“Damn you.” The curse growled from deep within her chest. She straightened, so she could gently place their daughter in her crib, and then she stood, gingerly, the scar from her surgery still tender. She walked to him with care, and he watched her. “Damn you for not saying anything.” She lifted her hands then, cupping his cheeks. “And for not telling me
any of this sooner. I have been in agony; you have made me miserable. And now? You’re telling me this is why you pushed me away?”
He groaned, cupping her cheeks. “He was my brother and I … have taken so much from him. It is not ‘nothing’.”
“No, but it is separate from us.” She spoke quietly, as though it were simple.
“You were so close to marrying him…”
“You don’t know that. Neither of us knows that. Addan and I, as close as we were, there was no chemistry between us. We hadn’t really even kissed, Malik.” Her teeth dug into her lower lip, as she tried to put words to how she’d felt. “When my dad died, I lost my whole family. Everything changed. And your dad and Addan replaced them, they made me feel whole again. I had a new family, who adored me, and welcomed me.”
“Except for me.”
“Yes, except for you,” she said with a quiet nod. “And I was too young to look at the damage I was doing and to care. I was just a child, Malik.”
“I know that.” He cleared his throat. “You told me, that at Addan’s birthday, his last birthday, you realised you desired me.”
Her eyes lifted to his, the memory so clear in her mind. “I had never felt anything like it. Lust tore me apart. I wanted you. You, Malik. Even then.”
He moved closer, his face so near hers. “And it just made me furious, because I thought about you that night. You have no idea how close I came to stealing you away, to taking you into the desert, away from all of this, to telling you how I felt and hoping against hope you might feel the same.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No. You gave me no reason to hope. You were so cold to me.” He padded his thumb over her cheek. “So when Addan died, it was easy to see your grief, to know what you had lost. We were to marry, and your body would be mine. I had no business wanting any other part of you. Even when it was offered.”
“But it was offered,” she said, taking a step backwards, even when all she wanted was to stay right there, close to him, feeling his heat and warmth. “I chose you.”
“You chose nothing.” His eyes swept shut. “You were chosen for Addan and he died, leaving you to me…”
“Do you think you are the only one who had been fighting this?” She shook her head gently, her expression showing anguish. “Addan was so safe, Malik. He adored me and I him, and I knew we would spend the rest of our lives in a very relaxed, respectful friendship. I had lost so much – my father’s death changed me. I didn’t want the highs and lows of a passionate affair. I just wanted calm, easy contentment. Addan and I were perfectly suited in that regard. But you were like a sinkhole. If you were in the room, you were all I could think of, all I could look towards. Instinctively I fought this, and you, but I don’t think I could have fought it forever. I think, after Addan’s birthday, something would have changed. I don’t think two people can be so right for one another as you and I are and not find their way eventually.”
He made a guttural noise, rushing his hands through his hair, dislodging it from the messy bun. “You say that and yet, look what it took? You almost died. I have had to look down the barrel at life without you to realise that no guilt for Addan could prevent me from being honest with you.”
He groaned, moving towards her. “If you had died and never known how sorry I was, how wrong I have been, Sophia, it would have killed me. I fell in love with you so long ago, and I had to fight it. I had to fight wanting you, needing you, craving you. And it became a habit, a habit that didn’t die with my brother. I don’t want to fight you anymore.”
Her sob was completely involuntary. She swallowed it as best as she could.
He wrapped an arm around her back, pulling her towards him gently, mindful of her scars – physical and emotional – mindful that all would take time to heal.
“I stared at you and I read Plato to you, and I kept hearing a quote from it, chasing itself around and around my mind.” He dropped his head, kissing her forehead because he could no longer resist. “I am the wisest man alive –“
“For I know one thing,” she interrupted. “And that is that I know nothing.”
He nodded jerkily. “I thought I had all the answers. I thought I could keep you boxed away in one place, that I could give you one aspect of myself and take one aspect of yours, and that it would be like an addict having a very small fix. I thought it would in some way mitigate my betrayal of Addan, if I didn’t overwrite everything he’d meant to you, if I didn’t demand your heart as well as your body.”
He dropped his head lower, brushing his lips over hers, and her heart squeezed.
“I thought I had all the answers, but I knew nothing. You were never going to be kept in one small box of my life, and nor should you have been. My father was right to select you as Sheikha – you are the most spectacular woman I have ever known. You have spread into my life, into all parts of my soul. I fell in love with you so long ago, Sophia, but I have fallen in love with you again and again, every day of our marriage.” He wrapped her tighter, close to his body.
“I know I cannot say anything here that will take away the damage I have caused. I know it will take time for you to forgive me, to let me back in. But I want, more than anything, to earn my place at your side, Sophia Bin Hazari.”
It was too much. His anguish was too much. “Stop it.”
He was very still for a moment and then he dropped his hands to his side.
“Addan was my best friend. Not for anything on this earth would I have risked hurting him. Can you not see how much more it makes me love you, to know you were willing to walk away from me even when it hurt you, hurt me, all for Addan? You loved him, and you cared for him and respected him. There is no guilt here for you to bear. If our marriage is a resurrection from the ashes of his death, I can’t feel bad about that. Until the day he died, we were faithful to him, to his wishes.”
Malik swallowed roughly, she felt the movement.