Strong, Hot Winds

by Iris Johansen

  “No, didn’t you notice?” Updike zeroed in on the child’s face and froze the frame.

  Black curly hair, green eyes alight with boyish mischief, and a bone structure that was familiar.

  Selim let out an astonished sigh.

  “I took the liberty of collating this shot with one of the pictures I found in your file.” Updike pressed the button and two pictures appeared on the screen. “I chose one of the shots of you at about the same age, Sheikh El Karim. It’s black and white, so I’ll just tune out the color.”

  “Almost identical,” Selim said. His gaze flew to Damon’s face. “Dear Lord, Damon, he’s—”

  “My son,” Damon finished slowly, his gaze transfixed by the two pictures on the screen.

  “I didn’t think you knew,” Updike said with satisfaction. “At first I thought that was why you had Miss Brandel under surveillance, but then I realized you’d probably have asked to have the child under similar surveillance. I thought you’d want me to make a definite verification, but that didn’t prove possible. There are additional photographs and a copy of the birth certificate in that envelope, but you won’t find anything you can use in a court of law. Oh, we could prove that only the little girl was Bettina Langstrom’s child and that the boy was born to Cory Brandel. But there was no father’s name listed on the birth certificate.”

  Damon’s gaze never left the screen.

  “Miss Brandel accepted a newsroom assignment for the last five months of her pregnancy. Then after the baby was born she resumed her job as a television reporter. The child lives with the Langstroms and appears very happy and well cared for. Miss Brandel pays the monthly mortgage on the Langstroms’ home and gives them money for the support of the child too. She spends every free minute she has with her son. The arrangement seems to suit everyone.”

  “You’re wrong,” Damon said harshly. “It doesn’t suit me.” His feet crashed to the floor as he sat upright and reached for the manila envelope. “You keep calling him ‘the child.’ I don’t even know my son’s name. Nothing.”

  “His name appears as Michael Brandel on the birth certificate,” Updike said.

  “The hell it does.” Damon’s eyes were blazing in his taut face. “Not even my name. I suppose she conceived the baby through immaculate conception.”

  Updike took a hurried step back. “I’m only reporting what I found.”

  “Then report one more bit of information. What’s my son’s birth date?”

  “September nineteenth.”

  “September.” Damon began to swear with soft violence. “Then she knew before— Damn her, she had to have known she was pregnant before I came back to Kasmara.”

  “Sheikh El Karim, I hope—” Updike stopped and inhaled sharply as Damon’s gaze shifted to his face. Rage. Hot, searing, uncontrolled fury.

  Selim rose quickly to his feet. “I think you’d better go now, Updike. I’ll walk you to the helicopter and tell the guards you have permission to leave.”

  Permission to leave, Updike thought in disgust. He always felt as if he had been hurled back into another century when he came to Kasmara. At times the imperious world of power in which the sheikh lived even struck him as funny. Yet at the moment he felt no amusement at being here. There was too much anger, too much intensity and leashed violence building in the man sitting at the desk. “I do have to get back to New York. Do you have any instructions for me?”

  “No.” Damon tore open the envelope. “Leave the videotape on.”

  Updike hastily placed the control on the desk before standing there in hesitation. “The bonus?”

  “You’ll get your bonus.” Damon spread the photographs on the desk. “Give him a check, Selim.”

  Selim nodded as he crossed the room and opened the door. “I’ll express it to you later today.” He gestured toward the open door.

  “Good-bye, Sheikh El Karim.” Updike hurried toward the door. “If there’s anything I can do …”

  Damon didn’t answer, his gaze focused with total absorption on the pictures before him.

  He was still staring at the pictures fifteen minutes later when Selim came back into the study and crossed the room to drop down onto the visitor’s chair again. “There’s no mistake?” Selim asked gently. “The child is definitely yours?”

  “The child is mine.” Damon didn’t look up. “You saw the resemblance even before I did.”

  “I grew up with you.” Selim smiled faintly. “For a minute I thought I was seeing a picture of you as a child. Still, it could have been coincidence.”

  “No coincidence. The child was conceived four years ago when I went to New York to sign the papers for the purchase of United Trust.”

  “And stayed four months after that business was finished,” Selim added. “I wondered why you didn’t return at once. You usually can’t wait to get back to Kasmara. It was the woman?”

  “No,” Damon said violently. “Do you think any woman could keep me tied to her, at her beck and call, for that long? I found her good in bed but there was nothing special enough about her to keep me there.” His hands tightened on the photographs. “Nothing at all.”

  “Really?” Selim leaned back in his chair and stretched his long legs out before him. “As I recall, when you came back to Kasmara you were like a scorpion, stinging everyone around you for at least six months. I wondered at the time—”

  “It’s not your place to wonder,” Damon cut through his words, his face clouding stormily. “You have no right to—” He stopped. Selim was laughing, his dark eyes alight with mischief.

  Selim made a mocking obeisance. “Yes, O Master. I forgot for a moment my lowly position on this earth. Are you going to send me back to my tribe with word that I’ve displeased you?”

  Damon scowled. “I was thinking more of something on the order of my pitching you into the fountain in the courtyard. And you have your own sting, damn you.”

  Selim sobered. “I didn’t mean to sting you.” He felt a stirring of remorse. Damon always retreated behind the wall of royal arrogance when he felt threatened or was raw and hurting. Selim knew him too well to miss the defensive emotional maneuver now. “What can I do to help?”

  “Nothing.” Damon’s shoulders were rigid with strain. “There’s nothing anyone can do.” His hands slowly clenched into fists. “Three years. He was mine and she cheated me out of three years of his life. She didn’t tell me.”

  “Maybe she thought you wouldn’t be interested. Men are more casual about these things.”

  “Casual?” Damon’s fist crashed down on the desk. “Would I be casual about my son?”

  Selim knew very well that Damon would react with passionate possession toward anything or anyone he felt belonged to him. “You said the relationship wasn’t important. It’s possible she didn’t realize—”

  “She realized,” Damon said harshly. “She’s a very intelligent woman and she knew how I’d feel and still she—” He broke off. “I want to strangle her.”

  “That’s what you’d like to do,” Selim said quietly. “Now, what are you going to do?”

  “Probably strangle her.”

  “Damon …” Selim shook his head. He had never seen Damon this enraged. There was no use trying to reason with him until he calmed down. If he ever did calm down, Selim added ruefully to himself. “Let me rephrase it. What are you going to do immediately?”

  “Go get my son.”

  “That goes without saying. I was mentally packing your bags from the minute I saw the picture of the boy. He’s an American citizen. There may be problems.”

  “He’s also a citizen of Sedikhan and heir to the Sheikhdom of El Zabor.” Damon smiled tigerishly. “And possession has always been nine tenths of the law.”

  “His mother—”

  “His mother gave my son to strangers to raise,” he said fiercely. “Do you think I should consider her feelings? She cheated me. And by heaven, I’ll find a way to punish her for it.”

  Selim stood up.
“Then I assume you’ll want me to make travel arrangements. When do you want to leave?”

  “As soon as possible,” Damon said curtly. “And try to contact Updike before he boards his flight at Marasef. I want him to travel back to New York on the Learjet with me.”

  Selim looked at him in surprise. “Why? I thought you were through with him.”

  “I wasn’t thinking, I was feeling,” Damon said. “I’ll need to know more about the Langstroms.” He gestured impatiently. “And … oh, everything. Just get him.”

  Selim nodded as he strode toward the door. “Right away. I’ll have your bags packed and the Learjet readied. I’ll call you when the helicopter returns from Marasef.” The door closed behind him.

  Damon looked up from the photographs and gazed blindly at the Rubens painting on the wall across the room.

  A son. Dear Lord, he had a son.

  Now that the first stunning surprise was gone, he was filled with a tumult of emotions. Protectiveness, curiosity, possessiveness. A child he could love. A child who could love him. Love to fill the loneliness he had always known. Pain suddenly wrenched through him. But would his son love him? Had Cory poisoned the boy against him? Did his son believe his father had deserted him?

  Anger tore through him, burning away the pain. Cory had no right to keep his son from him. He drew a deep breath and tried to cool his temper. He couldn’t think when he was angry, and he had to make plans. He would have his son and he would punish Cory. There was no question in his mind that both things would come to pass, but he must determine how.

  He reached out, picked up the remote control, and punched the rewind button and then play. Cory’s laughing face soon appeared on the screen and he felt a queer jolt deep within him. Anger, he told himself. It had to be anger. She was nothing to him. Not any longer.

  She hadn’t meant anything to him then either. Not really. She had been just a woman to slake his lust. But she hadn’t slaked it. His desire for her had been a thirst that had become unquenchable.

  He’d had many women since who were more expert in pleasing a man. What was there about Cory that had caught his imagination as well as his body?

  What did it matter, he wondered impatiently. He thirsted now only for revenge. No, that wasn’t quite true. The anger was there but his body was even now stirring, readying itself as he remembered the feel of her, the scent of her, the way she moved beneath him.

  His thumb punched down on the off button of the remote control and Cory disappeared from the screen.

  He wouldn’t have it, dammit. He wouldn’t be held captive by Cory Brandel again. She was nothing to him.

  Only a thirst …

  “For heaven’s sake, Cory, it’s almost four o’clock in the morning. Let me call you a taxi.” Gary Koenig frowned in concern. “With my luck you’ll get mugged or raped on the way to the station and then I really will cut my throat.”

  Cory shook her head. “I feel like walking. The train station is only a few blocks away and I need the fresh air.” She wrinkled her nose. “So does this apartment. Don’t you ever open the windows?”

  “I never think about it.” Gary rubbed his stubbled jaw. “I need a shave.”

  “And a shower. Your suit will be ready at the cleaners in the morning. Remember to pick it up.”

  “I will.” He opened the door and leaned wearily against the jamb. “Thanks for staying, Cory.”

  “No big deal.” A glowing smile lit her face. “What are friends for?”

  “It was a big deal. I don’t think I would have made it this time.”

  “Sure you would.” Cory fastened the belt of her trench coat. “Just as you’ll make it the next time and the time after that. I’m just hanging around to give positive reenforcement. I’m glad I could help.” She started to close the door.

  “Cory?”

  She stopped and looked at him inquiringly.

  “Be careful.” He smiled with an effort. “There aren’t many people like you around. We can’t afford to lose you.”

  She waved casually, closed the door, and began to walk down the hall toward the stairs. Her bright smile faded and then vanished entirely as the weariness she had held at bay swept over her. It was stupid to let these hours with Gary sap her strength like this. Usually she could work around the clock and still have energy to spare. She had always believed that you were tired only if you let yourself be tired. Determination and strength of will weren’t the best substitute for rest, but they’d keep her going.

  No, it wasn’t the physical but the emotional burdens Gary hung on her that she had problems coping with. Sometimes Gary’s depressions almost overwhelmed her and she was tempted to forget everything and everyone and run away to a place where she had only Michael and herself to worry about. Lord, how she’d wanted to go home to Michael when she’d left the network last night.

  But you couldn’t run away from friends when they needed you. Their burdens became your burdens too.

  She stepped out of the apartment building onto the sidewalk and breathed deeply. The cool wet breeze felt like heaven after the hours in Gary’s stuffy apartment. She immediately felt her spirits rise as she strolled along the rain-washed streets toward the station.

  She had liked this time of morning since the days when she was a fledgling TV reporter assigned to the graveyard shift. The streets were quiet, and violence and brutality seemed far away. She knew very well that the quiet was deceptive, still, one had to take what one could get in New York.

  But she didn’t have to worry about New York, her job, or even Gary for the next few days. They could all coast along without Cory Brandel’s help for a while. She would get on that train to Meadowpark and in a little over an hour she would be walking into the house on Brookwood Lane.

  Her steps unconsciously quickened as her stride took on its customary springy bounce. She didn’t have time to be tired right now.

  In a little over an hour she would be with Michael.

  TWO

  THERE WAS SOMETHING wrong!

  Cory closed the front door and stood there in the darkness, poised, taut, every sense straining. She had learned to trust her instincts and those instincts were now screaming. Yet, what could be wrong? The porch light had been left on as usual and the house was quiet. Too quiet. It was like that time in Nicaragua when the contras—

  “Come in and join me, Cory.”

  She whirled toward the arched doorway leading to the shadowed living room. It couldn’t be, she thought in sudden panic. Damon couldn’t be here. She hadn’t heard that deep, mocking voice in almost four years. She had told herself she would probably never hear it again. She had felt so safe.

  The lamp flicked on to reveal Damon sprawled lazily in Carter’s big leather easy chair by the picture window. His tall, muscular body was garbed in an elegant dark blue business suit that was sleekly civilized; it was completely at odds with the power he exuded that was purely physical. But then, Damon was physical, she thought. Physical, highly sexed, and the most passionate man she had ever encountered.

  “You’re surprised to see me?” Damon rose to his feet with the lithe grace she had told herself she had forgotten. She hadn’t forgotten. She hadn’t forgotten the crisp darkness of his hair that curled as stubbornly as Michael’s, nor the glittering green of his eyes, nor the way he stood with his legs slightly astride as if challenging the world. She had buried it but hadn’t forgotten any of it. Dear heaven, how she wished she had.

  “You’re not answering.” Damon’s lips twisted. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you at a loss for words before. You’ve always known exactly what you wanted and where you were going.”

  Cory drew a deep, shaky breath. “Naturally, I didn’t expect to see you here. Did Bettina and Carter give you permission to wait here until I came home?”

  “Oh, yes, they were very cooperative.” He continued silkily. “What charming friends you have. They said they’d known you for over five years, but I don’t recall being introduced
to them. Ah, you never did want me to meet any of your friends, though, did you?”

  “It wasn’t that kind of a relationship.” She moistened her lips with her tongue. “I never met any of your friends either.”

  “I had no friends in New York.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, stop trying to give me a guilt trip,” she said with sudden impatience. “You know that neither of us was interested in anything but—” She stopped and felt her heart start to pound faster as she met his narrowed gaze.

  “Bed?” he suggested softly. “Or, more precisely, what we did in bed, and on the floor, and on the chairs, and on every possible surface in that suite at the Plaza. We couldn’t get enough, could we?” His expression hardened. “Or should I say I couldn’t get enough? You’re the one who decided you were bored and called it quits. You didn’t even bother to tell me to my face. Just a note delivered by messenger and then you were off to Rome to cover a story.”

  “I’ve never liked to drag out good-byes.” She forced a smile. “And I noticed you never tried to contact me, so you must have felt the same way.”

  “Of course I did.” He lifted his chin with royal disdain. “You were nothing more to me than I was to you. Less.”

  Cory experienced an odd sharp pain. “Then I obviously did the right thing. A relationship based purely on sex has a tendency to become obsessive, and I’m sure neither of us wanted that.”

  “No, of course we didn’t.” His black brows suddenly knotted in a fierce frown. “But you didn’t do the right thing in not telling me about my son, damn you.”

  She went still. It shouldn’t have come as such a shock. Why else would Damon be here? “You know about Michael?”

  “Yes.” The word was bitten out with barely controlled fury. “Oh, yes, Cory, I know now that you bore me a son. I know now that you cheated me out of three years of his life, and that you would have cheated me out of all the years I might have had with him if you’d had your way.”

  “He’s my son,” she said fiercely. “I gave birth to him; I raised him.”

  “You gave him to your friends to raise. What kind of mother does that make you?”