The nervous roiling in her stomach settled a little as the thought penetrated. She was allowing fear to build upon fear, when the little she knew about Ash should have reassured her.
The Ash she’d met last year.
This man, in his hand-stitched suit with an air of assurance in the plush executive suite, was someone she had yet to know.
‘If I’d known you were alive I’d have told you about Oliver.’
‘Oliver...’ He said it slowly, rolling the name around his tongue as if testing it.
‘Oliver Ashal Nilsson.’ Fire climbed her throat and moved higher, making her ears tingle.
‘Ashal?’ Both eyebrows arched this time. ‘That’s an Arabic name.’
So his investigators hadn’t got as far as checking the birth certificate. For some reason that made her feel better.
‘I know. I wanted...’ She dropped her gaze to her knotted hands. ‘I wanted him to have something from you so I gave him your name—or as close to it as I could find. I wasn’t sure if Ash was your real name.’
She looked up to see Ash staring at her as if he’d never seen her before. He swallowed and she tracked the movement of his strong throat, finding it strangely both arousing and endearing, as if it indicated he was affected by the revelation.
Perhaps her imagination worked overtime.
‘I found Ashal in a list of baby names. It means light or radiance.’
‘I know what it means.’
Ash’s voice was so low Tori felt it trawl through her belly.
‘It’s a fine name.’ He paused. ‘It was very generous of you to give him a name that honoured my heritage.’
Tori spread her hands. ‘It seemed apt. He’s the light of my life.’
Awareness pulsed between them. Not sexual this time, but an unprecedented moment of understanding. The sort she imagined parents the world over shared when they discussed their beloved children. It reassured her as nothing else had.
‘So whatisyour name? Is it Ash?’
‘Ashraf.’
‘Ashraf.’ She said it slowly, liking the sound.
‘It means most honourable or noble.’ His mouth kicked up at the corner, lending his expression a fleetingly cynical cast. A second later the impression was gone. ‘Ashraf ibn Kahul al Rashid.’
He watched her closely as if expecting a reaction. Something about the name tickled her memory but she couldn’t place it.
When she merely nodded he went on, ‘Sheikh of Za’daq.’
‘Sheikh?’ Weren’t they just in books?
‘Leader.’ He paused. ‘Prince. Ruler.’
Tori’s mouth dried. She swallowed, then swiped her bottom lip with her tongue. ‘You’re the ruler of Za’daq? Of the whole country?’
For the second time in half an hour the world tilted around her. Hands braced on the chair’s cushioned armrests, she fought sudden dizziness.
Oliver’s father was aking?
‘That explains the bodyguard.’
If she’d known what waited for her in this room, would she have entered or turned tail and run?