‘I don’t blame her,’ Melanie responded. ‘It sounds to me as if your father deserved the blame. He was playing with her, obviously.’
‘True.’ A glimpse of a hard smile touched his mouth as he pulled a clean shirt from a hanger. ‘He was young, he was arrogant and unforgivably self-seeking. But when my mother decided to cut her losses and have an abortion he showed a different side to his nature by talking her out of it—or should I say that his money did the talking?’ he offered cynically as he placed the shirt on the bed. ‘It matters not.’ He shrugged. ‘She died giving birth to me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Melanie murmured.
‘Don’t be.’ The clean shirt was followed by a clean dark suit, still wrapped in a tailor’s suit bag. ‘The deal was that she hand me over to my father the moment it was legally possible to do so.’
‘And you think that decision denies her the right to have anyone feel sorry at her passing? That’s mean and shallow, Rafiq.’ He froze in the act of selecting fresh underwear. ‘For all you know she might have changed her mind about you. It happens all the time. How can you condemn someone who was never given the chance to offer an opinion?’
He turned on her. ‘As I was offered that chance with my child?’
She blinked, then lowered guilty eyes from him. For some reason it infuriated him to see her do that! He covered the distance between them in a few angry strides, then used his hand to capture her chin and make her to look at him. ‘Yes,’ he hissed at what he saw there. ‘We come full circle, my unforgiving Melanie. We reach the point where this truly began. You denied me my chance just as I deny my mother her chance. It makes us two of a pair, does it not?’
‘I’m giving you your chance now.’ Reaching up she grasped his wrist in a useless effort to pull his hand away. ‘But it doesn’t have to come with a ring attached to it!’
‘Yes, it does,’ he insisted. ‘Because my son will not remain a bastard. My son will be surrounded with love on all sides! My son will not be put at risk of you marrying another man who can treat him as a second-class member of his family!’
Her beautiful eyes darkened in horror. ‘Who did that to you?’
He let go. ‘It is of no matter.’ And turned away again, cursing his own stupid mouth!
‘Rafiq…’ She touched his arm with sympathy.
Sympathy! The bubbling black mass of old hurts came thundering up to the surface. He turned back, knew he was losing it—knew it and could not stop it! ‘Get out!’ he breathed. ‘Get out of here, Melanie, while you still can!’
What she did was step closer and wrap her arms around him like a mother would—like she would do with his son! ‘I’m sorry,’ she was saying. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know…’
He gripped her arms and tried to prise her free; he needed to put a safe distance between them or he did not know what he would do! But she held on, lifted her face, lifted eyes that understood when he did not want anyone to understand!
‘I am dangerous,’ he grated. It was his final warning.
She reached up and kissed him. Blackness turned molten, molten spun itself into something else. She was amazing, fearless—foolish! She had to be to still be here when anyone with eyes must know he was about to slake all this emotion in the only way he knew how!
He caught that mouth with a kiss that blazed. He picked her up and pressed her back against the wall. Her skirt rose above her hips as he parted her legs and wrapped them around him. He entered her with no preliminary at all.
Bright fireballs of sensation propelled themselves at her senses; she clung to his shoulders and his mouth. It was all so intense that she barely noticed when he ejected into her with the shuddering groans of a man lost in hell. When it was over her feet slithered like melted wax onto the hard wood flooring. Shocked and dazed, and still caught by the pulsing aftermath of her own shimmering climax, she stared blindly at his chest, where damp whorls of black hair curled around his gaping robe.
Then once again the horror of reality hit: the knowledge that she could be so primitive! She choked on a sob as a stream of Arabic flooded over her, then hoarse thick English words of apology, of remorse and self-whipping disgust and disgrace as he picked her up in his arms and carried her out of the bedroom and down the hall.
Safety came with the neatness of a sitting room, apparently. He set her down in a low soft leather armchair, then muttered something she did not catch before striding away. A doorbell rang; he must have gone to answer it because she heard the sound of voices talking, then nothing until he came to squat down beside her and offered a glass to her trembling mouth. It was brandy; it burned as she swallowed. He took a gulp himself.
‘I don’t know what to say to you,’ he pushed out thickly.
Her lashes flickered downwards as she made herself look into his face. He was as white as the chair she was sitting on, guilt-riddled and appalled with himself.
‘I’ll marry you,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll marry you.’
‘Why?’ He couldn’t have sounded more stunned if he’d tried.
Tears filled her eyes. It was all so—basic! She wanted him again so very badly it burned like a wound inside! He filled her with a thousand contradictions. Anger, hurt, resentment, confusion—desire! He ran cold, then hot, was ruthlessly hard and tough, yet so very vulnerable it almost broke her heart.
And then they came—the words that really mattered. She was still in love him, even after all these years and all the heartache and pain and the sense of betrayal. She still loved him no matter what or why. Realising that hurt more than anything else did. She couldn’t tell him—would never tell him.
‘Robbie needs you,’ she said.
Robbie needs you. Once again they’d arrived back at the beginning. A different beginning in an ever-confusing spiral of beginnings.
He stood up. It was a withdrawal in many ways. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Of course. I will go and dress. You may safely use the bathroom to—tidy yourself before we leave.’