The Baby Swap That Bound Them, page 1
“What if this visit didn’t end?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
He’d been thinking this over ever since he had seen AJ and Zaire together, playing carefree. Then whenever Zaire had approached Yusra and asked her to help push him on a swing or rock him on the spring rider toy, she hadn’t treated his son differently from her own. He’d caught longing glances from her toward Zaire, her maternal love unhidden and shining in her eyes. She couldn’t help it, and she shouldn’t have to hide it. He was her son.
Just as AJ was his family.
“Fair warning, it’s unorthodox. But it will relieve us from having to choose to walk away.”
“Tell me.” Conviction carved her demand, and it sparked to life in her. He watched it burn in her coal-dark eyes, add a richer red to her deep brown skin and straighten her posture from the force of it.
“Marriage. If we were to marry, then the children could stay with us both, and the option of having to leave and say farewell becomes moot.”
Dear Reader,
A baby swap, a billionaire and a marriage of convenience? Oh my!
But that’s everything I jam-packed into The Baby Swap That Bound Them.
I love each of these deliciously drama-filled tropes and hooks, and they all play a vital role in bringing Yusra and Bashir together. Because they really are two very different people, and without fate stepping in—in the form of a baby swap *wink*—they would probably never even meet! And we can’t have that, right? Right.
In all seriousness, Bashir and Yusra’s story is one of hope, healing, and regaining the ability to trust and love. They both have suffered losses in differing ways, which have left them resistant to opening their hearts up to romance. Writing their happily-ever-after was a roller coaster of emotion. I cried, laughed and cheered for them through their ups and downs.
I can’t say it was easy, so I won’t wish you have the exact same emotional experience, but I do sincerely hope their love story leaves a happy imprint on your heart and mind the way it has mine.
Happy reading always!
Hana
x
The Baby Swap That Bound Them
Hana Sheik
Hana Sheik falls in love every day reading her favorite romances and writing her own happily-ever-afters. She’s worked various jobs—but never for very long because she’s always wanted to be a romance author. Now she gets to happily live that dream. Born in Somalia, she moved to Ottawa, Canada, at a very young age, and still resides there with her family.
Books by Hana Sheik
Harlequin Romance
Second Chance to Wear His Ring
Temptation in Istanbul
Forbidden Kisses with Her Millionaire Boss
Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.
For Kaysim.
The cutest little nephew an aunt could be so lucky to snuggle!
Love you forever and more, Habo.
Praise for Hana Sheik
“Second Chance to Wear His Ring is so much more than a typical romance story. It is a story of overcoming personal tragedy and also has huge cultural references!”
—Goodreads
“It’s a second chance romance with an amnesia trope for Hana Sheik’s Harlequin debut, and all I can say is this author has certainly set the bar high for whatever comes next.”
—Goodreads on Second Chance to Wear His Ring
Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
EPILOGUE
EXCERPT FROM BILLIONAIRE’S SECOND CHANCE IN PARIS BY REBECCA WINTERS
PROLOGUE
“HE’S SO TINY.”
Yusra brushed her fingertips over the back of her son’s small curling fist, the peach fuzz soft, his skin warm and flushed red. He mewled in his sleep, shifting toward her at one point. One look and she was smitten. Now she understood what her mother meant when she’d told her that it took only a glance sometimes to fall in love. She’d thought and feared that after her difficult pregnancy and tumultuous, touch-and-go birth she would feel none of the maternal feelings she was meant to experience.
Thankfully all she felt were pure relief and love for the unknowing child in the bassinet.
“Would you like to hold him?” The nurse who’d been tending her guided Yusra to a padded rocking chair by a small picture window. A window that she shared with the two other mothers in the cramped, too warm hospital room. She forgot how stuffy the room could be when the sun angled in through the window and slanted shafts of white light over her hospital bed. Soon as her son was placed in her arms, the sweat beading at the back of her neck, under her armpits and tracking down her spine ceased to be a concern. Because she had everything she needed pressed to her chest and her drumming heart.
“Support his head this way, and make sure his hat doesn’t slip off. We don’t want him getting too cold.”
Yusra smothered the laugh. She didn’t think that could happen quickly. Maybe in one of the fancy, private rooms with the temperature control would such a problem exist. Not here. Not in the heated but cozy corner of theirs.
She cuddled her son, instinct driving her to bring him closer to her breast. This was her first time holding him since he’d spent his first two days in the NICU. The short separation made their reunion so much sweeter.
“I didn’t think anyone could be so small.”
“It might seem that way now, but they grow fast. Faster than you might be prepared for.”
Yusra looked up from the small scrunched face of her son, her hand stroking his scalp, fingers lingering on his baby-soft black tufts of hair. He had a headful of the wispy curls, so unlike her own, but reminding her of his father.
Before her throat could get too thick to ask, she wondered, “You have children?”
“Three. The youngest is off to primary school, but it feels like yesterday when I was sitting in the same position that you are.” The nurse looked down at the newborn son Yusra had to care for now all on her own. “Did you pick a name?”
“No, not yet. I’m still deciding.” Yusra stared down at her son’s closed eyes and pursing wet mouth. She caressed his cheek with a finger and marveled at his natural rooting instinct to turn in the direction and seek her breasts. She wasn’t nursing fully yet, but she was trying. She didn’t want to miss the chance to connect with him on that level if she could.
“Whatever you pick I’m sure will be the perfect choice.” Then the nurse moved away to do her rounds. She returned ten minutes later to collect Yusra’s son and place him in his bassinet again.
“I’ll check your blood sugar and bring dinner over soon.”
Being diabetic had erased her fear of needles a long time ago. But she didn’t anticipate her heart racing faster when her diabetes was mentioned. She imagined that the trauma she’d suffered only a few days earlier had further repercussions than she believed it would.
“Everything looks good,” the nurse reported with a smile. “I know you like the coconut potato soup. I will sneak the one with the most avocado in it for you. And maybe the—”
A long, drawn-out, frightening wail pierced the air and cut off whatever else her assigned nurse was going to say.
The nurse rushed away, leaving Yusra to be grateful that the scream hadn’t woken her son. Moving on her own and fast was still a challenge. She lingered sitting on her bed, a hand clasped around the clear-sided bassinet holding her baby boy.
What had happened out there?
She remembered her own perilous birth story. The vivid memories of the sharp uterine pains, the fetal position she’d been in when help arrived in the form of paramedics that a kindly neighbor in her apartment building had called, and the blood, the agonizing, awful pushing and her cries echoing off the walls of her hospital room. She’d thought she would die. She thought she would never see her baby, and no one would care for him the way she did now.
It had been concurrently the worst and best experience of her life.
But the cry she’d heard triggered anxiety in her. It hadn’t sounded like a mother giving birth at all. It sounded...
Brushing a kiss on her son’s forehead, she wrapped a shawl over her head and followed her gut. It lured her out of bed and her room. She met no resistance in the dimly lit hospital corridor, the nurses too busy attending to the new and expectant mothers on the obstetrics floor to notice her ambling slowly in the direction of the bloodcurdling scream.
She slowed at double doors, but pushed on undeterred. She didn’t know why she cared so much. Only that something resonated with her about the pitiful scream. It wasn’t long before she noticed this new hospital area was brighter, cleaner and quieter. Also, the bustle she’d left behind was notably missing.
What am I doing? The thought came swiftly and rooted her feet.
She’d left her son t
A shockingly tall, hulking man stepped out of one of the rooms. In his dark business suit, he didn’t look like he belonged. And yet he pressed a big hand to the closed door in front of him, his broad shoulders caving in, and his head hanging low. Sorrow or defeat, she didn’t know which had crushed him, but her sympathy went out to him. Surviving her own near death and becoming a mother had changed her into this self-reflective being.
Before she could leave him to his private display of emotion, she heard her name.
“Ms. Amin, you shouldn’t be here.”
It was her duty nurse. She appeared by her side and, gently gripping her arm, swung her back the way she’d come. Though not fast enough. The man looked up and over their way, his eyes and scowl as dark as his suit, long thick beard and short curly hair. With only one glance he communicated what she figured a man like him—a man who probably had the world clutched in his large hand and determined his own fate—would when someone like her tried to infiltrate his controlled bubble. You’re intruding here, was what she felt his eyes accused her of doing.
And she really was.
Giving in, she allowed herself to be led away, and with no more backward glances.
Once she was in her room, the nurse tucked her in and gently reminded her of the hospital’s rules. Listening with half a mind, she focused the other half on her final image of the man grieving outside the hospital room.
“Who was he?” she asked, realizing too late she’d spoken aloud.
She hadn’t thought the nurse saw him, but she was proven wrong. “I think I know who you’re talking about. I don’t know his name, but he’s just lost a family member to a terrible car accident.”
“No wonder he looked so sad.” That didn’t explain why he was on this floor though. “Shouldn’t he be on the emergency floor?”
The nurse whispered, “I really shouldn’t say more.” She looked pointedly at Yusra’s son, her face softened by sadness. “It’s not something a new mother should hear anyways.”
“That might be true... Still, I’d like to know. Did someone else get hurt?”
She had an out-of-body sensation, prickling over her arms and legs, and cooling her despite the heat circulating the small hospital room.
Somehow, she knew the answer to that question even before the nurse nodded sadly. “There was also a female victim in the accident. Another family member. She survived the crash but was lost to childbirth. The whole family is grieving together right this moment.”
“The baby?” Yusra’s mouth dried, her puttylike heart sticking in her throat, chilly desolation seeping into her fast. “Is the baby alive?”
“Yes,” the nurse said with a smile.
Releasing a loud, quick breath, relief chased off the emotional cold that had prepared her body for the worst news. At least the child had lived. She’d always hated sad, unpredictable story endings for that reason. She didn’t want to cry. Didn’t want to wonder why the world was unfair sometimes.
It made her think how close she’d come to that. Leaving her child behind. Losing the life she had dreamed up for the two of them.
That could have been her, the woman who died in childbirth.
When the nurse left to fetch her dinner, Yusra stroked and kissed the hands, cheeks and head of her tiny son. “I swear I’ll always fight to stay with you,” she vowed.
The heartbreaking story of loss and mourning only several doors away persisted to haunt her until she considered a name for her baby instead. A name that would represent the strong, sunny future she hoped to build for him so that he never felt something was amiss in his life. And while she did that, she almost, almost forgot about the scowling, dark-bearded man who suffered levels of untold pain where she had experienced immeasurable joy.
CHAPTER ONE
Two years and nine months later
A SMALL MOTORBOAT sliced across the still ocean, casting a frothing line of water in its wake and disrupting the calm horizon and illusory peace. Nothing about this morning was like any morning Bashir Warsame had experienced since committing to his unorthodox lifestyle. Living on board his seventy-meter superyacht for close to three years, and occasionally anchoring, had dulled his patience for company. Most people who worked for him or with him knew he didn’t like face-to-face meetings. He managed his vast international hotel chain from the comfort of his private cabin, and he hadn’t found himself missing any part of his existence on land.
And yet someone had missed the memo and was heading full steam ahead toward his ship.
Bashir waited until the boat was close before he walked away. As he made his way aft, he was met by his ship’s senior master Nadim and Nadim’s ever-present tablet computer. The man didn’t go anywhere without it.
“I’ve briefed your team and ours on the security protocol.” Nadim looked up from the screen of his palm-sized tablet, his data and figures and facts meticulously logged and tracked in the portable device. Bashir never questioned Nadim’s reliance on it. Whatever he was doing, it was what had kept the crew and ship running smoothly and efficiently, and as far as Bashir was concerned, that was the only thing that mattered.
“Have they made contact yet?”
Nadim repeated the question into his earpiece, shaking his head. “They’re boarding now. Security will hold them.”
“Handle it. I’ll be in the lounge.” Nadim had his full trust. He didn’t see a reason to interfere in the other man’s duties. And he didn’t give his confidence to others very easily. But his senior master had more than earned it, in time and service.
Wordlessly, Nadim dipped his chin and at the next junction they parted ways. Nadim toward where security would greet their unwelcome guest, whoever they were, and Bashir to his second most favorite place on his ship: the underwater observation lounge.
He took a deeply satisfying breath before entering the expansive room and again when he claimed the central spot on the smooth leather sofa facing the panoramic ocean view. As always, he let it sink in that very little stood between him and the yawning, hungry maw of the dark blue waters he was observing quietly. Nothing but glass panels. If he were the type to seek thrill from death-defying activities, he’d have thought himself to be entirely safe from the threat that the ocean always posed. He wasn’t that naive. Though sometimes...sometimes he wished that he were.
Then he’d be able to close his eyes and finally rid himself of this constant alertness he lived with day in and day out. His vigilance a byproduct of having to fight for where he was today. Because of that, he had more at stake. Naturally, losing everything and everyone he cared for was a perennial thought. And if he wasn’t always on guard, then that was when he was most susceptible to losing it all.
Bashir shut his eyes, breathed through his nose and almost attained a semblance of peace—when he snapped his eyes open and turned to the ruckus barging into the lounge.
It happened fast.
The polished oak doors into the room burst open and his toddler son Zaire came rushing in with a mildly harassed albino rabbit gripped in his small pudgy arms. Behind him, hot on his trail and looking more than hot under the collar, was Zaire’s overpaid and equally overworked nanny. Bashir grimaced at both the intrusion and out of sympathy for the woman who had to mind his rambunctious son all day. Middle-aged Alcina might not have been the best choice for a toddler who hadn’t yet grasped the concept of slowing down, but she’d been Bashir’s only choice from the beginning. She’d started out as his housekeeper, back when he had roots on land, and when he had anchored away from his palatial island villa in Greece, Alcina had asked to come along and help him in any way.
Her loyalty was touching, but he supposed she possibly regretted it a bit now.
Alcina stopped fanning her flushed high-boned cheeks, and she stooped to catch his son when he all but launched himself and his ruffled pet rabbit into his nanny’s open arms. Alcina dropped a kiss on his head and squeezed him to her.
