Chapter Sixty-Nine
What a difference a day can make...
Tonight I can’t sleep. Restless limbs pull me from the bed to sit curled in an armchair by the window where I’ve opened the blinds. Across the darkened room, Kai lies in an enviable sleep, the sheet pulled across his waist and tangled between his legs, now slack with slumber. One slender bare foot pokes free from the twisted bedding.
It’s strange how sleep can strip the intent from a person. Moonlight kisses. Mouth softly pouting. The carelessness of just being, of just lying there. But it’s subterfuge, really. A sleeping ruse, because beneath the sheet lies a man capable of calculations. A man with a will of steel. A man so confident in his decisions, he thinks nothing of riding roughshod over whatever stands in his way. Lying there, draped in no more than those fine, pale wrappings, he looks so innocent. When in reality, asleep or not, the man is ruthless.
I bet even in his dreams he wins.
Yesterday evening seems a lifetime away. Yesterday evening was all about mutuality; coming together, being together, and for a short while, I thought today would be the same.
It doesn’t feel so right now.
I glance down, realising I’m creasing the papers in my hand. Not that it matters, they’ve already been screwed up into a ball. Right before I’d chucked them at him, my fit of temper ignited like a match by his superior calm.
Pressing the papers between my thigh and palm, I attempt to smooth their rumpled state.
Contract. Nikhar. Mahr.
The words jump from the top page, the knot in my stomach tightening and a wash of anger prickling against my skin. It’s too dark to read with any great success, not that I need to at this hour. Besides, I already know what the papers contain.
‘How could you?’I’d yelled just a few hours ago, overcome with a sense of fury that burned me outside and in.
‘You’ve read it,’ he’d answered, his tone indifferent. ‘Was there anything contained not to your advantage? Anything really to complain about?’
Millions of things, it turned out.
‘It’s normal that the bride take no part in the wedding contract. She doesn’t even have to be presentatthe wedding. That,habibti,is what awaliis for; torepresent.’
‘How could you expect me to place my future in the hands of someone I don’t know?’
‘And we’re back to the heart of the matter,’ he’d replied in a steely tone. ‘Your lack of trust.’
Things spiralled from there; his assertion that the papers had been drawn to my advantage offered me no comfort at all. He’d coldly reminded me, that as a lawyer he’d managed the contract on my behalf, then had it signed by another lawyer, who’d agreed that he’d played me fair.
When I’d yelled his was a conflict of interest, he’d just laughed in the haughtiest vein.
‘You do realise,’ he’d said, ‘your high horse has no legs.’
So I’d sworn at him again. Lots.
I level my gaze on Kai’s sleeping form, distaste twisting my expression. I begrudge him his careless slumber. How can he sleep when I stare at him so hard? How hasn’t he burst into flames?
Neither of us was prepared to back down at that point when, though too late to claim discretion as the better part of valour, Kai said he was going to bed. He’d offered to take a bed in another room, and I swear I felt a tiny tear in my heart. Injecting my voice with some of his calm indifference, I’d replied that it wouldn’t be necessary. That though I hated what he’d done, I didn’t hate him. After all, hadn’t I married him this very afternoon?
His body had seemed to relax at that, and we’d retired to opposite sides of the bed, a wall of anger and hurt creating a no-man’s land of the mattress in between.
‘Go to hell.’
It was the last thing I’d said. He’d switched off the lamp, making as though to reach out to touch me, his progress freezing, his arm suspended in mid-air. I couldn’t really see him with any clarity, though there was sufficient light for me to notice his shoulders drawing tight, his spine stiffening. I’d thought for a moment he might grab me—coldness turning to fury, arguing turning to sex. I’d thought it, just for a moment, my heart misfiring, both panicked and eager at the prospect. But then he’d exhaled heavily, turning his shoulder, using his cold and urbane tone to great effect.
‘The company would undoubtedly be better there,wife.’
Wife.
Yes, I’m his wife. And today I’d signed my wedding contract blind when I should’ve seen the papers well in advance.
I raise my hand to wipe away angry tears, moonlight highlighting the absolute rock on my finger. A ring that screams money, because it turns out, the box hadn’t contained jewelled nipple clamps at all.
