She flashed him a withering look; he lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her fingertips.
‘Neither of those responses is particularly enlightening.’
‘I know,’ she sighed. ‘Mal is very protective of me.’
Amir didn’t want to answer that. He knew that if he said what he felt—that he was glad—she would become defensive. I don’t need him to protect me! Yet an ancient fibre that ran through Amir liked the idea of someone playing that role in Johara’s life, even though he knew she was right—she didn’t need it.
‘For any reason?’ he said instead, and as soon as he’d asked the question, he knew there was more to it.
Her lips pursed, her eyes skittered away. ‘You’ve probably read about it.’
‘About what?’
Another sigh. ‘Come on, Amir. It was a long time ago.’
‘I’m not protecting your feelings, inti qamar. I have no idea what you mean.’ She looked at him, the term of endearment slipping easily into the sentence. It was what he’d called her in the maze. My moon. Appropriate tonight, when it was glowing overhead, beautiful and enchanting.
‘Oh.’ She frowned. ‘I was with someone before. I was younger, and completely unguarded. I thought I’d fallen head over heels in love with the guy—so why hide how I felt, right?’
He ignored the prickle of something like jealousy shifting through him. ‘Go on.’
Johara nodded. ‘We dated for just over a year. It ended badly. The papers got a lot of mileage out of it.’
Another burst of emotion,
this time one of darkness. ‘Newspapers will do that.’
But her expression showed she was lost in thought. ‘It was truly terrible. I was twenty-one, and I’d been so sheltered. Worse than that, I honestly thought I loved him. I trusted him.’
Amir’s chest tightened. ‘He wasn’t trustworthy?’
Her laugh lacked humour. ‘Not even a little.’
He waited, but not patiently.
‘Oh, he didn’t cheat on me or anything. But I found out, about six months after our break up, that he’d been selling stories to the gutter press. So many little lies and falsehoods: that we’d had a threesome in Rome—a lie—that I’d secretly fallen pregnant—another lie! All for money!’ She shook her head bitterly. ‘I would have paid him off, if I’d known money was his motivation.’
Amir reached above them and snapped a twig with more force than was necessary.
‘Except I think he also wanted to hurt me, and, honestly, I think he liked the limelight. When he was my boyfriend, he was followed around by paparazzi, blogs did articles on him.’ She shook her head. ‘Italian Vogue used him as a cover model. But once we broke up, he must have begun to feel irrelevant.’
Amir swore under his breath. ‘What a poor excuse for a man.’
She laughed. ‘That’s pretty much what Mal said.’
‘Your brother knew about this?’
‘He’s the one who discovered the truth.’ Her brow furrowed. ‘He had the stories investigated.’
‘How did he act?’
‘He paid Matthew to shut him up.’ She grimaced. ‘Last I heard, he’s living in Australia somewhere.’
‘Good riddance.’
‘Yeah.’ She pressed her teeth to her lower lip. ‘So for Malik, he doesn’t ever want me to get hurt like that again. And Paris is a great guy, and a good friend of his. Malik trusts him implicitly.’
Something inside Amir bristled. ‘But that doesn’t mean you should marry him.’