She ignored it.
Pushing her fingers through her hair she walked through the apartment, checked each room, straightened a pillow on the bed then moved back into the living area where she turned on the electric fireplace and collapsed on the large pillows in front of it.
She felt exhausted.
Fighting with Khalid always left her feeling as though she had just run a marathon. It sapped her energy and made her question her own logic.
At the end of the day, what it came down to was the fact that whether it was logical or not, she was miserable living in that big house, unable to visit friends, unable to feel safe and secure in her own home because Khalid’s father was a crazy bastard.
He’d kidnapped their mother when she was seventeen, forced her to marry him and immediately raped her and forced her to conceive.
She’d been locked in a harem, forced to spend her days with only one pursuit, that of pleasing him.
Her mother had lived in hell while she had been imprisoned in the Mustafa stronghold, and only a stroke of luck had afforded her escape.
Pavlos Galbraithe, her then-fiancé and now Paige’s father, had learned of the meeting between Marilyn and Azir Mustafa while Marilyn was visiting family in Cairo, Egypt. Mustafa, he had been told, had been insistent on meeting Marilyn. He’d been entranced by her flame-red, silky hair and brilliant emerald green eyes.
He’d made her so uncomfortable with his stares and his disapproval each time she spoke that she had excused herself and returned to her room. Only to have her cousin, upset and concerned by Mustafa’s attitude, convince her to come back down because he was becoming so irate.
The next day, Marilyn had disappeared.
But still, Pavlos and his future brother-in-law, Henry Girard, wouldn’t have had a chance of gaining entrance into the fortress or rescuing Marilyn if she hadn’t found her own way out through a secret door in the stronghold’s outer wall. A wall that had surrounded the private gardens of the Mustafa harem.
Paige’s mother had in essence rescued herself and her newborn son, Khalid Mustafa. The baby Azir had forced on her, yet one she had come to adore.
Pavlos and Henry had been outside that wall, searching for the same secret door they had heard existed that led into the harem. They had been there as the stones seemed to part, push forward, and a slim, darkened figure had slipped out.
How her mother had managed to survive her time there, Paige had never understood. She knew Marilyn hated Azir Mustafa with a violence that could erupt into fury if his name was mentioned.
But she loved the son that had been forced on her. Khalid had been her salvation, she claimed. If it hadn’t been for her baby, and the knowledge of what she feared Azir would turn him into, then she wouldn’t have had the strength to keep searching for a way out.
To Pavlos’s credit, he had endured Khalid. Paige was always aware of the fact that there was an underlying tension between her brother and her father, but the truce was one that had always stood.
He’d raised Khalid, looked after him and educated him.
When Khalid had returned to Saudi Arabia after his high school graduation for the agreed-upon stay with his father, Pavlos had been furious. It had been negotiated years before between Marilyn and the Saudi ambassador who had been sent to negotiate what had become an international incident after Mustafa had attempted to kidnap Khalid. But Paige knew her father had arranged with a CIA asset in the area to watch over Khalid and to ensure he came to no harm.
Staring into the electric flames of the fireplace, Paige readily admitted that Khalid was as hard as he was for a reason. That he knew the dangers, understood the monster that never seemed to stop haunting him, and worried constantly that Azir would strike out at his family.
The man was insane.
But Abram wasn’t.
Khalid knew Abram, she understood that, just as she understood Khalid’s fears in regards to her broken heart. God knew, she didn’t want to face that pain unless she simply had no other choice. But the risk was one she was willing to take. She simply didn’t believe Abram was going to lock her into a harem and beat her each time she tried to escape.
Shaking her head at the thought, she got to her feet. She moved back to the bedroom to pack a few things to take back to Khalid’s with her.
She had only a few things of her own there. The way she had been snatched from work and taken to her brother’s home hadn’t given her time to pack.
She liked her own clothes, thank you very much. And the few things Marty and Khalid had collected for her hadn’t been enough, nor had they been her favorites.
It looked as though she would be there for a while, so she pulled out the full set of leather luggage her parents had bought her and packed the things she needed.
Her overnight bag held her shampoos, conditioner, makeup, and fenine items. Several bars of the soap her father kept her supplied with, the scent created especially for her.
Clothes were harder to choose. She had only two large bags and one lingerie bag. She packed those, zipped them closed, then hauled them to the door before walking through the small apartment one more time.
She sighed wearily as she stood at the window, staring out into the darkened park across the street. During the day, it was alive with the sound of children’s laughter. At night, occasionally, she had glimpsed lovers walking hand in hand.