic.
Blood was certainly thicker than water, but dirty diapers trumped blood. And she had changed more than her share of those over the past year.
He looked at his watch. “Looks like I’ve made it with time to spare. I’ll be back in a moment.”
“Don’t rush,” Jada said. She took a seat in one of the chairs that lined the door outside of the family courtroom. She wished she could hold Leena right now, but Leena was with the social worker. Jada’s arms felt empty. She picked her purse up from the floor, her phone out of one of the pockets, opened an app and played it mindlessly. She just needed to keep her hands busy. And her mind vacant.
“Good. I didn’t miss anything.”
She looked up and a swear word rushed out of her mouth. He looked…it wasn’t fair how he looked. He was in a black suit, open at the collar, everything fitted perfectly to his well-muscled physique. The dark fabric poured over him like liquid, flowing with his movements, revealing strength, power. He looked like the sort of man who got what he wanted with the snap of a finger. The kind of man who had women falling at his feet with a glance.
He’d gone from rumpled traveler to James Flipping Bond in ten seconds flat.
Although, Bond was always fighting the Russians, so maybe he was more of a Bond villain.
“I see you decided to dress for the occasion,” she said.
He’d removed the sunglasses, and for the first time she could see his eyes. They were somewhere between blue and gray, like the sea during a storm.
“It seemed the thing to do,” he said, his lips quirking up into a smile. He seemed entirely unruffled, as if the outcome of this didn’t matter to him at all. It meant everything to her. This, Leena, was her entire life. All she had left.
“It seemed the thing to do? Well, I suppose it’s good that going out for Chinese food didn’t seem the thing to do at the moment instead. Is that all she is to you? Just…is this just an experiment for you? Why did you even bother to show up?”
“She’s my daughter,” he said, his tone betraying no emotion, no concern. Just stating a fact. “That means I must claim responsibility for her.”
“Responsibility? Is that what she is to you?”
She caught a hint of steel in his eyes. “She’s my blood. Not yours.”
Jada snorted and crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “I’ve only raised her from the time she was born. What do I matter?” She didn’t know where this strength was coming from. She only knew she had it, and she had to use it. There was no one standing behind her. No one on her side. No one but herself.
“I didn’t know about her,” he said.
“Because her mother thought you were dead. And why did she think that? Did you tell her you were going off on some secret mission?