“Nonetheless,” she chided. “You’ll work better on a full stomach.”
“We’ll see.”
He returned his attention to the report, leaving Fatima to stride from the room, frustrated and worried in equal measure.
Samir waiteduntil his mother had closed the door and then stood, pacing the length of his office with a frown etched into his face, his brows knitted together. He hated that his mother was worried. He hated that he couldn’t assuage her worries. Most of all, he hated that his slavish dedication to work had as much to do with missing Cora as it did his grief over Adan.
He felt disloyal to acknowledge as much, even to himself, but the truth was, he was grieving two people. He was grieving Adan, Cora, and he was grieving the life he’d briefly allowed himself to indulge a hope for, a life he’d always known to be out of his reach. But that was the funny thing about hope—it lived even when it had no reason to.
So he’d hoped, and he’d wished and he’d wanted and he’d forgotten the promise he’d made her, that she wouldn’t get hurt, and he’d spent so much time with her, because he’d needed her, he’d wanted her, and he hadn’t thought that she might be starting to want more from him than he could, in reality offer.
And now, he was King, and there was no latitude for him in his personal life. No opportunity to indulge his desires at all, much less with a woman the press would tear to pieces. To see her torn apart in the media, and all because of him, would be too much.
With a growing sense of anger and impotence, two emotions Samir generally tried to avoid, he reached for his phone, as he had so many times since Cora left his country. He knew he wouldn’t call her. Nothing could be served by that. But he opened a browser and typed her name in the search bar.
It would be a waste of time, like always. Cora had been keeping the same low profile in recent weeks as she had for years. There would be no new images of her, no news articles to fill the craving that was overtaking his soul, and yet he typed in her name anyway, staring at the screen, holding his phone way too tightly.
And then, an article came up. A gossip site. He clicked into it so fast, and with such a loud rush of air that the room practically reverberated.
Cora.
Blood pounded through his body so fast he could hear it in his ears and feel it in every cell.
There were several photos. A group of women, with Cora sitting near the middle of the table, her dark hair pulled over one shoulder, her lips painted a bright, cherry red, her lashes long, her nails shining. The dress was a dark red, like her lips, cut low in front, showing her flawless complexion and a hint of cleavage.
His mouth went dry and his finger quickly scrolled to the next image. This one, was a close up of Cora, but she wasn’t smiling. Here, she was lost in thought, staring at the table, so his gut twisted and he wanted, more than anything, to reach through the phone and grab her, to hug her, to tell her everything was okay.
Was she thinking about him?
Or was it simply an opportune snap from someone, capturing her as she listened to a story, not sad at all, as the picture suggested.
There was another photo, this time, of the group leaving the restaurant and getting into a series of taxis. He stared at the photo of Cora standing and everything inside him ground to a halt.
She was beautiful.
He’d known that all along. Anyone would describe her that way. But in this photo, with the evening hair blowing her hair so her hand was lifting to capture it, her voluminous dress billowing around her, she was truly, utterly glowing; she was breathtaking. And he could never see her again.
The next day,he told Rami to decline Leonidas’s wedding invitation. He just couldn’t imagine throwing himself into the middle of a Xenakis family event and escaping unscathed. It would mean seeing Cora. Acting like nothing had happened between them. Seeing her and not touching. Not taking. Not having.
He couldn’t trust himself around her, so he turned down the wedding invitation, and was glad. Avoiding Cora made the most sense of all. It was the right thing to do—for both of them.
* * *
Cora groanedas she read the headline.
Jealous over cousin’s wedding?It screamed, and went on to fictitiously detail a completely made up argument that had allegedly taken place between Mila and Cora on the night of the bridal shower. There were photographs to ‘support’ the story, pictures taken at moments when Cora had accidentally let down her guard, just for a moment. Photos in which Cora looked sad, or cold, or even angry, when the truth was, if she wasn’t pretending to be deliriously happy, she was lost in thought about the shambles that was her own life.
“I can’t believe they wrote that,” Mila called to say.
“I can,” Cora replied with a wry grimace. “And you should probably get used to it.”
“But it’s so…untrue.”
“Yes, but it’s a great story. Everyone loves a splash of jealousy and intrigue.”
“You’re not jealous,” Mila said indignantly, and Cora sat up straighter. Wasn’t she? Wasn’t she just the least bit jealous of the happy and secure love Mila and Leo shared? She was thrilled her cousin had fallen in love with such a wonderful person, and that she loved him back too, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t also feel a little jealous too. “I can’t believe they’re allowed to print this sort of fiction.”
“Mmm,” Cora said with a heavy feeling in her heart. “They can print just about anything.”