The Sheikh's Secret Son Read Online Free Page A

it returned to the twenty-sixth floor.
    Her memory of locating her car in the underground parking lot, the drive to the Double Crown Ranch, to her mother’s house, was equally vague. All she’d known was that she’d had to get to her mother, and she had to stay away from her own home on Edgewood Drive. Just in case she was followed…
    â€œI can’t stay here, Mom,” Eden said, shaking her head. “Thanks to Ben—to the sheikh, that is—we’re all meeting again tomorrow in San Antonio. I’d have to get up before dawn to make it into the city on time. But Sawyer could come here, couldn’t he? He and Mrs. Betts.”
    â€œHe could,” Mary Ellen agreed, just as if she hadn’t been the one to suggest the visit from her grandson. “And Mrs. Betts could watch him while I’m working. I have to get the quarterly reports in order soon, you know.”
    Eden nodded. Her mother had always been just that. A mother first and foremost, a loyal wife. But she also had a great business head that she’d employed to clean up after her husband’s financial messes over the years.
    With Cameron’s death, she had stepped reluctantly into the limelight, and her business acumen had quickly landed her with new responsibilities and a reason to face life once more after her husband had gone.
    â€œHe wouldn’t be a bother, Mom. He’s got his pony up at the stables, but Mrs. Betts can drive him there whenever he wants…” Eden began, apologizing before the fact, but her mother waved off her weak words.
    â€œI’m not saying I’m agreeing with you on this, Eden,” Mary Ellen said, a hint of motherly sternness creeping into her voice. “But I know you’ve had a shock. The first thing you need to do is talk with this Ben Ramsey…this Sheikh Ramir. Straighten out what happened between you before Sawyer was born, learn more about these letters he swore he wrote to you, make your peace between you. Only then can you decide if you want to tell him of Sawyer’s existence.”
    â€œYou think I should, though, don’t you?” Eden asked, grimacing as she looked at the clock on the wall, knowing she had to begin her drive back to San Antonio in the next fifteen minutes or she’d never be able to meet Ben at six o’clock, as he had ordered.
    â€œHe is the boy’s father,” Mary Ellen said, raising her teacup to her lips, then setting it down again. “I don’t know that he deserves Sawyer, or that Sawyerdeserves him, but I do know that Sawyer deserves some answers.”
    Eden slumped against the back of the large wooden chair. “Oh, God.” She lowered her head, rubbed at her forehead. “I’ll send Mrs. Betts and Sawyer here directly after dinner tonight. That’ll give me some time, and some distance. Unless he already knows…” she said, her voice drifting off even as her head shot up and she looked at her mother.
    â€œHe could know, couldn’t he? Once he’d seen my name he probably had someone make inquiries, check up on me, make sure I was the same Eden Fortune. Oh, God, Mom, why didn’t I think of this before—he might already know!”

Two
    S heikh Barakah Karif Ramir entered the Palace Lights penthouse suite with the slow and measured step that reflected his life of patience, of waiting, of watching for the most opportune moment and then seizing that moment with both hands.
    That was life in Kharmistan, the life of a prince, a sheikh. It was the life his late father had lived, and his father before him, for all of the sheikhs of Kharmistan who had known the feint and jab of politics, of intrigue, while these Americans were still learning how to build log cabins.
    The sheikh had been raised at his father’s knee, then sent off to be educated; first in England, later in America. He had not needed the education found in books, for there were books and