hold the pain at bay.
“I love you.”
She shook her head, a sob escaping her lips, more tears falling. “No.” It was all she could say.
“Then that is the last time I will torture you with the words. Now get out.”
“Alik…”
“Out.”
Alik watched Jada walk out of the room, and he felt his chest tear in two. It was like everything in him had come to life, new and raw and bleeding. He felt it all now. The loss, so intense, crippling, and with it, the love that beat behind it. Too strong to be wiped out, no matter how cruel the rejection.
This was why he had left himself numb for so long.
Because his life would have been nothing but an endless hell of pain if he hadn’t learned to numb it. But if he had spent his life feeling, then perhaps this moment wouldn’t be quite so devastating. Perhaps he could have built up a security system against it. As it was, there was nothing to prepare him for it. For how it felt to tell a woman he loved her. To have her throw it back at him.
He wanted to hurt her, as he was hurting. He wanted to take Leena from her. Just for one, small, ugly moment, he wanted it. And then he imagined the pain it would put her through and his own doubled.
Love was hell. To want to make her feel his pain, to know that if he did it would hurt him even more.
No wonder he had guarded himself against this. He had been smart.
He wished he could close himself up again. Wished he could go back to life before Jada. Wished he could unlearn intimacy. Wished he had never made love with her.
But if he wished it all away, if he turned back to the man he was, then he would lose his love for Leena, too. And Leena was worth the pain. She was worth any pain.
So strange. He had lived his life for so long, and he had had nothing to live for. So he had flirted with death. With danger. Now he had something that was truly worth dying for. He would lay down his life for Leena without hesitation, but for her sake, for the love of her, he wanted to live now more than he ever had.
He also wanted to cut his heart out of his chest.
It was too damned early in the day to drink. And he had no way to numb his pain. So instead he walked out of the sitting room and back to the patio. Marie was still there talking to Leena.
“Let me take her,” he said.
He picked her up and smelled her hair, and a strange feeling of calm cut through the pain. He had Leena. No matter what, he had Leena.
He didn’t need Jada. He only needed his daughter. And he wouldn’t hurt his daughter by taking her from his wife. The woman who would be his ex-wife soon enough.
After giving Leena back to Marie, he walked outside into the chilly Parisian morning and did his best to ignore the word. Ex-wife. It kept repeating itself in his mind. Over and over again, in time with his footsteps.
He gritted his teeth. It didn’t matter. She didn’t matter. He had made a vow. He would not tell her he loved her again. He would not even think it. Jada had missed her chance with him. She could have her freedom. She could have her safety.
She could cling to the memory of a husband who could no longer hold her.
He would not look back. He would not offer his love again.
He’d sent Jada and Leena back to Attar, while he’d taken a different plane, had gone back to Brussels to check on his earlier deal. The one that had been interrupted by the discovery of his child. And the acquisition of his new wife.
Now he was walking downtown, the streets cold and wet, the clubs inviting. In there was every tool he needed to forget. Women. Alcohol. Especially women.
He jerked open the door to one of the clubs. The music, cigarette smoke and thick smell of sweat and booze hit him hard. It was all so familiar. So much more familiar than this feeling of raw vulnerability in his chest.
Here, there was no pain. No need to be honest. Here, there was oblivion. Shallow and perfect. The strobe lights were blinding, the bass deafening. A hostile takeover of the senses. Everything he could have asked