With or Without Him (34 page)

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“At least it gives me time to put my affairs in order.”

Haris doubted his father had come to terms with his eldest son’s sexuality so he wondered how much
order
the guy expected to achieve by contacting him after all this time.

“After paying debts and funeral expenses, the estate will be split equally between my three sons in accordance with Sharia.”

“I don’t—” Haris started to speak and his father held up his hand.

“This is what will happen.”

Haris neither needed nor wanted his father’s money.

“But…” his father said.

This is why he’s come.
Haris waited. Was he going to ask him to give the money back to his brothers? Adil could have it, but not Malik.

“Malik doesn’t wish you to have anything. And his vehement insistence upon that has made me wonder why.”

The bastard.
Haris chewed the inside of his cheeks. Sharia was quite clear. Unless Haris murdered his father, he inherited. Period. But Malik had a bloody nerve considering what… He swallowed hard. Adil, his youngest brother, had only been eleven when Haris left Saudi for the last time. He was the one he most regretted leaving behind. But he had no choice. If he’d stayed, he’d have been imprisoned for years. He might not have survived.

There was a knock on the door and Wilson walked in. “I’m sorry, sir, but I really must insist on speaking to you.”

“Excuse me,” Haris said to his father and bundled Wilson out into the hall. “What is it?”

“Look on the floor of your study.”

“I don’t have time for games. What’s on the floor and why on earth did you let him in?”

“I didn’t. Tyler did.”

Haris pushed open the door of his study. “Where is—oh Christ.” He picked up one of the photos.

“Tyler’s gone,” Wilson said.

Haris spun to look at him and saw his father in the doorway behind. “Gone where?” he asked. He let the photo fall onto his desk.

“He put his key through the letter box,” Wilson said. “He’s taken his clothes and guitar.”

Haris clenched his fists.

His father cleared his throat. “The young man was reaching for the photograph of the four of us to show me and I surprised him. He knocked a pile of papers from your desk and those fell from an envelope.”

When his father moved to pick up one of the items, Haris blocked him. “Don’t touch anything.”

“I’ve seen enough to know he’s a whore.”

Haris glared. “You know nothing about Tyler. Don’t you dare judge him.” He turned to Wilson. “How long has he been gone?”

“About thirty minutes.”

Haris pulled out his mobile. Tyler’s number went straight to voicemail. “Tyler. Come back. I can explain. Please.” He sucked in a breath. “If you don’t want to come back, at least call and let me know you’re okay.”

“Is there anything I can do, sir?” Wilson asked.

Haris shook his head. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen. Thank you for persisting.”

Wilson nodded and left the room. Haris was so furious with his father that he could barely keep from yelling at him. Yet he knew it wasn’t his fault. The envelope shouldn’t have been left there. Why hadn’t he destroyed it? He tried to think where Tyler might go.

“There are plenty of decent men out there. Discreet men,” his father said. “Why would you want anyone who does that?” He gestured toward the photographs.

“Tyler’s a good, kind guy. He’s had a lot to deal with in his life.”

“So have you.”

“Not like Tyler.”

“Was he whipped? Separated from his family? Does he have scars on his back?” his father snapped.

“His scars are inside.”

“That doesn’t compare. You—”

“When Tyler was seven, his brother, sister and mother were brutally killed by his father. Think that scarred him?”

“Haris. I’m—”

“Tyler would have died too, but his father couldn’t find him. Tyler lay under his mother’s blood-soaked body for hours before the police discovered him. He had no other family and went into care, passed around from place to place. For the rest of his childhood, he never had a home, was never loved.”

Haris felt bad that he took pleasure in the shock on his father’s face. “Why would his father do such a thing?”

“Shame. Something you have in common with him. But his shame was over money. He was heavily in debt. Maybe he was trying to spare his family the disgrace of losing the lifestyle they’d grown accustomed to, or maybe it was his final act of defiance, the destruction of the last things he felt belonged to him. He shot himself and left Tyler on his own. Tyler might not have died that day, but what his father did badly damaged him. He’s afraid of owing money and that fear pushed him into doing things he shouldn’t have had to do. Maybe I should be grateful your offended sense of honor about my sexuality only resulted in you excising me from the family. Or maybe you wished I’d died.”

“Never.” His father shot the answer back and then sighed. “I just wish you’d been…more careful.”

Haris gave a short laugh. “Careful? I was seventeen years old and different in a country where you’re not allowed to be different. I felt I didn’t belong and then a man smiled at me over a coffee and I smiled back. It was that simple and I
was
being careful. We left the café separately. We entered the hotel separately. We booked two rooms on different floors. How do you think the police knew we were together?”

“They followed you from the café.”

Haris suddenly wanted to hurt him. If his father hadn’t come, Tyler would still be there. “No, the police didn’t follow me.”

“What do you mean?”

And just as quickly, Haris couldn’t do it. “They followed Rashid.”

His father backed to a chair and sat heavily. “I did everything I could to save you.”

Haris believed him. But whatever he did wouldn’t have been enough.

His father looked up at him. “It broke your mother’s heart. And mine too.”

Haris struggled under his own burden of guilt and shame. All this because a horny seventeen-year-old couldn’t keep his cock in his pants. But he’d paid in full. He didn’t want it raking up again.

“The last thing I wanted to do was hurt you,” Haris murmured. “I can’t help the way I am.”

“What you are is irrelevant. I’ve grown to understand it’s not something you can help. You are what you are. My eldest son and a successful businessman. I’ve taken pleasure in following your progress. Your mother would have been as proud of you as I am. I wish I could have done something all those years ago. But what?”

Haris knew his father had done as much as he could, but to not keep in touch…

“The only thing I could do was arrange for you to leave Saudi. If you’d stayed, it would have…”

Ruined his business? Wrecked his father’s life and that of his brothers? Haris knew that could easily have happened. Would his mother still have died? Would their lives have been destroyed anyway?

“It would have made the lives of your brothers impossible,” his father said. “At times, it was difficult for them anyway.”

“No visit, no telephone call, no emails?”

“I thought it was better that we severed contact. Better for all of us. Adil was desperate to see you. Malik wanted to pretend you didn’t exist. And after your mother died, a light went out in our lives.”

Haris swallowed hard.

“Did you blame yourself for her accident?” his father asked. “I expect you do. As I blame myself. Was she not concentrating? Was it just a simple mistake? We won’t know until we meet again in the next life.”

Haris wouldn’t be there. He didn’t want to be there. Not even to see his mother.

His father gave a heavy sigh. “I was angry with you. I felt you’d let me down.”

“I could echo those words back to you.”

A slight nod was his answer. “I don’t want to die without us being reconciled. I want you to have your share of my money.”

Didn’t he get it? This wasn’t about money. “I don’t want it.”

“There is no choice here, Haris. The money will be left to you.”

“I’ll give it to Adil.”

“Not Malik?” His father’s eyes narrowed.

“No.”

“And make more trouble?”

Haris sank his teeth into his cheeks.

“What is there between you two?” his father asked. “Something more…”

Don’t tell him.

His father coughed. “Malik is in London.”

Haris straightened. “Malik’s here?”

“He flew from Saudi a few weeks ago. He told me he was going via London to America. Adil discovered he’d not travelled on from here and I wondered if he’d come to see you, to tell you about me.”

Had it been Malik who’d followed him these past weeks? “I’ve not seen him.”

“I suspected not.” His father gave a heavy sigh. “Adil told me something else too. Malik has been in touch with Rashid Al-Dakhil after he was released from prison.”

Haris swallowed hard.

“I can’t understand why Malik would want to associate with the man you were…caught with.”

Haris could.

Chapter Nineteen

Tyler listened to Haris’s voicemail and then deleted it. He was too angry to talk to him. Maybe Haris didn’t care about what he’d seen in the photos, but the expression on his father’s face had made Tyler feel so…dirty he’d wanted to weep. He’d known the bomb was out there, ticking away, but hoped with so much new porn coming online daily that anything with him in it would have sunk to the bottom of the pile.
With my luck, I should have guessed that wouldn’t be the case.
The bad news was that those photos were from a couple of years back. Prescott had plenty more he could release.

Bright light spilled onto the pavement from a café and Tyler went in to escape the snow. He bought a coffee and sat by the window. Two bags of sugar went into the black liquid and he stirred until he’d made a whirlpool. Maybe if he wished hard enough he could jump into the vortex and reappear in another world.
Fuck.

Snow didn’t usually settle in London but the pavement was already covered. He needed somewhere to kip. Calls to Col and Newt told him they were already on their way home for the holidays—with their keys—and Des wasn’t answering his phone.
Tyler couldn’t face going back to his place, though he suspected the police would have sealed it off as a crime scene. He’d have to fork out for a hotel tonight and then rethink.

His mobile kept pinging with messages and Tyler checked them in case it was Des calling back but they were all from Haris. He deleted them without reading or listening to them. It was over and the sooner he—and Haris—got their heads around it, the better.
Oh God.
Tyler felt such a fool, thinking he’d been in control at any time. It was obvious a guy like Haris would check up on him.

“Is okay if I sit here?” someone asked.

Tyler looked up to see a man in his mid-to-late thirties with dark curly hair, smiling nervously down at him. He glanced around but there were no free tables. “Sure.”

“I wait for friend but café very busy.”

Tyler nodded. He wasn’t interested in conversation.

“I from Egypt.”

Good for you.

“I buy you coffee?”

Don’t talk to me.
“No thanks.”

“I leave bag. Watch please.”

As he got up, he rocked the table, went to steady it and knocked over Tyler’s drink.

“Sorry, sorry.”

Tyler pushed back on his chair before the liquid spilled onto his lap. The man pulled a handful of napkins from the holder and mopped up the mess.

“I get you another. So sorry.”

He went to the counter and Tyler sighed when he looked at the bag on the chair. He couldn’t leave now until the stranger came back. He didn’t much want to go out into the snow anyway. What looked fun when he was a kid was going to make him miserable tonight while he trekked around looking for a place to stay. He gave a quiet snort. Easier to blame the weather for his bad mood than Haris.

The guy came back with two coffees and put one in front of Tyler. He’d even brought him sugar.

“So sorry. Very clumsy.”

Tyler stirred the sugar into the coffee and then picked up his phone from the table and messed around with it, trying to deter conversation. As soon as he’d finished his drink, he’d leave.

“London very cold,” the man said. “Is always this cold?”

Maybe
before
he finished his drink
.
“No.”

“I grateful you let me sit here. I can practice my English. I not good.” He laughed.

Tyler suspected the man was gay but wasn’t sure. Different sort of pick up if he was. Not that he was interested. He thought of Haris and his gut clenched.
I hate him. I love… No, I don’t.

“What you do?”

Shut the fuck up.

“Sorry. I disturb.”

Stop being such an asshole, Tyler. Your fucked up life is not this guy’s fault.