Captive of Kadar

by Trish Morey

  But how could she tell them Cameron hadn’t figured in her thoughts since she’d met a dark-eyed god who’d rocked her world, even if only for a while? Until, that was, she’d been spat out like a pit from a date.

  How could she explain that her grief was caused by something else entirely? Something else a whole lot worse.

  Because in a few short days and nights, and against her own better judgement, she’d fallen in love with Kadar.

  Crazier still, he’d even imagined that he’d felt something for her.

  Only to have been rejected, coldly and absolutely, and ejected from his life and his country like a common criminal.

  She should hate him for that. She should hate him for not believing her and for taking her precious bracelet from her. Precious because of its history and what it had meant to her great-great-great-grandmother.

  And she did hate him. She hadn’t stopped hating him since she’d been practically frogmarched onto her plane home and summarily dismissed from his life.

  But somehow it wasn’t the anger or hatred that stayed uppermost in her mind where she wanted it. It was grief for something lost.

  For something fragile that had been found in the heat of their torrid nights.

  Something that had been both scary and precious.

  At least that was how it had felt to her.

  She skimmed through the Accommodation Vacant column and drew a circle around a likely looking flat just as the doorbell rang.

  She rolled her eyes and put her pen down. Her parents were both at work and her brother had headed down to the beach with his mates, and if this was another kindly neighbour coming to see how she was, she’d go mad. The sooner she could find her own flat, the better.

  She lashed her robe more tightly around her as she headed for the door. At least she had an excuse to say this was a bad time and not to invite whoever it was in for coffee.

  She opened the door no more than a scant few inches and peeked around the edge, only to have her world judder to a halt.

  No way!

  She blinked, thinking she must have imagined him, conjured the vision up from her recent thoughts, but when she opened her eyes he was still there, and her world was still reeling from its sudden stop, her stomach flip-flopping with it, desperately seeking a new balance. And the dark eyes watching her looked so troubled and anguished that all she could think was that he had come for her...

  ‘How did you find me?’ Her heart was hammering in her chest. He’d thrown her address away when she’d tried to give it to him.

  ‘I was at the polis station, remember, when you were interviewed.’

  ‘And you remembered?’

  His dark eyes gave nothing away, but for the first time she noticed the lines around them. Jet lag? Or something else?

  ‘Can I come in?’

  She kept the door precisely where it was and clutched her wrap more tightly at the neck, wishing she’d finished getting dressed before being distracted by flat hunting. Wishing she’d dried her hair. Wishing she could have flung the door open looking confident and happy rather than like this cowering half-baked mess of woman. And that thought alone was enough to give her some backbone. Because this was her patch. She had nothing to cower from here. ‘Why? What do you want?’ And almost immediately it struck her that her momentary flight of fancy was nothing but a case of wishful thinking, and there could be no other reason he could be back. ‘Did you bring me back my bracelet?’

  A muscle in his jaw popped. ‘Yes.’

  Realistically, it was the most she could have wished for and more than she’d expected as the days had gone by. Still, somehow, it didn’t seem anywhere near enough. ‘So what took you so long?’ She didn’t care that she sounded grumpy. He would have realised he’d made a huge error the first moment he’d checked with the staff at the Pavilion of the Moon.

  ‘Can we talk about this inside?’

  She looked at him standing on her doorstep, tall and imposing and more starkly handsome even than she dreamed about at night in her narrow single bed. Gone were the cashmere coat and the long-sleeved silky knits that hugged his form. He was dressed for summer here, in a short-sleeved polo that skimmed his chest and flat abs, and cool chinos. With dark hair pushed back and with just a shadow of stubble on his chin, he looked cool and urbane, the flash black car with driver waiting for him in the driveway a dead giveaway that this man did not belong in this world. She could imagine curtains up and down the street twitching, and figured letting him inside was the lesser of two evils. After all, he was bringing her back her bracelet.

  She pulled the door open and let him pass, felt her skin prickle with his nearness, and almost instantly regretted letting him inside. The door between them had felt solid and real whereas now there was just the quivering air and nothing to hold on to but her own trembling arms.

  For the little lounge room, perfectly adequate in size to hold her parents and her brother, suddenly seemed too small, the ceiling too low, the space shrunken around him.

  She watched him uneasily from behind as he surveyed the contents of the room, his gaze taking in the photographs and tiny crystal animals her mum collected lined up on the mantelpiece over the gas heater. Photos of her and her brother in their school uniforms from way back when. A photo of the family on the beach together one Christmas holiday long ago and her parents’ wedding picture. Plus a photo of Amber at her graduation a couple of years back wearing her robe and black mortar board, proudly displaying her new degree, her wrist proudly wearing her ancestor’s bracelet. Between them all was scattered a veritable zoo of crystal animals that sparkled as they caught the light.

  All of it so normal to her. So humble. And it occurred to her that their worlds were so far apart, he must be wondering what he’d struck.

  She swallowed as he picked up the photo of her smiling so brightly in her graduation robe, the bracelet that had been the subject of so much emotion and misunderstanding, and the silence in the room stretched to breaking point.

  ‘So—my bracelet?’

  He stilled and put the photo down, running his hand through his hair as he turned, his eyes looking almost tortured as he retrieved a satin pouch from his pocket and withdrew her bracelet. He’d had it polished, she realised as she took it, the gold and the stones gleaming as if it were new.

  Hello, old friend, she thought as her fingers curled around it, because she’d imagined it lost for all time. ‘So you checked with the Pavilion of the Moon, then?’

  Why was she so calm? Why didn’t she yell at him, scream at him, demand the apology she so richly deserved? The bracelet clearly meant the world to her. He’d known that even before he’d seen her graduation picture. So why didn’t she rail against his injustice?

  As it was, it was all he could do not to drag her into his arms where he wanted her to be. With her tousled hair and in a silken knee-length robe that slipped apart at the neck to reveal a hint of lace beneath, she looked as if she was ready to tumble into bed, and how he longed to. But there were smudges too, under her eyes, he’d put those smudges there, and he had no right to tumble her anywhere after what he had done. No right at all.

  ‘I did check,’ he said, ‘but not before I already knew the truth.’

  ‘How?’ She clutched the bracelet to her chest, as she had that day in Istanbul when he’d caught her with it and she’d told him it was hers and pleaded with him to believe her, and that picture of him and the knowledge that he’d done that to her wrenched his gut Now he could see what it meant to her and what it must have cost her when he’d ripped it away, and he felt even more of a bastard than he had before.

  And he wished he could have said that he’d never really believed she could have stolen it—that the moment she’d gone he’d realised what a fool he’d been. But that wasn’t how it had happened at all, and he hated himself for
it.

  ‘Mehmet,’ he said. ‘Who told me a story of a young woman who had been found lost and alone and who had become the Sultan’s favourite right there in the Pavilion of the Moon.’

  ‘I knew it,’ she whispered, clutching the bracelet tighter. ‘I knew it. I felt her there.’

  ‘She’d been abandoned,’ he told her, ‘with no sign of her tour guides or her party. But the Sultan took her in to ensure she was cared for, and in the end they became lovers.

  ‘And this,’ Kadar said, handing her the cameo, ‘is what proves it beyond doubt.’

  She took it warily, questions swirling in her blue eyes, blue eyes that suddenly widened. ‘Oh, my God!’

  She had to sit down before she fell down. ‘It could be me.’

  ‘I know.’ Kadar related the story as Mehmet had told him, of her life with the Sultan, of the reason she had been sent home to England, and of the tiny child, the daughter who hadn’t survived. He told her how the earlier Amber had asked for one of the bracelets to remain and how she’d gifted Mehmet’s father the cameo in thanks.

  He told her that she had been known as Kehribar, the Turkish word for Amber.

  Through it all, Amber sat there, amazed and bewildered and overwhelmed. She’d gone to Turkey in search of finding some trace of her great-great-great-grandmother’s trail, a taste of her adventure, and she’d found more than she’d ever imagined possible. She’d found a hint—the strongest possible hint—that her ancestor had been the Sultan’s favourite.

  And now she had the proof.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, tears filming her eyes, ‘for bringing these.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Amber, don’t thank me. I was the one who took the bracelet from you in the first place. I called you a thief. I accused you of stealing it. I said horrible things to you that day.’

  ‘Yes, you did,’ she said, and he flinched, even though he knew it to be true. ‘And I knew you’d find out the truth sooner or later. I just didn’t know whether I’d be allowed to have it anyway, given its history and its age. I was beginning to think I’d never see it again.’

  ‘I should never have taken it from you.’

  ‘No.’ She looked up at him, and raised herself to her feet. ‘You shouldn’t have. But I’m beyond happy to have it back. And now I have this too—’ she held out the palm cradling the cameo ‘—and I feel like the mystery of where my great-great-great-grandmother disappeared to has finally been solved. Now I have more than an inkling of where she was and what she did. Now she is more real to me than ever. And yes, for that I thank you.’

  He shook his head. ‘Amber, I owe you an apology.’

  She cut him off with a nod and a sweep of her hand. She’d been holding herself together, trying not to think about the way he’d treated her that last day. Trying not to think about how he’d made love to her all the days and nights before that. But she had her bracelet back and the bonus of the cameo besides. And now Kadar had done what he’d come here to do and the longer he stayed, the more painful it was, probably for them both. She didn’t want to hear an explanation—she knew she’d given him cause to doubt her motives that very first day outside the Spice Market—and she suspected he really didn’t want to have to give it. The best thing she could do was send him on his way. She gave a tight smile. ‘Apology received and accepted. I’ll show you to the door.’

  She was already there and holding it open before he’d even moved a muscle.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ he said.

  And when she’d raised an eyebrow in question.

  ‘Not before I tell you why I’m really here.’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  SENSATION SIZZLED THROUGH HER.

  ‘You’ve brought my bracelet back. I’ve accepted your apology. What else is there?’

  ‘I have a confession. I was wrong about you.’

  She shook her head and gestured towards the door. ‘What part of “apology accepted” don’t you understand? Please, Kadar, I don’t want to listen to the whys and wherefores. I know why it happened and how. You had reason to doubt me from day one and you caught me what looked like red-handed. End of story.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t have to be.’

  She swallowed and looked longingly towards his car. If he walked past her now Kadar would be gone in a few short seconds and she’d be free. Whatever it was he had to say, she didn’t think she could bear it if it wasn’t that.

  She didn’t know if she could bear it if it was. Her chest was tight and her palm slipped on the doorknob she still held in her hand.

  ‘I don’t know if I want to hear it.’

  ‘Please. Hear me out,’ he said, sounding like a man who’d reached the end of his tether and had nowhere else to go. ‘And then I’ll go if you want. But at least hear what I have to say.’

  He was pleading with her, this man who had come into her life ordering her around. And for the first time, Amber caught a glimpse of the child behind the man, a child who’d lost everything and suffered too much and had to grow up too fast. A child who had become a man who’d learned to shun people and relationships because he’d already lost more than one person could bear.

  And he was here.

  What did that mean? Her heart was tripping in her chest. She was almost afraid to breathe. ‘Tell me,’ she whispered.

  He moved then. Finally. Moved towards her at the door until for a second she thought he’d changed his mind and decided to leave after all. But he stopped in front of her and took her hand, holding it almost reverently between his. ‘You once said I had nothing to fear from you and I agreed,’ he said. He looked into her eyes and she could see that he was as tightly wound as she felt. She could feel the tension in his long-fingered hands. ‘I was wrong. I had everything to fear from you.

  ‘Your smile, your eyes...’ He lifted a hand to her face and ran his finger down the side of her cheek, a touch so featherlight—so missed—that she couldn’t help but sigh as she leaned into it.

  ‘From that first day in the Spice Market, I was doomed. And I tried to fight it—to fight you. I tried to keep you at a distance, to tell myself it was all duty. But I couldn’t and it wasn’t.

  ‘And when you left—and when I found out what I’d done to you—it nearly broke me in two.’

  She shook her head. ‘And how do you think I felt? You called me a thief! You accused me of stealing my own bracelet!’ Her voice was choking. She could not afford to forget about what he’d done to her, no matter how much her heart leaned towards his words as her face had leaned into his hand.

  He dropped his head. ‘I know.’

  ‘So you don’t have to say nice things now to try to make me feel better.’

  He looked up. ‘Is that what you think?’

  ‘I don’t know what to think, Kadar. You accuse me of being a thief and you take my bracelet and send me away like I’m a criminal, and then you turn up here and admit you were wrong and suddenly everything’s supposed to be okay? No, everything’s not okay.’

  He swore under his breath. ‘I am sorry, I am no good at this. What I am trying to say, Amber... What I came to tell you... I love you.’

  She squeezed her eyes and her mind shut, refusing to give the tiny flutter in her heart oxygen. The words she’d most wanted to hear—once—before the door had been slammed shut in her face. ‘You say that now.’

  He dragged in a breath as he spun around and punched the air with his fist, before turning back to her. ‘Do you have any idea what this was like for me? I wanted to say it before. The day you were leaving. I didn’t want you to go. I wanted you to stay. I thought there might be a chance of us having a future together. I’d never done this before. I’d never thought it possible that I could love anyone. But you weren’t like any other woman I’d ever met. You made me think the impossi
ble was possible.’

  She didn’t move. She couldn’t. It was all she could do to blink. And hope.

  ‘Don’t you understand? I had lost my family. I had defied my father and I had lived where they had died. I didn’t deserve family. And then you came along, and made me wish for things that I had lost all hope of having.’

  He sighed, and hung his head, shaking it slowly before he looked up, and the sorrow and regret in his eyes was almost too much for her to bear. ‘I was about to tell you that. I was about to say the one thing I’d never been able to say to anyone in my life.

  ‘And then I walked into that bedroom and saw you with the bracelet and that part of me that had fought getting close to you all along had found a reason why it could never work. I was furious with you, I know, but I was just even more furious with myself for falling for you.

  ‘But when I discovered the truth and knew that I had lost you...’ His voice trailed off, his dark, grief-filled eyes pleading with her as he took her hand, intertwining his fingers with hers. ‘I know you have every right to tell me to get the hell out of that door and never come back. But I want to make it up to you. I want to make up for every wrong I committed against you, every day we’re together, and every night.’

  She blinked, her heart stalling for a long beat.

  Follow your heart.

  The words of Amber Braithwaite’s faded inscription came back to her. And her mind might be telling her that she was crazy to consider ever forgiving this man for what he had done, but her heart was telling her that she would be a fool to let the man she loved walk away.

  ‘What are you saying?’ she whispered, keeping her voice even, afraid to show emotion in case she was wrong. ‘Is the man who said he would never marry asking me to marry him?’

  He slowly shook his head. ‘I knew I had no right to ask. I knew it would be impossible for you to love me after all that has happened.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said softly.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said on a sigh, sounding defeated. ‘I have wasted your time, but I had to ask.’