“Step back a little.”
“Are you leaving?”
“Not forever, but I need some room to breathe without him, to be sure this is where I belong. To see if he’s truly my home. Up until now, Kamal has showed me why Ishouldstay. I want to find reasons towantto stay.”
A Week Later
As my mother-in-law predicted, my child is well. I didn’t have a miscarriage, thank God!
I’m going back to Boston today. Not forever, as I told Amapola, but because I need some breathing room for a while.
Since I got back from the hospital, Kamal and I have been sleeping in separate bedrooms and seeing each other less. He is giving me space, and although it’s painful, because I can’t seem to hold back the love I feel for him, it is necessary, because I know that if I allow him to touch me, I won’t be able to stay away.
He hasn’t said anything about the wedding. A voice inside me wonders whether he is thinking of backing out because he has realized we have little in common.
Despite what he said at the hospital when I was admitted, that he’d make his plane available for me to go to Boston, he hasn’t mentioned anything about traveling with me. I suspect he might have talked to Amapola and she told him to give me space.
Two knocks on the door make my heart race. It’s time to go.
“Come in.”
But it’s not the maid or one of the security guards. It’s my Sheikh standing at the entrance of the room.
We look at each other in silence for a long time, and I feel my heart ache, but I can’t turn back now.
“The car is waiting for you,” he says.
I nod.
“Are you leaving me forever?”
The question squeezes my heart, and I can’t imagine how difficult it must be for him to ask it. It would be hard for me too, and I don’t even have that much pride.
“No. As I said, I want to stay with Zoe until she delivers the babies. Maybe a couple of weeks more. She’ll have her work cut out for her with twins.”
“Christos will surely provide an army of nannies and nurses for her,” he says, making it clear he doesn’t believe my excuse.
“Don’t ask me to stay, or I won’t have the strength to go.”
I see his jaw tighten, and a great emotion crosses his eyes, almost making me falter. “I won’t ask. You’re not a prisoner, Madeline. You’re an adult woman. You can make your own choices.”
Can I? Or am I making the biggest mistake of my life?
Instead of voicing my doubts, I nod.
He looks at me, but his face is now unreadable. “I’ll take you to the car.”
“Aren’t you coming with me to the airport?”
“I have work to do, and also . . .”
“What?”
“I don’t like goodbyes. Or maybe I’ve come to hate them at this very moment.”
I feel like crying, but I stay strong.
I memorize his face for when I miss him. The gray eyes I love so much, the stubble that scratches me when it grazes my neck and breasts, that sexy mouth.
