The Passionate Italian 11 DECEMBER EPUB (22 page)

“Only because your brother insisted.”

“As was right.”

She sighed and sat down, studying her hands in her lap, all fight gone. She was trying desperately to control the gnawing fear that her son no longer needed her.
 

“I want to see him now.” Her voice was edgy, nervous.

“He is unavailable.”

“To his mother?” She jumped up. “If you don’t take me to him, I’ll find him myself.”

He shook his head. “You’d be lost within minutes.”

She turned and headed for the door. But before she could open it he was beside her, his hands gripping her wrists, shackling her to him.

“Anna. You need to calm down before you see him. We have to talk first.”

“You have two minutes and then I’m off.”

She froze as his hand tightened his grip around her.
 

“I’ll take as long as I like and you
will
listen.”

“What the hell do we have to say to each other that hasn’t already been said? What else do you need to know?”

“I? I don’t need to know anything further. But you do.”

Her voice was quiet. “I hate you Zahir. You haven’t rested until you could take my son from me. You’ve never hesitated to show your disdain for me. What the hell do you want from me?”

“You still don’t understand do you? Matta is here because he will be living with me from now on.”

“No!” She shook her head, tiny little shakes that sent tremors through her body. “I will never let Matta stay here with you. You have no legal rights.”

“I am his uncle. He will be my heir. He will have everything. With you, he will have nothing. Hardly the doting mother to deprive your child of so much.”

“A child needs his mother. For God’s sake. There must be some shadow of humanity in you. Think of your own mother. Think of her.”

“If you’d had a real relationship with my brother you’d know that our mother died when he was a baby, when I was ten.”

“I’m sorry.” She was stunned. There was so much her husband, Abduallah, had neglected to tell her.

He shrugged. “It is unimportant. I scarcely remember her. A child needs to learn early to survive and Matta will do just that.”

“No! You can’t take him. Any court in any country would give the mother custody of her own child.”

“Depends on what can be proved against the mother.”

“Nothing. You have
nothing
against me. I have done
nothing
.”

The thin veneer of politeness left him instantly. The seductive silky-smooth aura of the wealthy womanizer—whose playground knew no borders, no limits—was replaced by the powerful Sheikh who’d spent his younger life at war where no rules applied. The change was in his eyes. They were bare—stripped of the chill aloofness—naked and fierce.
 

“You’ve done
everything
. Abduallah is
dead
because of you and your family.”

She shook her head. But she was unable to completely deny the connection between her family and the death of Abduallah. If she hadn’t introduced him to her brother; if the drugs hadn’t been so readily available to someone with her brother’s connections and Abduallah’s money...
 

But it wasn’t her. She couldn’t be held responsible. “No.” She shook her head more strongly.

“Face facts, Anna, you’re hardly the virtuous widow. Evidence can easily be obtained.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“What? Fabricate evidence against you? I don’t need to. It’s surprising how easily people talk—say whatever you want them to—when money is involved. I know that you’re not a drug user—never have been—but your connections proved fatal to Abduallah. And, believe me, I’d do anything to secure the future of my own flesh and blood.”

She blanched at his words. “Matta?”

“Of course.”

“Matta is
my
son,” she repeated. “I’m not giving him to you: not now, not ever. I’d die before that happened.”

He stepped towards her, scanning her face. She had nowhere to go. Her back was already pressed against the door. He touched her cheek with his finger, softly drawing down a velvety trail that ended at her jaw. He narrowed his eyes at the sight of the moisture on his fingertip. She hadn’t even known she was crying.

The crease between his brows deepened. He swung round as if to turn away, as if to mask some inner struggle, but stopped abruptly and turned back to face her. Silently his eyes searched hers and she saw the chill had gone, replaced by a complex intensity that confused her.
 

“You love him then,” he said dully.
 

“The word ‘love’ sounds strange on your lips, Zahir. I’m surprised you know what it means.”

He dropped the hand that hovered close to her cheek; his handsome face suddenly weary. Abduallah had told her of Zahir’s sacrifice: the years of desert warfare, living away from home in order to protect his family and country. How could a man, so isolated, so accustomed to war, know anything about love?

“Tell me, Anna, why did you marry my brother?”

His question caught her off-guard. She hesitated as she remembered the brief courtship with her husband – so different to that of the other men she’d known.
 

“He was gentle; he respected me.”
 
Even as she uttered the words she realized how impossibly small they must sound to people who didn’t have to fight for everything they had. But, to her, they had been huge—big enough to divert her from her hard-won Cornell scholarship.

“That’s it? You’ve put our family through hell because you needed respect?”

“I married him because I loved him.”

His gaze fell briefly. He walked away and looked through one of the huge domed windows with views across the desert, out to the distant red hills.

“Loved his money more. It must have seemed a miracle that someone of his standing should take interest in someone like you.”

“Why? You did.”

She bit her lip. Referring to their one-night stand was hardly clever in the present circumstances.

He slowly turned to face her. Horizontal beams of late afternoon sunlight shone onto his dark face but revealed nothing. He was like a closed book now as he approached her.

Closed and too close.

A muscle flickered in his jaw.

“I,” he flicked loose the band that held her hair back and watched intently as it swung into position like a curtain of silk, “am not my brother. I am a realist.
 
I harbor no sentimental illusions about anything or anyone. Particularly when it comes to sex. Particularly with someone like you. And just as well when you turned out to be the wife of my beloved brother. If it’s respect you want I suggest you try practicing loyalty, try speaking the truth.”

“But we didn’t know…it wasn’t that simple…” Her words sunk into the silence of words that could not be uttered, even now. There was no point. Whatever she said, she was damned in his eyes.

“It was
exactly
that simple.”

She sensed the latent power of his fist as it ground briefly against the doorframe before he turned away.

She had no fear for herself. She knew instinctively that he would never hurt her physically. It was what he could do to her emotionally that scared her.

“There’s only one simple fact here and that’s that Matta is my son and he will
not
be living here with you.”

He turned to face her, all signs of his anger masked once more. He shook his head. “The child stays.” His lips quirked into a chilling smile.

The chill turned to ice down her spine and destroyed all hope.

“You can’t take him away from me. You can’t.” She stepped towards him and clutched his arm in desperation, gathering the loose folds of his robe like a dying woman gripping tight to a lifeline. He stilled instantly as if electrified. He turned slowly to face her. His eyes were lowered, in disdain, she imagined.
 
But she had nothing left. “What do I have to do to make you see?”

“You can do nothing.” He raised his hand slowly to hers, still clutching the soft silk of his robe, and then pressed it against hers. For one long moment she thought she might have got through—touched something inside of him—but then his hand grasped hers and dragged it away. “Begging won’t get you anywhere.”

“Then what will?” He was silent and she pressed her advantage. She had nothing to lose and everything to gain. “Zahir, you can’t take him. He’s my life.” She shook her head and he closed his eyes briefly as her hair swept his cheek. He trapped a strand between his fingers but didn’t let it fall.

“And what is your life to me? Life in the desert, life at war, is worth only what it can be bargained for. What,” he added softly, “would you give in return for your son?”

“You want to bargain?” she asked, incredulous.

“Yes.”

“What do you want?”

“You.”

He let his hand trail down her arm.

“Why would you possibly want me when you have so little respect for me.”

He smiled. “Respect? More like unfinished business.”

Something, fear or lust, sliced through her deep inside and sent shivers radiating out to her skin. He lifted her hand and examined her forearm, now raised with goosebumps.

“Cold, Anna?”

“Disgusted, Zahir.”

“I think not. I think, I know, you want me still. If you live with me, here in Qarawan, you can still be with your son. Otherwise, you will never see him again.”

“It’s illegal, I’ll win him back.”

“I have the power, Anna. The law has nothing to do with it. You have my conditions, what is your answer?”

 
“Let’s get this straight. You want me for sex and in return I can live with my son? You’re a twisted man.”

“I am an honourable man. I will not force myself on you. You will come to me soon enough.”

She shook her head. “Never.”

“Four years ago I had to merely enter the room and you wanted me. You could barely wait to get me in the elevator, in the hotel room before your hands found my bare skin, before they explored my body, unzipped my trousers and before your lips—”

“Stop!”

“How many times did we make love that night, Anna?” His voice had dropped to a roughened whisper.

She swallowed hard and felt a surge of heat rise with the pounding of her heart and a dull ache of longing settle between her legs. It was true. She’d wanted him then and she wanted him now.

She shook her head helplessly. “I can’t remember.”

“I think you can. I think you do remember; I think you relive those moments because, like you, I can’t forget them either. You
will
come to me. Make no mistake.”

He was so close now that she could feel the quickened rise of his chest rub against her breasts, could feel the seductive slide of his silk robe brush her skin. Unable to meet his gaze, she kept her eyes lowered, focussed on his mouth, on lips so soft, so utterly at odds with the rest of him that they conjured up images she was desperate to forget.

She could see that he knew where her thoughts led by the smile that gently quirked those soft lips.

“You see? The needs of your body are greater than anything else. You want me and you shall have me.”

“How can you do this?”

He continued as if he’d not heard her words. “And then, you will also have your child. Only this time, I will not be your husband’s inconvenient brother. I will be your husband.”

“You want me to marry you?”

“Of course. Marriage is the only respectable way. We have my heir, your son, to consider remember.”

“But you don’t love me. Why marry me?”

“You are from the West. Marriage is not for life—surely you know that—and nowhere more so than in my country. When I tire of you I may take another wife. Or simply remove you to another palace. It is not a problem.”

“
You
are an immoral bastard.”

“That’s no way to talk about your future husband.”

“And
you
, such as
you
, want to be the father of my child.”

“I will care for him. He is of my blood.”

They were close now, their eyes trained on each other, holding both the power of attraction that had originally brought them together and the anger and bitterness that had followed. She could feel his breath quicken against her cheek, as he must have felt hers.
 

“No.” The single, despairing word floated between them—too soft to be any real show of force against him.

“Yes.” His voice was also soft—he had no need to prove anything. He moved even closer to her, until there was nothing between the two of them. No separation and no escape.

He dipped his head to hers, as if to inhale her and her breath caught.

In that one instant she absorbed the details of his face as if she could actually
feel
the dark stubble of his jaw roughly abrading her own jaw, could
feel
his silky hair fall gently against her own cheek. She closed her eyes in order to break the connection, willing herself to dispel the confusion of hate and need; the clash between mind and body.

When she re-opened them he’d stepped away, a defiant weariness in place.

“Come, you need to rest and then I will have Matta brought to you.”

She shook her head as if to free it of the nightmare that was unfolding. He was right. She had only one choice left open to her. She felt herself literally crumple then. Her legs buckled under her and all fight vanished.
 

Suddenly she felt his arm around her, steadying her, giving her the strength she needed.

“It will not be so bad, Anna. You will have everything you need, more than you could imagine. You will be gaining far more than you will be leaving behind.”

She pushed him away. “You know nothing. All I would be gaining would be my child. I would be losing everything else that I’ve treasured and worked towards my whole adult life.”

He swung open the double doors and stood back for her to pass.

“What could you possibly be leaving behind that you treasure so much?”

She walked out into the warm light of the evening sun and looked away, far away, out to the distant mountains now a bluish haze against a soft apricot sky.