“Rami is dead.”
He had not intended to give her the news that abruptly but, dammit, she’d driven him to it. Well, it was too late to call back his brusque words. He could only hope he’d assessed her correctly: that she was too tough to faint or—
“Dead?”
He’d guessed right. She wasn’t the fainting type. Evidently she wasn’t the weepy type, either. Her only reaction, as far as he could tell, was a slight widening of her eyes.
He was willing to be generous.
Perhaps she was in shock.
Karim nodded. “Yes. He died last month. An accident in—”
“Then why are you here?”
He had not really had the time to consider all her possible reactions to his news, but if he had, this—this removed curiosity would not have been on the list.
“That’s it? I tell you your lover is dead and all you can say is, ‘Why are you here?’”
“My lover?”
“The man who kept you,” he said coldly. “Is that a better way to put it?”
“But Rami …”
Her voice trailed away. He could see her reassessing. Of course. She was trying to process the situation, determine what would do her the most good now that Rami was gone.
And he had been gone for a while.
She hadn’t known he was dead but it had happened weeks ago, making that casual “I’ll be sure and tell him you called” remark an obvious lie.
Why?
“But Rami … what?” Karim said coldly.
She shook her head. “Nothing. I mean, I just— I just—”
“He left you.”
Rachel’s mind was whirling and that blunt statement of fact only added to her confusion.
Rami was dead.
Did that make things worse? Did it make them better?
No. It changed nothing except to give her all the more reason to stay the course until she heard from Suki.
She gasped as Karim’s hands closed on her arms.