by Lia Lee
She shrugged. She was philosophical about it at this point, but there was certainly a point when she wouldn’t have been.
“They’re really not in the picture anymore,” she said. “They weren’t really… present, I guess you could say. They were more than happy to let me take on Peter. Not that he was a burden!”
She added the last part in a rush because suddenly she realized what it might have sounded like.
“He’s a great person, just one who might need a little more help here and there. I was all he had.”
Raheem didn’t say anything, and for some reason, that made her even more protective.
“It sounds bad, but it wasn’t as if I gave up my life for Peter or anything,” she continued. “We were just very close. He was my brother, and for most of our childhoods, we were all we had. When I came to Khanour for school, he followed me here…”
She froze suddenly, aware of what she had just said. To her relief, however, Raheem didn’t seem to notice. He continued to stroke her back soothingly.
“He sounds devoted to you,” Raheem said, and she nodded in relief.
“He really is. I’m the one he always turns to. He’s stood up for me, protected me when he could.”
“Does he make you feel safe?”
She shrugged.
“Not really? He’s a little dramatic at times, and I’ll be honest, sometimes, he’s a bit troubled.”
“I can see that. When you are the protector, it can be hard to let down your guard.”
She pressed her lips together, unsure of what she should say to that. What he was saying was right, entirely right. However, it felt like a betrayal of her brother to admit it.
“I don’t think I’m explaining correctly,” Irene mumbled, and Raheem chuckled.
“I am an only child, but I have cousins, and I grew up surrounded by a large extended family,” he said. “I understand very well what it is to want to protect someone even when you can’t, and I know how hard it is to lay that burden aside.”
“Do you ever?” she asked, looking at him curiously. “You are a man who seems to live to command, but surely that is not all it is.”
Now it was Raheem’s turn to look surprised. She wondered if anyone had ever asked him that before.
“I enjoy being in control,” he said finally. “I want to make sure that things are done right, and in many cases, that is certainly its own reward. I have all the money that I could ever need, and I have many services that will care for my needs…”
“That’s not what I asked,” she said gently. “What I wanted to know is if you have ever wanted anyone to care for you.”
For a moment, Irene thought that Raheem was simply going to ignore her question. She could understand. The need to be cared for was one of overwhelming vulnerability. She could understand where a man as powerful as Raheem might turn away from it. However, she suspected that a man as powerful as Raheem was exactly the one who might need it.
He opened his mouth, a tentative look on his face, and then his phone chimed. He looked so relieved that Irene giggled a little.
“Saved by the bell,” she teased. “Go ahead and get it, but be aware that I have a very good memory.”
He growled a little, tugging her hair playfully before rising to get the phone. She watched him walk away, startled again by the sheer masculine beauty that he embodied. There was a careless ease and grace to his nudity, as if this was his natural state more than any other. He was no more embarrassed or ashamed of his body than a leopard would be ashamed of its spots.
She sat up in bed, watching him as he took the call. He was speaking too low for her to hear him, but she could tell that there was something urgent in the way he spoke, something tense about the way he stood.
When he hung up the phone, he stood still for a moment, simply staring off into space, and Irene started to get worried.
“Raheem?”
He turned to her and returned to the bed, but there was something distant about him now. From going to a safe and warm place where they had been so close to this was like being doused with cold water. Suddenly, Irene was aware in a way that she hadn’t been before that she was naked. She pulled the blanket up over her breasts.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, her voice breaking.
He seemed reluctant to look at her at first, but when he did, there was a resolve in his eyes that made her bite her lip. What could have happened?
“Irene, what did Peter do in Khanour?”
She felt her heart stop. Her eyes went wide, and she knew that just as it had been throughout their lives, Peter’s proxy guilt was written all over her face.
“Why does it matter?” she asked, her mouth dry.
“When we were talking last night, something about the way that you spoke about Peter caught my attention,” he said. Even as he spoke, there was something reluctant about it.
“Stop,” she said, somehow irrationally certain that what he said next would ruin everything they had built between them. She was aware in the back of her mind that somehow she had become just as afraid of losing what she and Raheem had between them as she was of hurting Peter, but that could wait for another time.
“We… we don’t have to talk about this, do we?” Irene asked, aware of how plaintive she sounded. “Can’t we talk about this later?”
Raheem shook his head. When he reached out to touch her, she pulled back, shaking. She felt suddenly cold, and she wrapped her arms around herself, trying desperately to find some kind of warmth.
“I’m afraid we can’t,” he said. His voice was still gentle, but there was iron in it.
“I asked some of my staff to look into your brother,” he said, “and that was one of them getting back to me. It turns out that in less than twenty-four hours, he has found out a great deal, and a lot of it might be relevant to you and what has happened. He says that your brother had gambling debts in the United States, ones that you were often held liable for. Is that true?”
Irene felt her mouth go dry. She knew that her heart was beating faster, and she couldn’t quite bring herself to look at Raheem. This was what it was like to lose everything. This was what it meant when she had finally betrayed the person who had always trusted her to protect him.
She couldn’t answer Raheem. She could only look at him with large and frightened eyes. He looked sorry beyond words that this was what had to happen between them, but he was resolute. This was something that needed to happen, and he wasn’t willing to stop.
“You cannot go silent on me,” he said quietly. “This is information that I need, but I will find it out sooner or later. This is not something that I can forgive. It will go far better with you if you are willing to simply tell me what I need to know.”
She couldn’t speak. She wouldn’t. Here she was again, but now the difference was that her interrogator was the man who made her feel like no other.
“I want to help you,” he said, and there was a slight tremor to his voice. “Damn you, Irene, why won’t you let me help you?”
She couldn’t take it any longer. She stood up, heedless of her nudity. When she tried to walk away, she found that her wrist was clamped in a grip that was as solid as steel.
“Don’t walk away from me,” he said with an edge to his voice.
She felt as if her legs had been cut out from under her. With a soft hopeless sound, she dropped onto the bed like an obedient puppet. For a moment, it looked like Raheem was going to continue, but then he took a closer look at her, sorrow entering his gaze.
“You’re terrified, aren’t you?” Though the words could have been aggressive, even threatening, there was regret there, a compassion she had never seen in him before. She knew better than to let herself hope, however. She knew that he was relentless when it came to this matter. For his country, Raheem could be nothing less. At the end of the day, she was his enemy, and somehow, they had both forgotten it.
She nodded, lowering her eyes. Silence was her best refuge. I
t was her brother’s best chance for survival. The men who had captured him were heartless, terrifyingly powerful and subversive. She had lost her head, and now he was in more danger than ever. She should never have spoken up. She should never have slept with a man who could never understand the fact that she had to protect the only family that she had left.
Irene couldn’t stop her tears from spilling over. She tried to hide her face, but Raheem cupped her chin in his hand, making her look up.
“Sweetheart… please…”
Finally, he shook his head.
“Lie down, then. There is nothing more to be said about this tonight. Rest.”
She didn’t want to lie down and sleep. She knew that if she was going to be wise about this, she should have refused. She should have gone to sleep on the couch, or even slept in the oasis forest if she had to. Instead, all Irene could think about was how good Raheem felt, how much she wanted to be close with him.
Irene took a deep breath. She couldn’t think of what tomorrow would bring. Instead, she allowed Raheem to lay her down on the bed next to him. For perhaps just a little longer, she could pretend that everything was fine.
***
Raheem stayed awake long after Irene fell asleep. Every time she stirred, every time she whimpered in her sleep, he felt his heart wrench. After listening to her talk for even a short while, he could sense how lonely her childhood had been, how often she had had to take over the role of a parent. Everyone deserved more than that, and someone as sweet and kind as Irene doubly so.
For what felt like the hundredth time, he wondered if there was any way he could let her go. If there were any exceptions that he could make, any excuse he could find. No matter how many times he had turned it over, he could find no way out.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, touching her hair gently. Raheem wished he could say it while she was awake, but he knew that it would not help anything. After the passionate night they had spent together, it felt as if they had crossed some kind of river. There was no going back to the comfort that they had shared earlier. They could only move forward.
Raheem only prayed that if they moved forward, they would move forward together. Even after being together for such a short amount of time, he knew that Irene gave him something that he needed, something he had never felt before.
“Please, please talk to me,” he murmured, but she only murmured in her sleep, pressing closer to him. He wondered why she slept so trustingly next to him, but why she couldn’t seem to trust him in the strong light of day.
Raheem rolled over to stare up at the ceiling, and when he moved, she followed him, pressing her face into his chest. There was already something so familiar about it that he couldn’t stand to think of a time when she might be gone.
As he began his sleepless vigil, he knew that he couldn’t be the one to break. Not if he still wanted to be the man his country needed him to be. He only hoped that Irene could see that.
That she would see that what they had together was far too special to be lost.
CHAPTER SIX
Irene knew that she had gone wrong when she started to speak. She had thought that when she was out of prison that she could simply move forward with her life, be who she truly was with Raheem. Now she knew that that had been her biggest mistake, and she fixed it in the only way she knew how.
When she rose the next morning, she lapsed back into the silence that had been her fortress and her prison for the last few weeks. When Raheem greeted her, she nodded, and when he asked her what was wrong, she only gave him a sad smile. If she were silent, she could give nothing away. It was her brother’s only hope after what she had revealed. It was bad enough that they knew that he was in Khanour. The more they knew about him, the greater the danger to him.
Raheem put up with her silence for most of the day. He was silent as well, except when he went into another room to speak with the men he had on her brother’s trail. When he did this, she tensed up as if every muscle in her body had turned to concrete. There was simply nothing she could do, and she felt that helplessness keenly.
Finally, in the evening, Raheem came to her. She was sitting on the couch, looking out over the beauty of the oasis. When he sat next to her, she didn’t move away. Though Irene knew that she should keep her distance, there was still something about him that drew her like the point of a compass to true north. When Raheem reached out to touch her face gently, she leaned into him.
“That was my man in the city,” he said quietly. “Your brother had disappeared. We can trace his whereabouts to a few months ago. We know that he has likely not left Khanour, unless he is far slyer than you have led me to believe, but my men cannot find him.”
She was torn. On one hand, if they couldn’t find her brother, then they couldn’t arrest him. However, if they couldn’t find him, that meant that it was more than likely that the smugglers had not let him go.
Peter, please… I’m so sorry…
Raheem took a deep breath.
“You must tell us where your brother is. Unless you do, there are criminals that are moving about untracked and willfully breaking the law. These men are robbing my country of the things that are ours by right, and that I will not have.”
She looked down. He was right. There was no answer she could make to it at all. There was no defense she could make for the men she had worked for, and she knew that it was only through the grace of Raheem’s will that she had not been convicted and sent to prison.
“Has it occurred to you that these men are dangerous?” Raheem asked. “They are brutal, and if they would not hesitate to use a girl like you, there is no telling what they will do to a boy like him. All your life, you have been there to look after Peter. What do you think he is doing out there now?”
Her eyes flew up to meet his, her mouth open in an O of pain. He had sought for her weakest point and now he found it. All of Irene’s worst fears about her brother, that he was suffering, injured, or even dead, appeared in her mind, and there was nothing that she could do to send them away, to make them go.
Her eyes filled with tears, but this time, Raheem did not hesitate.
“You love your brother. You love him beyond what your parents have offered to either of you, and you cannot turn away from him. I understand this. But Irene, listen to me. This is not a time when you can protect him with your silence. This is not merely taking the blame for being out on the ice or anything else you might have done as a child.
“Your brother’s life is at stake, and the men who hold his life in their hands, they are cruel and they are inventive. Do you know what they will do to him if he runs afoul of them?”
Irene moaned low in her throat, clapping her hands over her ears. She did know. They had told her. They had told her in painful and excruciating detail what they were going to do to her brother if she did not do exactly what they said.
Ruthlessly, Raheem pulled her hands from her ears. When she looked up at him pleadingly, there was pain in his eyes, but he did not stop.
“It is within your power to take these men down,” he said. “It is within you to help us remove Peter from this situation.”
“Can you grant him amnesty?”
Raheem looked at her as if startled that she had spoken at last. Her voice was low and rusty, as if it was an instrument that had ground to a halt from lack of use. Now it was his turn to pull away, and she wrapped her fingers around his.
“Can you?” she demanded. “Can he be forgiven for what he might have done?”
She could see in Raheem’s eyes the urge to lie to her. He wanted to tell her what she wanted to hear, and the worst part was that it wasn’t even to get what he wanted. He wanted to lie to her simply to comfort her.
“I don’t know,” he said at last. “I cannot say yes or no to that without getting the whole picture, without seeing what your brother has done. What has he done, Irene?”
And with that, Irene knew that she had to stay silent. She had no idea what her brother
had done, none at all. She couldn’t take the chance that the courts would find him guilty. Her time in prison had been blessedly brief, but she could still remember vividly the sight of the camel skin whip, the casual brutality of the guards.
She looked into Raheem’s dark eyes, and even as her heart was crying out, she shook her head. She pulled her hand from his, and she turned away.
He was speaking again, but this time, she forced herself not to hear him. She had to be strong. She had to get through this week. She knew that Raheem was a man of his word. He would let her go, and then she would never see him again.
The very thought of being pulled away from this man tore at her. With dull surprise, she realized that the feelings she had for him, tumultuous and dark, had somehow turned into something real and warm. She had known that he was different from any other man she had met before. What Irene hadn’t known was that she was falling in love with him.
***
Irene had to give Raheem credit. He tried every way he could to convince her to speak with him. He shouted at her, he cajoled her, he tried to explain how much better it would be if she simply spoke. Sometimes, Raheem talked himself hoarse and they lapsed into silence together.
During those silent moments, it was almost the way it had been before his revelation. She could sit with him, leaned against his body and looking out over the oasis. He would always start again, however. He would tell her that Peter needed her help, that she had it in her power to save him, but she refused to believe him. He had told her the truth before. He couldn’t guarantee her brother his safety, and beyond that, there was nothing else for them to say.
Sometimes, it felt as if Raheem wanted to forget the whole thing. He teased her for one word, any word, it didn’t matter. His blandishments made her smile, but she did not allow herself the luxury of even a single word. Her first mistake had revealed her brother’s name to this dangerous man. She couldn’t allow a second mistake.
Despite her silence, he still wanted to be with her. They could sit together, he prepared them delicious meals, and several times, he offered her a towel and they went together to the oasis. In the cool pure water, she swam naked as she had never done before. She was shy at first, but to Raheem, nudity seemed to be his default state, a place that required no embarrassment or pause. He patiently sleeked the sunblock on her body, and then he embraced her in the water, their limbs twining together as they kissed hungrily. Just when she could feel his arousal, and just as her own was growing more powerful, he would pull away. For a while, Irene wondered if it was because he didn’t want to sully himself with someone like her. Then she realized that he found it painful as well. Perhaps he did not love her the way that she foolishly loved him, but this hurt him as well.