Embrace My Heart(16)
Chapter 5
“When are you gonna marry that beauty, Sim?” Robb DeWitt’s sparkling hazel stare held challenge and amusement as he looked from Qasim to Vectra, who stood across the room.
Qasim shook his head. “I’d drive her crazy inside of a week.”
“Ha! You know more about married life than you realize.” Robb chuckled. “If you’re not driving each other crazy by the first week, you’re doing something wrong.”
There was more laughter between the friends. Qasim sobered first.
“She doesn’t know what she’d be getting into with me.”
“Mmm... Army stuff?” Robb queried.
Qasim settled deeper into the armchair he occupied near Robb’s spot at the front of the room. Additional chairs had been arranged in a semicircle around the man’s towering royal blue chair to give the air of a king meeting his subjects.
Qasim massaged his eyes, considering his response to Robb’s question. “Not in the way you mean, but it um...it plays a role.”
“Ahh...and you don’t think she could understand it?”
“Hmph, I’m not sure I even understand it, Robb.”
“But you guys are here together—”
“We didn’t come together.”
Robb nodded, his expression smug. “Well, judging from what Davia saw on the dance floor, it looks like you’ll be leaving together.”
Qasim broke into soft laughter. “Does that woman miss anything?”
Robb looked over at his wife, who was chatting with Vectra. “She doesn’t miss much, especially when it’s so hard to miss.”
“She’s not for me,” Qasim repeated, the words fast becoming his personal slogan.
“Do you realize that you’re probably only one of a few men in this place who thinks that?”
Qasim propped his fist beneath his jaw and studied Vectra talking on the other side of the dining room. “She’s an angel, Robb. She doesn’t need a man who can’t control his temper when it comes to the way other men behave around her.”
“Agreed!” Robb laughed so hard he had to thumb a tear from his eye. “I heard about your orders that no one else ask her to my party.”
“Lew...” Qasim groaned. “Is there anybody he hasn’t told about that?”
“In Lew’s defense, he was probably talking about it out of sheer surprise rather than his obsession with honesty.”
“I’m just predisposed to getting physical, I guess.” Qasim shared the insight airily, but inside, the words stung.
Joining the military hadn’t actually been his plan; his then financial situation had been a deciding factor. Additionally, he had viewed the military as a place that would welcome a guy who didn’t mind shedding blood or having his own shed. He’d joined right out of high school and found more than his fill of violence and testosterone-driven angst.
He’d chosen not to make a career of it, however. Instead, he’d opted to complete his education on the government’s dime. Money, not violence, had been his motivation and the only way to truly distance himself from an impoverished past. Still, all the degrees, money and respect in the world couldn’t stifle his true nature—one he’d never regretted until Vectra Bauer came into his life.
“She doesn’t seem like the type to get off on seeing guys come to blows over her,” Robb noted.
“She’s not and that’s why I backed off our friendship.” Qasim shrugged.
Robb laughed. “Backed off with conditions.”
Qasim conceded the fact with another shrug. “It was wrong. I was threatening Lew before I knew what I was doing. I wouldn’t have hurt him.”
“So is backing away from Vec really necessary?”
A server stopped by the “king’s court” with fresh drinks before Sim could respond.
“I enjoyed my tour in the army,” he admitted, following a sip of the smooth bourbon. “I think I got addicted to the nonstop adrenaline. I craved it more than anything.”
“And the killing?” Robb kept his gaze fixed down into the stout, beaded glass he held. “Were you addicted to that, too?”
Qasim didn’t need to think about that, and the answer was quick and genuine. “No, not the killing.” He twisted his glass, swirling the liquid there. “But I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t get a certain amount of enjoyment off the power.”
He set aside his glass. “Knowing I held someone’s life in my hands. That I had the authority and approval from others to take it...made it difficult for me not to find satisfaction over it. That’s why I didn’t make a career of it. The way I felt about what I was expected to do over there...scared me.”