Stolen Lives (Blood Brothers Book 1) (42 page)

“Cara. Cara, come on. He’s going to be all right; you need to rest now.” Jasim rests his hand on my shoulder. “You heard what the doctors said: the signs are very promising. He’s progressing as well as they could hope. You must take some time for yourself, otherwise you won’t be any help to him at all!”

Shaking my head, I refuse, as I have done the last hundred times he’s made the same suggestion.

“I’m not leaving him, Jasim. I need to be here.”

“He’s on the mend; he just needs time. It may be hours yet before he’s fully conscious. Go, have a shower and freshen up, have something to eat and lie down for a bit. I promise I’ll wake you if anything happens.” Jasim holds out his hand to help me up.

A nurse is taking obs again, and she nods over to me with a smile. “His Excellency is doing well. You need to take care of yourself too.”

In the end it’s the nurse’s confidence that reassures me. As I take Jasim’s hand and realise I need his help to get to my feet, feeling weak and dizzy when I stand from lack of food and proper rest, I know they are right. I’ll be no use to Nijad if I collapse on him. So with one last backward glance at my sleeping husband, comforted by the more natural colour now on his face, and his steady breathing, I let Jasim lead me out of the room and into a private room nearby. I sleep for six hours straight.

Nijad

I wake from yet another doze. I can’t seem to keep my eyes open for more than a few minutes at a time. The nurse has brought me a drink, and gives me a disapproving look when I want to sit up and take it myself, but I’m already sick of being an invalid and drinking through a fucking straw. I glare at her until she relents and raises the bed so I’m upright. After I’ve satisfied my thirst, I glance up to see Jasim hovering in the doorway, watching something out in the corridor. He’s holding the door open for someone. Then he shrugs and comes in. I raise an eyebrow.

“I thought Cara was coming in, but a nurse just called her away. You’ve got a good one there, Nijad. We had to pry her away from you just to get some rest before she collapsed.” He nods towards the door. “She looks better for it, though.”

Now he gives me his full attention, his dark eyes, like mirrors of my own, assessing me intently. At last, he nods.

“And
you’ve
got a better colour now. How are you feeling?”

“Like shit. My head hurts like fucking hell and I’m fed up with only being able to use one arm. But apart from that...”

“You were lucky. The helicopter is in pieces.” Jasim frowns. “I’ve seen the photos.”

I crease my brow as I try to summon up any memory of what happened. “I don’t remember anything about it.”

“You took a bullet close to the border. It hit the fucking tail rotor. You managed to get out a distress call but landed some way away. You were fucking lucky, Nijad. A sandstorm half covered the wreckage. It took us two days to find you as it was. Any longer… Somehow you managed to fly a few miles into the interior. Lucky, because if you’d crashed closer to the border, they’d have finished you off. You’re not the most popular person with our neighbours at the moment.”

“Yeah, but it’s been effective,” I say, smirking. “They won’t be so eager to try crossing the border now.” My conversation with my brother is gradually helping the fog to clear from my head, and I’m starting to feel more like my old self.

Jasim looks at me sharply. I know he thinks I’ve been acting out of character, but what he doesn’t understand is that this is me. I’ve given in to my inner beast, the man with the potential to be violent. That’s who I am now. And the results are good: the attempted invasion failed due to the military response. It was the first thing I’d asked about when I was lucid enough.

“The colonel in charge of the border guard tells me you’ve been all but out of control, Nijad. You go too far. You had no business getting out into the action. Sure, you’ve got results, but at what cost? You’ve been taking far too many risks. And he tells me it wasn’t just this time. It’s Cara, isn’t it?”

The mental anguish, as well as the physical pain, causes me to close my eyes for a second. Then I exhale loudly.

“It’s over, Jasim. She can pay back the bride price and void the contract. I’m going to let her go.”

I’ve stunned him. His gaze is intent as he tells me, “You’ll have a fight on your hands. She doesn’t want to break the contract. That woman has been by your side night and day, not thinking of her comfort for one second. She couldn’t be made to leave you until she all but collapsed. She loves you, Nijad.”

“And that’s the reason.” I know I won’t be able to hide my hurt from him, but I’ve made my decision. “You know why, Jasim. I can’t trust her. She kept secrets from me. I can’t forgive her for that.”

“I don’t think she knew what she was doing, Nijad, or how far she could trust you. Hell, you’d only known her five minutes.” He runs his fingers through his hair, a sign of frustration. “She was a mess when she came here. And the way she was forced into the marriage didn’t help. She’s grown, changed. She’s a different woman now. And you did that to her. You gave her the confidence she needed.”

“Perhaps I don’t want a different Cara.”

“Yes you do,” he snaps back. “She’s just what you need.”

I push my empty cup to the side and turn my head away. Yes, I want Cara with every bone in my body; losing her is like losing a part of myself. If I’d died in that crash it would have been simpler. I take a deep breath, knowing I’m unable to fool my brother.

“You’re right. I do want her. But I can’t have her. I can’t risk it.”

He stares at me for a long time, and then murmurs, “Paris.”

“I blacked out, Jasim.” My voice is croaky with emotion as I confirm he’s right. It all goes back to fucking Paris. “I can’t take the chance of that happening again. I can’t hurt her. I love her too much, and that’s why I have to let her go.” I swallow a couple of times, my throat still sore from the ventilation tube. “She will have to agree our marriage is over. There’s no reason for it now; the tribes will have their money back.”

“I think the tribes will want their sheikha. Word has got around quickly, and they’re treating her like a hero. And Kadar will be disappointed. She’s a financial genius. He wants her to stay in the country and work for him.”

I just stare at him; what he’s asking me is impossible. When she was just a name on a piece of paper, I didn’t much worry about the risk to her. I wasn’t even going to live with my wife. But now? Now I know the woman, now I
love
the person she is, it would have to be a real marriage or nothing. And if I stayed close to her…

“I can’t do it.” And then I think about what he’s just told me. Fuck, she can’t stay and work for Kadar. It would tear me apart to be in the same country as her but no longer married, no longer able to touch her, to hold her. To watch her find somebody else in front of my eyes, to think of someone else fucking her. I just couldn’t do it. “She’s got to leave,” I tell him adamantly. “Leave Amahad.”

Behind Jasim, the door opens and closes. My expression tells him who’s just entered the room. He stares at me, shaking his head as if he thinks I’m a fucking idiot, and with a parting shot of “You’d better tell her then”, he turns swiftly and leaves us alone.

I notice Cara’s behaviour is odd as soon as she enters. She seems distracted, but her face is alert, bright. Her eyes are shining. She smiles her sweet smile, shrugs, and then moves quickly over to the side of the bed and takes my hand.

“Nijad...”

She looks tired, but that doesn’t detract from her beauty. She’s lost weight, her face thinner, her features more pronounced, but that only makes me want her more.
And I can’t fucking have her!
I sit up for the conversation I know has to come, ignoring the discomfort of my body. Taking the seat beside me which she’s apparently been glued to for days, she takes hold of my hand and puts it to her lips. Closing my eyes in pain, I let her fingers linger, relishing the gentle caress for longer than I should. What I’ve got to do now is hurting me far more than any injury I received in the crash. I try to summon up the strength from somewhere, knowing I’ve got to dash her hopes once and for all before I weaken and allow her back into my life.

Opening my eyes, hating the fact that I’m going to wipe that perfect smile off her face, I begin.

“I’ve got to speak to you, Cara. I’ve got to tell you something…”

She interrupts me. “I’ve got news, too.” She is so happy to see me awake and fully conscious. I’m a fucking bastard. But it’s either hurt her like this, or risk hurting her in a far worse way.

I inhale as much oxygen as I can and then rush to speak before she can say anything else.

“Cara, it’s over. Accept that the contract is paid off. You’ll be able to go home to England.” If I had struck her across the face, she couldn’t have reared back more sharply, pulling her hand away from mine.

“But…”

I cut across whatever she was going to say. “You’ll have a generous allowance; you’ll want for nothing.”

She sits up straight in the seat, her face full of determination. “I don’t want your money. I want you.”

“It won’t work.” I speak as firmly as I can, trying to keep my voice strong and forceful, even though I’m dying inside. I tell her emphatically, in the clearest way I possibly can, my voice icy-cold. “I don’t want you as my wife, Cara.”

I can see she doesn’t want to believe what she is hearing. She’s so shocked, she’s gone white, her hand is covering her mouth. What the fuck did she think was going to happen? Yes, I know what she did was wrong, though for the right reasons, but that doesn’t exonerate her for not placing her trust in me. Yes, she’s rushed here to be by my bedside, thinking we’ll just pick up from our honeymoon period. Fuck! We spent just two weeks together, and more than twice that apart. How dare she have emotions for me?
But it happened just as fast for me; I love her too.
My head pounds and my body aches. I resist pressing the button for pain relief, knowing that I need to keep as lucid as possible for the rest of this conversation. She’s bringing me to my knees as it is. I’m just a hair’s breadth away from begging her to forget what I said, imploring her to wait for me, to return to my bed and my life. But I can’t. I have to be strong, have strength enough for the both of us. It’s the only way to keep her safe.

“Why?” she asks me, her voice choking. “I don’t understand. Please, tell me why.” She wipes a tear away from the corner of her eye. That’s my Cara: fighting not to let the tears fall. Again she doesn’t use tears as a weapon against me. Fuck, I admire her strength.

“You didn’t trust me. You should have told me everything. We were close enough for you to have said anything to me. I can’t live with someone who doesn’t trust me and keeps secrets.” I try to remain at my iciest. It’s not difficult, as I imagine what it will be like with her gone from my life. My blood turns to shards of frozen water gripping my heart. The pain there is worse than any ache coming from my body.

“But you have secrets.” Her words show me she’s going to fight. “There’s something important that you’re not telling me! How could you expect me to tell you everything when you’re keeping everything back about your life? What is it about your previous relationship that affects us so much? And why you were banished? Nothing else makes sense; it’s something that affects me, isn’t it?”

How the fuck to answer that? I open my mouth to try to respond but this time, she interrupts me. “And just so you can’t accuse me of keeping any more secrets, here’s something else for you to think about. I’m pregnant. I’ve only just found out.”

She puts her head in her hands, the battle against the tears far more of an effort now.

Fuck. FUCK.
FUCK!
She’s fucking pregnant? How? When? Oh, shit. Realisation hits me.

“The night in the harem.”

She nods, her hands feverishly trying to wipe the tears away. I see them running down her cheeks and it breaks me in two. Fuck, she’s pregnant with my child and I’m never going to see her body swell with my seed. I won’t be there to see my baby born. I’ll never hold my baby in my arms. The only way I can do this is to let her go completely, and that means I can never see her again. It would kill me. And the baby was conceived that night, that fucking night when I’d been so cruel to her.

After swearing loudly in Arabic, I show my remorse. “I shouldn’t have done that. I was violent and I hurt you. I showed my true colours. That’s who I am.”

I sit up straighter, unable to hide a grimace. Twisting my broken body as far as I can, I turn to face her and tell her brutally: “You want to know my secret, Cara? Do you
really
want to know? I’ll tell you then. You could be risking your fucking life if you stay with me.”

She gasps as I rest myself back down again. “You’d never hurt me.” It’s hard for her to get out the words.

Closing my eyes, I try to summon up the strength to tell her. I’m woozy, and pain is gnawing away at me, but I have to tell her the truth.

“Cara, I can’t promise you that. Do you want the truth? Then I’ll tell you. Listen to me. Three years ago I let a woman, Chantelle, move in with me. I was living in Paris, and we were together only a very short time.”

“Did you love her?”