to one of his best friends. Small world, isn’t it, when someone who has told you to get out of their life for ever suddenly turns up on your doorstep? Oh, Aisha, I can’t go with him. Don’t make me go with him!’ Tears pricked at the corner of her eyes with the pain of the past. Tears rolled down her cheeks with the complexities of the present and her fears for the future. ‘What a mess!’
‘He must have hurt you so very much.’
‘He hates me.’
‘Are you sure? He was there when they rescued you.’
‘I doubt that he wanted to be. The others would have expected it, that’s all.’
Aisha nodded. ‘It’s true they are close. Zoltan told me they were the brothers he never had. But hate you? People say things in the heat of the moment—stupid things—but they don’t mean them, not really.’
Marina shook her head, her lips pressed tightly together until she could find the words, the burden of her secret suddenly too heavy to bear. ‘Oh, he hates me. Even if he had forgotten how much, he will surely hate me when he discovers the truth.’
Aisha stopped walking and turned to her, fear in her eyes. ‘Discovers what truth?’
Marina looked at her through eyes scratchy and raw, and her soul bleaker than at any other time in her life. ‘The truth about his son.’
Her sister’s mouth opened wide. ‘Oh no, Marina, surely not? Is Chakir Bahir’s child?’
She nodded.
‘But you told everyone you didn’t know who the father was.’
Marina put a hand to her mouth. ‘I know. It was easier that way. And nobody had any trouble believing it.’
‘I’m so sorry!’
‘Don’t be. I had a reputation as a party girl and it came in handy. It made it easier to hide the truth. It was easier to pretend it didn’t matter.’
‘Even from Bahir.’
‘He has no idea.’
Aisha’s feet stilled on the path, her gaze fixed on nothing, and when she looked up at her sister Marina was afraid of what she saw in her eyes. ‘I think you need to get on that plane. With Bahir.’
Marina pulled back. ‘I won’t go with him. I can’t face him.’
‘But you have to tell him.’
‘Do I?’
‘Of course you do! You have let him know that he is a father; that he has a child.’
She shook her head. ‘He doesn’t want to know.’
‘He has a right to know. It is right that you tell him. And you must tell him. You have no choice.’
‘He won’t want to hear. He never wanted a child.’
‘Then maybe he should have thought about that.’ Aisha gave her sister’s shoulders a squeeze. ‘I’ll tell Zoltan it’s all set.’
‘No! I only told you so you would understand why I can’t see him again. I would never have told you otherwise.’
Her sister smiled, a soft and sad smile. ‘I think you told me because you already know what you have to do. You just needed to hear it from someone else.’
Knowing Aisha was right didn’t make boarding the Al-Jiradi private jet any easier. No easier at all when she’d seen the plane land and knew he was already waiting inside. How Zoltan had managed to talk Bahir into this was anybody’s guess. He would not be happy about it; of that much she was certain.
‘You can do this,’ Aisha said as she gave her older sister a final squeeze. ‘I know you can.’
Marina smiled weakly in return, wishing she believed her, and waved one last time before disappearing into the covered stairs leading to the plane. Right now her legs were so weak and her stomach so tightly wound, it felt like if it snapped she would spin right off the stairs. A fate infinitely preferable, nonetheless, to being enclosed in the cabin of an aircraft with Bahir.
But it had to be done. For more than three years she had wrestled with the question of whether to tell Bahir of Chakir’s existence. At first it had been easy to say nothing, the pain of their break-up still raw, the savagery of his declaration never to have children still uppermost in her mind. Why should Bahir be informed of his child’s existence, she’d reasoned, when he’d told her he never wanted to see her again? He would not thank her for discovering that, no matter what either of them wanted, they were bound together via the life of a child they had jointly created.
Then, when Hana had come into the world, there had been plenty to think about, and the question of Bahir’s rights to know had been easy to ignore. Suddenly mother to two fatherless children, why complicate matters with the father of only one? And Bahir had made it clear he was not a family man; he didn’t want her or a child and they certainly didn’t need him.
But she’d had reason to wonder lately as she’d watched her young son grow and turn from baby to toddler to young boy, and she’d found herself wondering what Chakir himself would want.
She swallowed back on a lump of apprehension that had lodged in the dry sandy desert that was now her throat. So despite Bahir telling her that he never wanted a child, and even though she was more than happy to accept that as his final word on the topic, maybe for the sake of their son’s wishes this would be worth it. For Chakir’s sake.
Please God, let it be worth it.
She managed a tremulous smile for the cabin attendant who welcomed her to the plane. Then she was inside the cool interior and he was there, standing with his back to her at a rack filled with magazines, seemingly oblivious to her presence. She wished she could be so oblivious to his, but she could not.
Just the sight of him was enough to make her heartbeat skip and her skin tingle while she sensed a pooling heat building between her thighs. She cursed her body’s wayward reaction and wished she could look away. Damn the man! When would she ever be able to look at him and not think of sex? After all the things he had said to her, after the way they had parted, after all the years that separated them, still he conjured pictures of tangled sheets, tangled limbs and long, hot nights filled with sin.
Then again, how was it possible not to think of sex when it was some kind of god that filled your vision? Was there some kind of formula for masculine perfection; some ratio of leg-length to height or shoulder-width to hip? Some magic number that nature had allocated at conception that marked a man for physical supremacy?
If so, this man was it, and that was just the view of his back.
He turned then, as the attendant ushered her to the seat across the aisle, and the blast of resentment in his eyes made her catch her breath and forget all about magic numbers.
‘Bahir,’ she uttered in acknowledgement.
‘Princess,’ he said sharply on a nod before he returned his attention to sorting through the rack. She was amazed he’d managed to pry his jaw apart enough to form the word, it had been so firmly set.
The cabin attendant chatted cheerily while she settled Marina into her wide leather seat, but Marina caught not a word of it, too consumed by Bahir’s reaction, too stunned to think about anything else.
So that was what she would get—the silent treatment.
Clearly Bahir was as resentful of being in her company as she was being in his. Equally clearly, he was in no mood for small talk.
Which suited her just fine.
So long as she could eventually find the words to tell him he was a father.
He tried to focus on the business magazine he’d selected from the rack but the words were meaningless scrawl, the article indecipherable, and he tossed it aside. Hopeless. It was no different from the online journal he’d been reading