Claiming His Secret Son(56)
This wasn’t among the possible reactions he’d expected. Numair was enraged...but not as he’d thought he would be.
Richard swallowed the thorns that had sprouted in his throat. “I did betray you. I almost had you maimed. I did get you scarred. And it didn’t matter why I did.”
Shock expanding in his eyes, Numair shook him, hard. “Are you mad? Nothing else mattered. You had no other choice. Your family had to come first. You did the only thing to be done, sacrificing the one who could take the punishment for those who couldn’t. I’m only damned sorry it didn’t save your family. I would have taken far more damage if it had ultimately spared their lives.”
Richard tore himself from Numair’s furious grip, sagged again to escape the contact, the crashing guilt, the crushing futility. Numair’s hands descended heavily on his shoulders.
“Look at me.” He did, letting Numair see the upheaval filling his eyes. Numair winced. “I went mad all these years, hated you as fiercely as I once loved you for never giving me an explanation, not for the betrayal itself. You were the first person who ever gave me a reason to cling to my humanity, the one I looked up to, the one who gave me hope there’d one day be more for me than being The Organization’s slave. Because there was more with you, a friendship that I thought would last as long as we both lived. I hated you, not because I got scarred, but because I thought you took all that, my belief in you, in our bond, the strength and stability it brought me, away from me.”
Moved beyond words, Richard stared up at Numair, the stinging behind his eyes blurring his vision.
Numair sat, fervor replacing the fury on his face. “But I have my friend back now. And you have me, too. It’s twenty-six freaking years too late, but better late than never. You damn self-sacrificing jackass.”
Richard coughed. “That was no self-sacrifice. I just believed there was no forgiving my crimes. I only hoped you’d consider, after all I did over the past ten years, that I atoned for them, at least in part. But you’re as unforgiving as your homeland’s camels.”
Numair arched a teasing eyebrow. “What, pray tell, did you do to atone? It was I who deigned to put my hand in that of my betrayer to build Black Castle Enterprises for us all.”
“You deigned nothing. You couldn’t do it without me.”
Numair’s face opened on a smile Richard hadn’t seen since he’d been fourteen. “No, I couldn’t. And I now believe what Rafael kept telling us all these years. That my escape plan wouldn’t have worked, certainly not as perfectly as it had, without your help.” Suddenly a realization dawned in Numair’s eyes. “You waited until we were all out before you left, too, didn’t you?”
Letting him read his answer in his eyes, Richard attempted a smile. “We didn’t do too shabbily for sworn enemies, did we?”
Numair clapped him zealously on the back, imitating his accent. “We did splendidly, old chap.”
The knife embedded in his chest only twisted at Numair’s lightheartedness. “At least, you did. You’re there for the woman you love every moment she needs you, to love and protect her. You’ll share with her every up and down of childbirth and child rearing. You’ll never leave her to face a merciless world alone, like I did with Isabella.”
Numair frowned again. “You had reasons for your actions, and she understands them like I do now. The fact that she let you in your son’s life attests to that.”
“She may understand, even forgive, but she’ll never forget, not what I did in the past, or what I did when I first invaded her life again. She’ll never love me again.”
Numair grabbed his shoulder, turning him fully to him. “When has never been a word in your vocabulary? You keep after something until it happens. So you lost seven years of your son’s life...”
Unable to bear Numair’s placation, he tore his hand off, stepping away from him. “I didn’t lose them, I threw them away. When I didn’t give her the benefit of the doubt, didn’t trust my heart about her, when I left her in the hands of the monster who’d destroyed my family. I almost cost her, and Rico, their lives...”
“Stop it, Richard,” Numair roared, bringing his tirade to an abrupt end. He’d never called him Richard before. “You won’t serve them by wallowing in guilt. From now on, you’ll live to make it up to her, and to your son. From what Rafael tells me, the boy worships you. And she’s trusting you to be around him. This says a lot about her opinion of you as you are now, and of your efforts to atone. Keep at it, prove to her how much you love her and your son. When she realizes the best thing for her is to open her heart to you again, she will. Hang in there. When she bestows her love and trust on you again, nothing will ever touch that blessing. I know.”