‘You are at times.’ Leila turned and smiled. ‘I like that about you.’
‘Like what?’
‘That you speak your truth.’
‘Well, you’re the only one who does!’
He took her phone and she gave him the number of the palace phone and he found the international code for Surhaadi, which he tapped into the phone.
‘It’s there when you’re ready to call them.’
‘It rings in their lounge,’ Leila said, and she closed her eyes remembering the last time she was there. She knew she might never be brave enough to ring them.
It helped to know that she could though.
‘Come on then,’ he said as they arrived at his parents’ home. God, he remembered the misery of coming home on school holidays... James was certain it was going to be a miserable night.
James took her hand and they walked from the car to his parents’ door.
As they stepped inside and he introduced Leila, James was aware again of her incredible poise and beauty and he was aware, too, of the pride in his voice as he introduced her.
‘This is my fiancée, Leila.’ He watched as her father offered his hand and he saw she was a touch tentative taking it but Leila did.
‘This is my mother, Emily.’
‘It’s lovely to meet you,’ Leila said, and though Emily nodded she didn’t offer her hand, she was too busily clinging to her wine glass.
‘This is my brother Spencer.’
Spencer offered his hand and Leila tapped her heart.
‘That means she doesn’t want to shake your hand, Spencer.’ James grinned, quite sure that it was for the very last time that night.
It wasn’t.
‘Nice of you to shave,’ Michael said to his son as they took a seat in the lounge.
‘It’s a family dinner,’ James pointed out, and declined his usual whisky and asked for sparkling water and a slice of lime instead.
Leila watched as Michael raised his eyes and James let out a breath. ‘Don’t worry, Father, just because I’ve asked for water it doesn’t mean that I’m gay.’ He glanced over to Leila. ‘Real men drink whisky apparently.’
His father’s criticism towards James was as constant as it was relentless and it felt a lot like home to Leila. She gave James a tiny wink when his father called him Jiminy and it caught James by surprise and he gave her a little wink back.
Nothing could really ease it though.
‘You could at least get your hair cut,’ Michael said, and smacked James upside the head in a gesture that was surely designed purely to humiliate as James took a seat at the dinner table. ‘You’re in the press a lot of late.’
‘I don’t dress for the tabloids.’
‘No, it would seem that you undress for them.’
James shot his father a warning look that went ignored.
‘Well,’ Michael graciously conceded, as he rudely referred to Leila’s pregnancy, ‘at least you’ve dealt well with the current mess you’ve found yourself in. It’s good to see that you’re doing the respectable thing by the Chatsfield name for once.’
This time James didn’t warn him with his eyes. He didn’t like his father speaking like that in front of Leila—and pointing out that they were getting married for the sake of the pregnancy was one step too far, though of course they were.
Leila surely didn’t need it rammed down her throat and so James challenged him. ‘Don’t think for a moment that Leila and I are marrying for the sake of the Chatsfield name.’
‘I’m just saying it’s good that for once you’re behaving.’
‘I always behaved. I was the perfect son for eighteen years...’
‘And then an absolute disgrace for the next decade.’
‘Ah, but it was fun,’ James said, taking a slug of sparkling water and wondering what the hell had possessed him to give up booze for the next six months.
They limped through dinner with only one highlight.
Leila did mind her manners with his parents, but James suppressed a smile when she called one of the maids over and told her to re-serve her meal but this time without meat.
‘Is she a vegetarian?’ Emily frowned. ‘James, you could have at least warned us.’
‘No, I’m not a vegetarian,’ Leila said. ‘It’s not James’s fault—I just don’t like the way the cook prepared the meat tonight.’
Yes, he grinned, but as he sat at the table and James saw the zoned-out expression of his mother as she topped up her wine glass, he thought of Leila, forced to be with someone she didn’t want to be with. He loathed the absolute charade that his parents’ marriage was and all because neither had the guts to get out.