‘Really? I hadn’t expected that so soon. Thank you.’
For the first time since they’d met again Safiyah actually approached him. The tight line of her beautiful mouth had softened and her eyes glowed. If Karim had needed any proof that she was motivated by love of her child, here it was.
He watched the slow smile spread across her face and felt a curious niggle inside. What would it be like to have someone—Safiyah, for example—look at him that way. Not because he was doing something for the one she loved, but because she cared forhim?
Blood rushed in Karim’s ears as he stiffened and pulled back. Such fanciful thoughts were totally foreign. He was a grown man. He didn’t need anyone to care for him. It was just curiosity about the loving bond between mother and child. Something he’d never experienced.
As a child he’d convinced himself that his mother loved him. He had fragmentary memories of being held in soft arms and sung to. Of playing with her in that rose-scented courtyard.
But those memories were wishful thinking. If his mother had loved either of her children she wouldn’t have deserted them—left them to the mercies of the man who’d raised them. The man he’d thought of as his father had been irascible, impatient, and never satisfied, no matter how hard Karim had tried to live up to his impossible standards.
‘Karim? What is it?’ Safiyah had lifted her hand as if to touch his arm.
A white-hot blast of longing seared him. Unlooked-for. Unwanted. Because hankering after such things made him weak. He’d almost fallen for that trap once before with Safiyah. But he’d learned his lesson.
‘Nothing. Nothing at all.’
He let his mouth turn up in a slow smile. The sort of smile he knew melted a woman’s resolve. Safiyah blinked. Twice. Her lips parted and he saw her pulse pound in her throat.
‘On the contrary. Everything is perfect.’