Captive of Kadar

by Trish Morey

  Days when the four were together to celebrate first Zoltan’s and then Bahir’s weddings.

  Good days.

  And now the few nights spent at the Pavilion of the Moon with a woman whose smile could outshine the sun and stars.

  Could outshine the sun and stars.

  But the last few days... He looked across at her in the business-class seat alongside him. Her eyes were closed and yet still he could see the tension that had been hovering in the background like a dark threatening cloud.

  What was it that was troubling her?

  What was it lingering behind her smile, dimming the lights he’d become accustomed to seeing?

  Because she would still smile when she caught him looking but other times she was nervous. Ever since that night she’d burst into tears.

  Because of the story of her ancestor?

  Why hadn’t she mentioned it before? They hadn’t been close at the start, but these last few days a bond had grown between them.

  And why had she felt her here, more than, say, in Istanbul, where her ancestor was far more likely to have stepped?

  Something wasn’t right, and it was troubling her, and that troubled him.

  He sighed and leaned back in his chair as the ‘fasten seat belt’ light lit up again and the plane hit another patch of turbulence. It was just as well she was going. She’d been a pleasant distraction—too pleasant at times, but a distraction all the same. It would be good to concentrate on his business and his life again without having to cater to a guest’s demands.

  Not that she’d demanded much. On the contrary, he’d foisted himself upon her and she’d been the one who’d had to endure his terms and conditions.

  He would miss her when she was gone.

  So it was just as well she was leaving.

  * * *

  Amber curled her legs under her in her wide seat and closed her eyes, the bumpy air only reinforcing the bumpy thoughts in her mind. She’d come here searching for a glimpse of the adventure her great-great-great-grandmother had discovered, but she’d never imagined when she’d left home that her trip here would find hard evidence of her.

  Amber Braithwaite. She’d been at the Pavilion of the Moon and worn bracelets fashioned for the Sultan’s favourite. A favourite of the Sultan. How hard it must have been to settle back into life in rural Hertfordshire after such an adventure. How hard it must have been for her family to understand.

  She thought about the missing pages of the diary, which looked as if they’d been torn out. Was that why someone had disposed of them? So that news of the scandalous adventures of their daughter could never be made public?

  Follow your heart.

  Amber settled deeper into the leather seat, those three little words playing over in her mind. She would never answer all the questions, she would never know how the Amber of long ago had come to be at the Pavilion of the Moon, but she would never regret coming to Turkey, never. No matter what happened next. Because she’d found her intrepid ancestor. Found where she’d been while she’d been lost those five long years, and where she’d loved a man who could never be hers.

  Never had she felt so close to her namesake—so close they could have been sisters rather than being born generations apart.

  For she too had followed her heart, and lost it.

  She squeezed her eyes shut as turbulence jolted the plane and the wings bent against the bumpy clouds.

  ‘It’s okay,’ said Kadar, putting a hand to her arm.

  And she wished it could be true.

  * * *

  She was leaving, right this minute packing her bags, ready for the drive to the airport and her flight home. Kadar stood at the rain-streaked windows of his apartment and looked out over the Sea of Marmara, grey under a heavy sky, the ships mere smudges of colour that failed to break up the monotony of sea and sky.

  He should feel relieved.

  He wanted to be relieved.

  Instead he felt—uneasy.

  In the days and nights they’d been together, he’d grown used to having her around.

  More than that, he’d grown to like having her around.

  And more and more that particular thought had found a foothold in his head.

  He would miss her.

  Her eyes. Her smile. The way she came apart in his arms like fireworks. And in spite of his initial mistrust of her and his doubts about her character, there were things about her that he did like. The way she wooed the hearts of the villagers. The way he’d found her peeling oranges surrounded by a mob of children.

  And beyond staring at pretty jewellery behind glass, she’d done nothing that he could find her guilty of.

  After all, even he had to admit, it was no crime to look.

  Had she been as innocent and naive of knowing she’d been committing a crime with the coin seller as she’d made out?

  Had he unfairly cast a stain upon her character all along? If she was as opportunist as he had believed, surely she would have been unable to resist the lure of some other trinkets? The Pavilion of the Moon was full of treasures, large and small. If she’d wanted some souvenirs of her time in Turkey, she’d had plenty of opportunity.

  He chewed it over in his mind, trying to make sense of this woman who’d come into his life unwanted and unwilling, and was now consuming his thoughts.

  Why?

  Did it really matter if he’d been wrong about her? If he’d misjudged her?

  No, it didn’t matter. She was going home. They’d never see each other again. If she hadn’t stolen anything, it didn’t matter the reason why. And if something was troubling her, that was her problem, not his. He’d still done the job he’d promised the polis. He’d been responsible for her. He’d ensured she would cause no more trouble while she was in the country.

  He’d discharged his duty.

  So maybe he’d given her grief over it, but she’d asked for that, messing with the coin seller in the first place. That was hardly his fault. What other conclusion could anyone have drawn?

  He ran his hand through his hair and turned away from the window, unsatisfied with his cold justification for his behaviour. Because if she had been innocent all along then he had treated her appallingly, unafraid to accuse her in front of anyone in hearing distance that she was a thief.

  Even if only at first.

  He thought back to that morning with Mehmet and how angry she’d been. Deservedly angry.

  He’d appointed himself judge, jury and executioner and, sure, he’d been trying to dissuade Mehmet from the notion that she actually meant something to him, but even that rationalisation seemed hollow now.

  Because she wasn’t nothing to him. He’d miss her when she was gone. You didn’t miss people who meant nothing to you. You were happy to see them walk out of your life and go.

  But not Amber. And the closer it got to her leaving, the more uneasy, the more unsettled, he became.

  It was because of those good days, he reflected. A string of the best days of his life, that would be followed by a life without Amber.

  It was akin to contemplating life without the sun. Unimaginable.

  And yet that was what he was setting himself up for by letting her calmly walk out of his life—a life full of empty days, of going back to women that were repulsed when they saw his scars and eagerly turned their backs on him, of going back to women who seemed grateful they didn’t have to touch his skin. A life full of brief, meaningless encounters.

  Amber had kissed him there. On his shoulder, where skin met scar. Amber had traced the ridges of his scars with her fingertips. Not in pity, or in morbid curiosity, but because that was the way he was and she accepted him the way he was.

  Oh, God, he was such a fool.

  He wasn’t just going to miss her.


  He didn’t want her to go.

  He strode the wide living room, the sky and sea merging into one in the windows outside, his thoughts in turmoil.

  What was this feeling? What was wrong with him?

  Because suddenly he wanted his days to be filled with her.

  He wanted to spend his life with her.

  His chest ached, his gut churned, his brow broke out in a cold sweat as the sick knowledge dawned on him, a sick knowledge he denied as fast as the realisation dawned.

  Because he wasn’t supposed to fall in love.

  He wasn’t supposed to love anyone.

  And yet, Amber had arrived and all the rules he’d lived by had meant nothing.

  Because he loved her.

  He raised his eyes up to the ceiling. Oh, God, he had to stop her going. He couldn’t just let her walk out of his life. He had to do something.

  But what if she wouldn’t stay? What if this was all one-sided? She was on the rebound. She wasn’t looking for love, she’d said.

  And then he thought about the last few days, when something had clearly been troubling her, something that she hadn’t been able to share with him, that had dimmed the light in her eyes and had taken the edge off her smile.

  She’d cried that night after they’d made love. She’d told him the story of her ancestor then to explain away her tears and it had never really made sense to him why she was so moved.

  But if she’d told him the story because she’d needed to tell him something to explain away her tears?

  Because she couldn’t tell him the real reason?

  Because she was no more looking forward to leaving than he was to her going home...

  Was there a chance?

  Did she feel something for him?

  Could she have fallen in love with him? Might that explain the tension around her troubled eyes?

  He didn’t know much about love, but it made a kind of sense that she would be as averse to divulging her feelings as he was. No doubt more so, given the way he’d ridden roughshod over her wants and insisted on calling the shots from day one.

  She had reason to resent him right there. And yet their lovemaking had been nothing but explosive. Could love be born into such a mixture? Was it even possible?

  He looked towards the bedroom where she was packing the last of her things as his phone beeped. His driver, letting him know he and the car were only five minutes away.

  He had to talk to her.

  Would she listen?

  Would she want to hear what he had to say?

  But in the end, he thought as he strode towards the bedroom, it didn’t matter.

  Because he had to try.

  * * *

  Her time in Turkey was at an end. Amber packed the last of her things, preparing for her flight home later that evening. It was the bracelet that brought her out in a sweat. Where to pack it? Stashed away in her luggage and risk it being stolen if it wasn’t picked up on X-ray, or in her hand luggage and almost guarantee it would be detected.

  Flying out with it was so much more of a risk than flying in. An X-ray machine was bound to find it. Why hadn’t she just left it at home?

  But then, she’d never had any idea.

  That had been her problem all along. Having no idea had got her into trouble with the coin seller. Having no idea had seen her bring a bracelet that she should have left at home.

  She sat on the bed, turning the bracelet in her hands. The other Amber’s bracelet. The adventurous one’s. Strange to think that, when her own visit had turned out to be nothing but an adventure.

  She slipped the bracelet on her wrist and the jewels glinted in the light, and she smiled, thinking of her courageous ancestor, looking at these same stones, the gift from a sultan...

  ‘Amber, before you go...’

  Kadar’s voice shattered her thoughts, his presence turning them to disarray. Instinctively she swiped her arm behind her back. ‘Almost done.’

  He stopped dead. His eyes narrowed. Troubled eyes that now swirled with suspicion. Her stomach flipped.

  ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘Sure. Just a few last bits and pieces to go. I’ll, er, be with you in a second.’

  His eyes honed in on the arm still held behind her back. She swivelled a little on the bed so she didn’t look as unnatural as she felt, her heart tripping over itself as if in a bid to get away. She wanted to run with it.

  His head tilted, his focus one hundred per cent on the arm that she dared not move, and she cursed herself for the impulse that had made her slip it on. ‘What have you got there?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘No,’ he said, coming closer. ‘There was something. So I’ll give you another chance to tell me. What have you got behind your back?’

  His voice was low and purposeful and threatening and made her thoughts all but curdle. If she’d been frightened before about how to hide her bracelet for the journey home, it was nothing to how she felt now. It would be a miracle if she even made it to the airport with it.

  And then another thought chilled her to the bone.

  It would be a miracle if she made it to the airport, period.

  And because she knew the best form of defence was attack and because she had nothing to lose, and because he was so damned tall, she raised her chin defiantly as she stood and turned away from him, hiding her wrist before her now, and said, ‘It is nothing that concerns you. Nothing you need concern yourself with.’

  He followed her as she moved on shaky knees towards the window. ‘Show me!’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because you will think the worst of me if I do! Because you will jump to conclusions like you always do!’

  He made a sound like a growl, low and threatening behind her, making her knees quiver and her lip tremble. ‘Do I have to pull you around and see for myself?’

  She blinked furiously as tears pricked at her eyes, searching for escape. But before her was a window and behind her was Kadar and there was nowhere to flee. ‘Why can’t you just trust me, for once?’

  ‘How can I, when you hide something from me that you know will make me angry? And why will it make me angry, I wonder? Unless it supports everything I ever thought about you.’

  She looked over her shoulder at him, his face so angry, so contorted with rage, and she didn’t want him to be angry. She didn’t want him to rage. But she knew he would. She knew there could be nothing but rage now.

  And it scared the hell out of her that there was not a thing she could do to prevent it.

  He took a step closer and she gasped at the set of his shoulders and the determination in his features. He looked as if he would tear her limb from limb.

  ‘Okay, I’ll show you,’ she said in a rush as she cringed closer to the window. ‘But before I do, you have to know that this is mine,’ she said, keeping her hand clutched tight over her wrist. ‘You need to know that. It’s mine.’

  His eyes didn’t so much as flicker, his jaw set rock hard as slowly she turned and lifted her hand from her wrist. ‘I brought it here. It’s mine.’

  Her fingers lifted and he saw the glint of colour and gold and the bottom dropped out of his newly constructed world. Because it was the bracelet. The one she’d been unable to drag her eyes from in the display at the Pavilion of the Moon. And every cell in his body turned around and pointed at him and said fool!

  ‘How did you pull this off? How did you manage to steal it?’ he demanded, almost unable to rasp the words out, he was so overcome by his own stupidity. He’d been going to come in here and tell her that he couldn’t bear to live without her. That she should stay. That he loved her. And now—this?

  And grief for the loss of the dream he’d been building in his mi
nd, and anger that he had been so stupid to ever imagine he could love her when he had known all along that she was a thief, all of it combined into one huge tidal wave of fury that rolled over him and turned his vision red.

  ‘I didn’t steal it!’

  He thrust out his hand. ‘Give it to me.’

  ‘No! I told you, the bracelet is mine!’

  She shook her head and pulled her wrist against her chest with her other hand. She was trembling now, her blue eyes wide and filled with fear, as well they might, because she should feel afraid right now.

  ‘It’s the bracelet you were staring at in the case at the Pavilion of the Moon. You saw it and you lusted after it and you stole it.’

  ‘No! It looks the same, I know. But it was Amber’s. My great-great-great-grandmother’s. I told you about her, remember? She disappeared for five years and when I saw the bracelet in the display I was struck with it—of course I was. Because I’d found her. I found where my ancestor had been.’

  And he laughed, if you could call the grating sound he made a laugh. ‘Oh, yes, of course, I remember. You told me about her, after you’d seen the bracelet and decided to steal it, that is. It was a fabrication, so you’d have an excuse all ready in case you were caught.’

  ‘No! It’s the truth. It was her bracelet. I found it with her diary when I was helping clean out my grandmother’s attic.’

  ‘Show me this diary, then, if what you are telling me is true.’

  ‘I don’t have it. I didn’t bring it.’

  ‘And yet you brought the bracelet?’

  ‘The diary is too fragile! It never would have survived the trip.’

  ‘How convenient.’

  ‘It’s the truth! Have them check at the Pavilion of the Moon. Call someone. Get them to check. The bracelet is still there, I swear. The label says there were originally two, made for the Sultan’s favourite. Amber must have been that favourite. She took one home to England with her. She must have left one behind here for whatever reason.’