The Sheikh’s Bargain Bride(22)
Conscious of every nuance of her mood and emotion he heard her exhale the stress of the wedding and she revealed in a quick glance that she had shed the public image she’d been showing all day. This was the Anna only he knew: sensitive, vulnerable and warm. But she was also tired. His fingers involuntarily stroked the darkened shadows under eyes. He wanted to kiss her, to hold her, to make love to her but he couldn’t. She wasn’t ready yet.
“You look very tired. Your face is strained.”
“Not surprising. I feel like I’ve been on a stage, playing the role of my life, for the last eight hours.”
“Don’t tell me you’re not used to acting. I’ve seen you assume a role, I’ve seen you act a part.”
“I have to get by somehow.”
“But you don’t any more. Those days are gone, Anna. Come.” He touched her face, closed his eyes at the silkiness of her skin and let his finger trail down to her jaw line where he traced it to her ear. She was truly exquisite. He sighed and drew her to a seat.
He sat opposite her to admire her beauty.
“What do you mean over? Aren’t I still acting? Don’t pretend this is a real marriage because it isn’t. You’ve always made that very clear.”
“I want it to be as real as it can be. The Imam spoke of the need to honor each other and I believe in that. I will do that. But for honor we need truth.”
Anna sighed. “The truth. I want to tell you the truth but I don’t think you want to listen.”
“Ridiculous, of course I do.”
“About Abduallah?”
He shifted in his seat, brushed off a speck of imaginary dust. “Abduallah? I know the truth of Abduallah. He was my brother.”
“Zahir, you were away for much of the time when he was growing up.”
He rose abruptly and walked towards the window that overlooked the plains, seeking reassurance from the dark emptiness that surrounded them, just as he had learned to gain strength from the desert as a boy at war. Slowly he turned to face her. “Anna, he was my brother and I knew him. He was all that was good about my family, about my people—full of life and charm.”
“Not towards the end he wasn’t. Yes, he was charming. He had a kind and gentle heart, but it wasn’t one that was at ease with the world.”
He gripped the rounded stone of the wall that surrounded the window. “No,” he shook his head. “You are wrong.”
She had to be wrong. He felt her hand on his shoulder, tentative at first, as if she wasn’t sure if she should. But then she gripped him with an urgency, a sureness of purpose that made him realize she believed what she was saying and was trying to convince him. He didn’t turn around. She had to be wrong.
“I don’t think I am wrong, Zahir. I’m sorry, but there were two Abduallahs—the laughing, charming, warm and funny one—and the—”
“No!”
“And the one that couldn’t find his way in the world.”
He turned to her then, his own hand clasping hers, keeping it pressed firmly against his body.
He knew Abduallah. Anna didn’t.
“Don’t tell me about him. Tell me about you and him. Tell me why you married him.” He rose and took her hand. “Come outside and tell me.”
The dark night was what he needed after so much light and noise. The peace of the desert. There was no moon now, nothing to dim the brilliance of the stars overhead. He sat down beside her and pulled her to him, held her in his arms. He felt her sigh gently.
“Abduallah. Well, he was so different to the other boys I’d known growing up.”
“I’m sure. But not everyone seeks something different. Was what you knew so bad?”
She nodded and closed her eyes. “Imagine, Pittsburgh, winter, I was fourteen and wearing my mother’s clothes out on a date.” She half-laughed. “I had no idea how I looked but my boyfriend did. I pretended to laugh, to understand when he took me to the railway yards. It was only when he pushed me to the ground that I began to panic. It was cold, the ground was frozen and covered with the sharp stones. I thought he was playing at first.” She shook her head in despair and the despair ground its way into his own body.
“God, I didn’t even understand enough to know that when he forced me to have sex that he’d raped me. I believed him when he said I’d led him on; I believed him when he said that I shouldn’t tell anyone because no-one would accept the word of a cheap slut. But I didn’t believe him when he said I had no future.”
She shivered. “It was so cold.” He followed her gaze up into the indigo desert sky where the stars shone with an intensity that made them swirl. “There were no stars in Pittsburgh that night. City lights obscured them I suppose. Or perhaps I just couldn’t see them. I had to imagine them while I lay pinned down, looking up at the black sky.”