LITMIR.BIZ

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then he said tightly, ‘I don’t think you really want to know why.’

      Sudden anger flared that he should shut her out like this. She sensed that this was at the very core of who he was. ‘Don’t patronise me, Salman. I’m sure there’s nothing you could tell me that would unduly shock me.’

      That bleakness flashed across his face again before it was masked. He smiled grimly. ‘Nevertheless, it’s not something I want to discuss right now.’

      Without even really thinking about what she was saying Jamilah asked, ‘When will it be the right time, Salman?’

      His mouth tightened. ‘For you? Never. I would never do that to you.’

      ‘You already did, Salman.’

      She knew they were talking about two different things now, and yet it was all inextricably bound up together—Salman’s dark secrets and the way he’d treated her, the way he still didn’t trust her enough to reveal himself. And never would.

      A sense of futility made her turn as if to go, but to her shock and surprise Salman grabbed her wrist and said tightly, ‘Are you sure you really want to know, Jamilah?’

      She faced him slowly and could see the intense glitter of his eyes, the way a muscle pulsed in his jaw. The moment was huge, and she knew that much of their history and this present madness was bound up in it.

      Slowly, as if she might scare him off, she nodded her head. ‘Yes, I want to know, Salman.’

      Salman looked into Jamilah’s huge blue eyes. He had the most bizarre sensation of drowning while at the same time clinging onto a life-raft. He couldn’t believe he’d stopped her from leaving—couldn’t believe he’d just said what he had. Did he really think he was about to divulge to her what no one else knew? His deepest, darkest shame? And yet in that instant he knew an overwhelming need to unburden himself here, with her. It could never have been with anyone else. He saw that now, as clear as day.

      That little boy had had a more profound effect on him than he’d expected. He’d acted completely on instinct to go and comfort him, and when he’d seen what he could do to make him feel better he’d done it. It had only been afterwards, walking away, when the full impact of taking that shot had hit him.

      His past had rushed upwards to slap him in the face far harder than Jamilah ever could. For a few moments in that fairground with Jamilah he’d been seduced by her all over again. Seduced into a lighter way of being. Seduced into thinking that he didn’t carry around an awful legacy and a dark secret which pervaded his being like a poison.

      The bravery he’d witnessed from others mocked him now—was he afraid to do this? For the first time he knew he wasn’t. What he was afraid of, right here and now, was how Jamilah would react to what he was about to tell her … for if anything could drive her away for good this could. Perhaps this was the sum total of his actions—to be brought to his knees by her only to watch her walk away for good.

      Jamilah watched as Salman clearly struggled with something, but then his face became expressionless. The light spilling in from the sitting room illuminated its stark lines and he’d never looked so bleak. He dropped her wrist, and it tingled where he had held it. He walked over to a chair in the corner and sat down heavily, and Jamilah, not taking her eyes off him, perched on the end of the bed. Her throat had gone dry.

      His head was downbent, and then he lifted it, that black gaze spearing her. ‘What I said to you that day in Paris … about how there had never been anything between us, about you following me around like a puppy dog … it was a lie.’

      For a second a buzzing sounded in Jamilah’s ears. She thought she might faint. As much as she wanted to deny that she remembered his cruel words, she said instead, ‘Why? Why did you say it?’ Relief was a giddy surge through her body.

      ‘I said it because you’d told me you loved me, and I knew that if I didn’t make you hate me you might not stay away. You might hope you could change me.’

      He smiled then, and it was grim. ‘But then, as you’ve said yourself, what you felt was merely a crush, so perhaps I needn’t have been so cruel.’

      Jamilah would have laughed if she’d had the wherewithal at this understatement of the year. She hoped the pain she felt wasn’t evident in her voice. ‘You wanted me gone that badly?’

      ‘Yes. Because I couldn’t take the responsibility of your love. Because I couldn’t return it. Because I can’t.’ He was warning her even now not to expect too much.

      Suddenly Jamilah wanted them off this topic. ‘Tell me what you’re going to tell me, Salman.’

      As bleak as she’d ever seen him, he said now, his eyes intent on her, ‘I know that I have to tell you. I owe you that much now.’

      Jamilah nodded, and wondered why on earth she felt an awful foreboding.

      Salman looked down at his hands for a long moment, and then began to speak in an emotionless voice—as if to try and distance himself from what he said. ‘The week after my eighth birthday Merkazad was invaded. We’d had no warning. We had no reason to believe that we were in any danger. But unbeknownst to us the Sultan of Al-Omar had long wanted to reclaim Merkazad as part of his country. He resented our independence.’

      Jamilah knew all this—and about how the current Sultan’s father had been the one to launch an invasion with his most ruthless men. She nodded, even though Salman wasn’t looking at her.

      ‘We were sent to the dungeons while they ransacked and looted all around the castle. It took time for the rest of their men to arrive, thanks to our belated Bedouin defence kicking in, which held them off, but we were effectively trapped in the castle with the soldiers and any kind of rules of war went out of the window. These were men hardened by their experiences—the elite soldiers of the army.’

      He looked up and smiled at Jamilah, but it was so cold that she shivered.

      ‘They got bored. And so they wanted to amuse themselves. They decided to take me on as a pet project of sorts. To see how long it would take to turn a pampered son of the Sheikh into something else … something more malleable.’

      A slow trickling of horror started to snake through Jamilah. She went very still.

      ‘Every day they would come … and take me out of the gaol they’d made out of our old dungeon. At first I bragged to Nadim. I told him that it was because they favoured me. He’d always been the strong one, the one everyone looked up to, and now I was the one being singled out. I couldn’t understand my mother and father’s terror, and if they spoke up too much they were beaten. For the first few days they let me be the cocky little spoilt boy I was—precocious and undoubtedly annoying. We played games … football. They fed me well, made sure I had enough to drink.’

      Salman’s mouth thinned, his jaw clenched.

      ‘And then it started. The breaking down. The food and drinks were denied me. They started beating me with fists and feet, belts and whips, for the smallest thing. I was bewildered at first. I’d thought they’d been my friends and suddenly they weren’t. When I was brought back to the gaol in the evenings I wasn’t so cocky. I was confused. How could I explain to Nadim what was going on? I couldn’t understand it myself. And yet I couldn’t ask for his help. I was too proud, even then. But he suspected what they were doing, and he begged them to take him instead. They ignored him and took me. And they told me that if I didn’t go with them every day they would kill Nadim and my parents.’

      Jamilah already had a lump in her throat. She wanted to ask Salman to stop, but knew she couldn’t. If there was ever to be any hope of closure between them then she had to endure this.

      Salman shook his head as if to dislodge a memory. ‘The days morphed into one long day … There’s a lot I don’t remember, but eventually the beatings stopped. By then I was no longer confident, cocky or spoilt. They’d broken me. I had become their tea boy—their servant. They made me polish

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