She held his stare when he looked to her, resisting the urge to glance away or trace her fingers over her palm and the phantom sensation of his larger hand engulfing hers.

  “One more thing,” he said. “I hope you’re both all right with boats.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE NANNY DIDN’T like him.

  Faisal got that at the airport after she scalded him with a quiet but fiery look. She hadn’t even wanted to touch him. He rubbed his palms together, clammy with sweat. Nerves getting the best of him was uncharacteristic. Sinking back into his leather seat, he turned his head to glimpse his guests behind.

  He sat up front with the driver, something he rarely did as he preferred to be chauffeured around.

  Now Maryan and Zara replaced him in the back seat. And they had to be the quietest people he’d been around in a very long while.

  Given the shaky reunion at the airport, he shouldn’t be shocked.

  Zara looked out the darkly tinted car window, appearing far smaller in the spacious tan leather seating. A stark image of her downcast face at the airport came to mind. A familiar sinking helplessness tugged on his insides all at once.

  He blinked and focused on Maryan.

  Like Zara, she gazed out the car window at the glass-and-steel skyscrapers and smattering of mid-rise buildings clustered around the Levent. Istanbul’s city and business center. From their speeding position on the freeway, he spied the distinct architecture of his office building. The U-shaped edifice of Umar Capital Group was difficult to miss. And a bit too on the nose. But what kind of billionaire would he be if he didn’t sprinkle his ego around once in a while?

  “That’s my office over there,” he announced.

  “Which one?” Zara asked and leaned as far into Maryan as her seat belt would allow. “I can’t see.”

  “That one,” Maryan said, pointing now too.

  “It looks like a big U,” his daughter assessed.

  “U for Umar, right?” The nanny fixed him with a level look. Surprisingly with none of the hostility from the airport swimming in the shadows of her eyes.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” he said thickly.

  Maryan turned back to his building and the skyline of infrastructure, leaving him with the sense that he’d been dismissed now that she had an answer.

  There were two things he had been fast to realize about Maryan: she cared deeply about Zara, and she wasn’t the type to hide her feelings.

  How did he know this? Because he knew people. He had to in his business.

  Maryan was only sitting in his car because Zara’s mother, Salma, hadn’t been able to bring their daughter herself. Her career kept her as occupied as his job did him.

  Salma hadn’t smothered her skepticism about this arrangement with him, either. Her words flooded back. They were as loud as if she were saying them to him all over again right there and then...

  My mom and dad want Zara. They’ll be good to her. They raised me, didn’t they? Salma had inhaled briskly. But you don’t trust them.

  She’s my daughter, too, he’d said, his thumb and forefinger pinching the bridge of his nose.

  He’d been alone in his dark office, the floor completely cleared out for the evening. Not even the cleaners had been around to witness his rising headache and his sorry attempt to squelch it before his temples throbbed. Before his heart ached.

  She’s my daughter, he’d repeated desperately. Not even sure if she was on the other end of the line anymore. He wouldn’t be surprised if Salma had hung up on him. She was used to getting her way. It was how Zara ended up with her, halfway across the world.

  And way too far from him.

  He missed Zara.

  Now Salma had dropped this chance to live with and raise his daughter unceremoniously in his lap, and she wanted to snatch that hope away just as suddenly?

  I’m her father. Wouldn’t it be natural to want her with me?

  Then you should have left Turkey and come to live near her!

  Salma’s low blow had stung more because she hadn’t stopped there.

  Let’s be honest with ourselves, Faisal. I struggled to do it on my own these last four years. Truthfully, the wonderful nanny I hired should be taking credit for us both. You know that Zara knows more about her nanny than either of us? She cries whenever Maryan has a sick day, which almost never happens. They’ve bonded. A brittle laugh and then, We haven’t been the most attentive of parents. I’m always working and you’re...well, I bet you’re holed up in your office right now, aren’t you?

  He’d tightened his lips and cut his narrowing gaze across his spacious workspace. Though he’d wished he could tell her she was wrong, he hadn’t had the heart to lie.

  Yes, he’d gritted out, frustrated with them both.

  More cool laughter from Salma. And you’re insisting that Zara be in your care. You let her go once. Why can’t you do it again?

  He’d only done that because Salma wouldn’t be argued with. She would’ve taken him to court. Made it a messy and lengthy custody battle. And he’d thought of Zara being put through all that, witnessing her parents fighting over her.

  So, Salma was right. He had let his daughter go, but she was twisting his reasoning for it.

  He’d sighed heavily. Does the past matter? I’m more than prepared now.

  Quick as always, she’d lashed out, But how can you be so sure that you’re ready?

  He wanted to answer truthfully now as the bitter memory faded away.

  I’m not sure.

  Like Salma, he was married to his profession. Showing up late at the airport proved that. But by tomorrow he hoped he could answer differently. Once this partnership was actualized with signatures, he would be a freer man.

  Maryan would see that.

  Which brought him to the second thing about the nanny.

  She was...breathtakingly beautiful. Gorgeous. Radiant even, as though a golden light were shining under her dark brown skin and illuminating her from the inside out. Her beauty had struck him in the VIP room of the airport, and he hadn’t shaken it off. The light hadn’t stopped glowing around her, either.

  It suffused her in the shadowy interior of his car. A halo around her whole form.

  He traced a mental sketch of her facial profile and committed it to memory. The line from her forehead to her upturned nose down to the swell of her mouth and the curve to her small chin. Normal and plain enough features. He had seen inhuman and alien beauty in supermodels like Salma.

  Maryan wasn’t that. What she had was far, far better. That inexplicable extraordinary light of hers swept in and enhanced the little, perhaps inconsequential quirks that were so very clear to him.

  How her forehead creased when her eyebrows shot up at something Zara said.

  How her nose twitched in time with short spurts of air as she coolly exhaled.

  How her lips moved rapidly with speech he tuned out as he focused solely on her.

  Glancing back to her eyes, she was watching him now, brow furrowing over them. Slowly, warily.

  He looked ahead abruptly. Blushing before he recognized the heat scoring his cheeks for what it was. Embarrassment. Lust. More than a bit of both. His fingers had been tapping out his agitation on the console between him and the driver. Forcing them still, but too late as he caught the curious gaze of his driver.

  To his credit the driver said not a word.

  * * *

  “You never answered me about the boats.”

  Maryan stopped stretching and tugged down the hem of her airy long-sleeved shirt where it rode up her stomach. Faisal hadn’t been looking there, but having his eyes on her affected her nonetheless as though he were.

  As if it were the two of them out and about the sprawling city. Like on a date.

  We aren’t on a date, though.

  “I’ve never been on one,” she confessed. Her home in Santa Monica was close to many beaches, but she never had the chance to experience the Pacific on a sailing craft.

  “So, you’re not averse to boats,” he said with a searching look.

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  Zara exited the car and immediately clutched her hand, the touch reminding her of the little girl and her needs.

  “I’m hungry,” she said meekly, a frown tipping her small pink mouth down.

  Shame flooded Maryan. She squeezed Zara’s hand and blurted, “Your dad was just telling me all about the delicious food he had prepared.” He hadn’t been, but she figured now could be a good opportunity to witness another interaction between him and his daughter. Because she’d given his reunion with Zara at the airport another once-over during their thirty-minute car ride. Maybe she had judged him too early.

  Everyone was deserving of a second chance, weren’t they? One last window to get it right?

  She thought of this lunch as his.

  Change my mind. Make me trust you’ll be good for Zara.

  “I promise this will be the best lunch you’ve had.” Faisal paused and smiled. “Okay, maybe not the best lunch. I don’t want to set myself up for failure. But it’ll be a unique one.”

  He led them to the curb and grabbed Zara’s free hand. “We’ll cross first.”

  The traffic was steady on both sides of the street. The noise of the lively city coming at them from all directions, much like the sun bearing down over their heads. For mid-May, it felt more like summer. She didn’t know if that was unusual or not for Turkey. It was hot even by her standards, and she was hardened by temperatures in the high nineties.

  Stinging heat wafted from the paved sidewalk. Sweat frizzed the baby hairs sprouting from her hairline. She had her hair tied up in a ponytail, and yet dampness slickened the nape of her neck. She was frying. A look at Faisal in his tan slim-fit suit had her wondering how he did it. How did he manage to appear cool, suave and incredibly handsome when she felt as messy as she probably looked.

  She glanced away when his head turned to her. Last thing she wanted was for him to catch her ogling him.

  The cars slowed at one point, and Faisal found a break for them to slip through between bumpers. They emerged on the other side safely and walked the strip of pavement adjacent to the waters of the famed Bosporus strait. She recognized it from online images, although seeing it in person intensified the experience.

  “That feels nice,” she said of the cool spray of water carried on a breeze. Tilting her head into the momentary respite from the heat, she sighed.

  “It’s really pretty,” Zara commented, awe widening her eyes as she looked around Maryan at the Bosporus.

  She had to agree; the sparkling waters of the strait were a breathtaking foreground to the other side of the natural boundary bisecting Istanbul...it’d make for the perfect place for a selfie. Something to post on her social media for her friends and family to enjoy.

  Faisal must have read her thoughts, because he asked, “Did you want to stop and take a picture?”

  She slowed at his request, the lovely Bosporus forgotten momentarily.

  “I can snap it for you.” He already had his phone in his hand and waved it. His phone case gleaming like it was made of liquid gold. She noted it was a showy new model of a foldable smartphone. As well as a pricey one, if she recalled correctly. He shook the phone temptingly, that heartbreakingly handsome smile drawing his lips up at the corners.

  She nearly agreed to his offer, but then remembered she looked far from photo-ready. She had barely managed to brush her hair and dab on her lightweight concealer to hide the dark crescents under her eyes before the plane landed. Now most of her painstaking work had been undone by unprecedented humidity.

  “Can we?” Zara asked with a little gleeful hop.

  Maryan stifled a groan. She’d forgotten Zara loved taking photos, camera-ready or not. She blamed Zara’s mother. Salma was an internationally renowned model. Not Tyra Banks or Iman levels of well-known, but she was well-traveled and fully booked for the most notable fashion shows. She was an actress now, too. A few small roles in big Hollywood movies featuring A-list stars exploded her film career.

  Like her mother, Zara was conditioned to glow in front of a lens. Any lens.

  She posed for her dad now, making faces of all sorts. Posh ones, adorable ones and downright silly ones.

  It had made Maryan worry in the past. Children could be exploited in the industries that Zara’s mother worked in. But right then she knew that a few photos with Zara in front of the one-of-a-kind Bosporus meant something else...

  It would be one of the last times she would get to be with Zara like this. In two weeks, she’d no longer be her nanny.

  Maryan turned her eyes to the wondrously blue skies. When the lashing heat of tears abated, she blinked, and her gaze alighted on Zara and Faisal. Her heart kicked at the sight of their smiling faces, and at the sound of their bubbling laughter whenever Zara’s humorous expressions were unignorable.

  I hope you stay like this forever.

  She didn’t know who the prayer was for. Both of them, she decided thoughtfully. She didn’t know Faisal as well as she did Zara, but watching him now with her, he looked immeasurably happy.

  “Feel free to jump in,” he said.

  Zara waved for her to join. “Come on, Maryan. It’s so much fun!”

  She believed it. So why was she hesitating? “I should take the photos,” she said softly, swiping her hands down the sides of her legs. Her faded light-wash jeans absorbed evidence of her nerves.

  That was when he directed his lens at her and snapped a shot. There was no flash, but she knew he had taken a photo of her. At least one. He assessed his screen quietly until Zara rushed to his side and jumped up to see what he was looking at.

  Maryan stood rooted to her spot, her veins running sun-bright hot and fiery cold.

  “What do you think?” Faisal murmured, seeking Zara’s opinion in the most serious of tones. He held the phone lower for her to view.

  Zara studied it with a neutral thinking expression. “I don’t know...”

  “Is it good enough to keep?” he asked.

  Maryan squirmed as they both looked at her now. Trepidation glued her tongue to the roof of her mouth, so she couldn’t ask what was wrong. Did she really look as horrible as she imagined?

  She blew the breath she was holding when they grinned in unison.

  “I like it,” Zara said. “But Maryan’s always beautiful.”

  Faisal didn’t say anything...but he didn’t have to. She saw his silent opinion overtaking his face. A hungering look darkened his brown eyes and softened his lips into parting slightly. Seeing the change in him warmed her from head to toe in a way that the sunlight and summerlike heat of the afternoon would never.

  She pretended that her blush was due to Zara’s compliment, though.

  “Fine, you’ve convinced me.” She palmed her hair in a quick effort to jam any frizzy curls under one of half a dozen black bobby pins and fanned a hand to Zara. “Let’s make a memory together.”

  A memory she fully understood included Faisal.

  * * *

  “Watch your step,” Faisal said half an hour later as he steadied Zara on the other side of the walkway and looked back at Maryan on the pier. She wore a similar life jacket to Zara. He had assured her she wouldn’t likely need it once aboard, but she insisted. And he realized why when Zara felt more comfortable wearing hers when she saw Maryan was as well.

  In solidarity, he strapped into a life jacket, too.

  “Your turn,” he told her.

  She walked the short boarding plank more quickly than Zara and gripped his hands for grounding for less time, but what he saw in her face when she touched him, what he felt blooming inside him, left him rattled for longer than he was used to. That would be the second time she stole a breath from him.

  Maryan guided Zara safely up the stairs to the teak deck of the sun lounge. Sunlight washed over the small pool and the lounge chairs circling it.

  “Wow! I can see everywhere!” Zara’s exclamation rang with more of her innocent awe.

  Joining her at the railing, Maryan tipped her head and closed her eyes, her alluring face relaxing.

  Faisal stepped up beside her. “I don’t get to go sailing as much as I’d like to, but when I do, it makes my day.”

  She opened her eyes. “I can see why.”

  “Can I go put my feet in the water?” Zara asked them, losing interest in their conversation as naturally quick as any young child would.

  Faisal said, “Yes, but be careful.”

  Zara skipped for the pool.

  “We walk on the boat, Zara,” he warned, and she switched to walking slowly and carefully and with a sheepish smile flung over her shoulder at him and Maryan.

  “You don’t like me,” he said evenly, his attention on Zara by the pool. He wanted her out of earshot for what he had to say to her nanny.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she replied.

  “At the airport. I saw it in your eyes.”

  And I felt it in your hands.

  He flexed his right fist and clearly remembered the touch of her...and how he liked it too much. “Though dislike might be too strong a word, you do have some issue with me.”

  “I care about Zara.” She had her back to a stunning water view of the city he loved deeply. Completely disregarding it to supervise Zara. Because of that he believed what she said.

  “And you think I don’t. Is that it?”

  “You were late,” she said instead. She might not have answered his question, yet her nonanswer confirmed his suspicion: she was upset with him.

  “I’m aware Salma sprang this custody change on you very last minute,” Maryan continued.

  “It’s affected you, too. You won’t be Zara’s nanny any longer.”