Dios! What a mess this was.
CHAPTER SEVEN
LEILA CRYING SHAMED HIM. She wasn’t the type to use tears as a weapon, or even as a last resort. Leila had never been quiet and ineffective. She possessed an inner strength. Even now she wasn’t making a fuss as she straightened her clothes with a gentle grace that made him feel more of a brute than ever.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered, sensing his gaze on her.
‘What the hell are you thanking me for?’
‘You stopped,’ she said as if that were obvious. ‘You knew when to stop.’ She looked up at him. ‘And you could stop, Raffa.’
‘Of course I could stop.’ He frowned. ‘I can’t imagine why that should surprise you.’
Unless...
‘Perhaps we both have issues from the past we’re still working through,’ she said, confirming his worst suspicions. ‘I wanted you with a madness that drove everything else from my mind, and I think you wanted me.’
‘You only think?’
‘But you realised it wasn’t the right time for either of us, and so you stopped.’
‘Of course I stopped.’ He shook his head, trying to make sense of something that made no sense. He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. ‘I had to stop.’
His world might be very different from Leila’s, according to her, but trust between a man and a woman when they were having sex was a given. He wondered now what she was hiding, and suddenly he dreaded hearing her answer to the question he had to ask. ‘Have you been assaulted, Leila?’
‘No.’
She spoke so quickly he believed her, but there was still a haunted look in her eyes.
‘But there is something?’
He waited, but she said nothing more.
‘I would never hurt you. I hope you know that.’
She didn’t answer. She wasn’t ready to talk to him yet. He knew something of Leila’s family history from the press reports, and now his imagination was working overtime. The thought of what she might have seen at home chilled him. ‘Can you tell me what’s wrong?’ he pressed gently.
‘Not now, Raffa.’
She would tell him, he hoped, but it would be in her own time. ‘Will you be all right in here if I leave you for a while?’ He sensed she needed space; he did too.
‘Of course I’ll be all right, Raffa.’
There was such a mix of emotion in her eyes when she looked up at him, he guessed neither of them had an answer for the heat that had flared between them.
‘Come and find me when you’re ready,’ he suggested. ‘Have a rest—or don’t have a rest. Do whatever you think best.’
‘Thank you. I will,’ she assured him quietly.
* * *
She waited until all the rattling atoms in the room had settled like dust, and then, standing up, she brushed herself down as if brushing away the ghosts of the past. It was time to tell Raffa everything. She wanted to help him, and if she confided in him perhaps they could rebuild their trust. It was time to open up in the hope that he would do the same.