‘Why not?’
Effie bit her lip and Tak perched on a tall bar stool, prepared to wait it out.
‘Why not, Effie?’
‘Because if I slow down then I give myself a chance to stop, to think. And there’s a part of me which doesn’t want to do that.’
‘Because then you’ll end up thinking about where you are in your life and wondering if you’d made different choices where you might have been?’
‘It drives me insane,’ she frowned.
‘It’s allowed to.
‘Not when it sometimes throws up more questions than answers. It ends up confusing everything.’
‘It doesn’t have to.’
‘I suppose,’ Effie conceded after a moment. ‘But I wish it wasn’t like that.’
‘You’re not alone.’
She stopped abruptly, waiting, wondering, and Tak suddenly found himself speaking—filling the silence—even though he’d had no intention of doing so.
‘I had another brother, you know. Saaj. He was eight months old when he was diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease. To this day we still don’t know the cause, but my suspicion is that it was immunopathic.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
Her tone was so sincere, so gentle, that he could feel the emotion balling in his throat. He waved her aside with his hand.
‘Saaj spent most of the next fourteen months in hospital unconscious, or if he was conscious then he was usually in pain. And as a baby he couldn’t articulate it. He was simply inconsolable, but unlike a normal baby there was nothing my mother could do to help him. She was there with him every day, but she couldn’t talk to him, or comfort him, or even cuddle him, because as the illness progressed even that caused him too much pain.’
‘Tak...’
She uttered his name softly. Neither a plea nor a statement, just a reassurance that she was there, and he realised that at some point she’d taken his hands, as though lending him support. He’d never thought he’d needed it. Until now.
‘She was in hell—unable to comfort him and equally unable to take his pain away.’
He couldn’t bring himself to tell her the truth about his mother. The way Saaj had been her excuse to abandon the rest of her children when they too had needed her. The way she’d already been doing before Saaj had been born. But with Saaj she’d had a clear-cut reason which no one—especially not his ten-year-old self—had been able to argue with.
And so he’d taken on the responsibility of caring for his siblings—from changing nappies to washing clothes and finding them something to eat every day. He’d hated his mother for not caring for them enough. And he’d hated his philandering father for caring for himself too much.
But what if Effie didn’t believe him? Worse, what if she took his mother’s side and decided he was being callous, lacking any empathy?
‘What about your father?’
‘He wasn’t around.’
That was all Tak was willing to offer. What else was there to say? That his father had been so busy with his whores that he hadn’t cared about anyone else?
‘I was a kid. I took care of my siblings.’ He wrapped it up neatly. ‘That’s why I don’t want that life now. I don’t want a family. I feel like I’ve already been there and had that. I love being a surgeon.’
‘Baby Saaj is why you became a surgeon, though, isn’t he?’ she asked abruptly.
Her quiet but clear words cut through the air. Through him. Incredibly, Tak found he couldn’t answer her. His tongue simply wouldn’t work.
‘And not just any surgeon.’ Her eyes might as well be pinning him to the spot. ‘But a neurosurgeon.’
She could read him in a way that no one else ever had. It should unnerve him more.
‘If I wanted you to psychoanalyse me I’d get on a couch and give you a clipboard,’ he managed to bite out eventually. ‘The point is that I don’t need any distractions. I don’t need a wife or a family at home, reminding me that I’ve let them down or abandoned them because I’ve got caught up with some case, some patient.’
It was intended as a conclusion, but she looked as though she was about to say more. He needed something to distract her. Words pressed urgently against his tongue, as if they were desperate to get out, whatever logic his brain might be using to restrain them.
‘Come with me to the neurology conference in Paris,’ he said. It certainly wasn’t what he’d expected to say.
‘No.’ She shook her head at once.
‘Why not?’
She eyed him apprehensively, as though trying to work it out. How he’d gone from shutting her out to inviting her to go away with him.
He was still trying to work it out himself.
‘Nell’s going on her ski trip at the same time,’ he said. ‘And you told me yourself that you’ve never been abroad but you’ve always wanted to. Here’s your chance.’
She bit her lip and he had to fight the oddest impulse to draw it into his mouth and kiss her thoroughly, just as he had before. More.
‘Where would I stay?’
It was as though she could read his every salacious thought where she was concerned.
‘I’ll get you a separate room.’
‘Won’t everything be booked up with the conference?’
Not if he flashed his credit card and offered them extortionate sums to solve the problem.
‘I can ask...’ He shrugged.
‘But you won’t think I...? You won’t expect...?’
She flushed and he knew exactly what she was trying not to say.
‘Effie, I can assure you there will be no expectations on my part. We got it out of our systems the other night. Now we can go back to how it was before.’
‘You think so?’
‘I do,’ he asserted, wishing he felt half as sure as he sounded.
‘Well, okay, then.’
She smiled. A gentle half-smile which blew him away.
‘If you’re sure?’
‘Sure.’ He nodded.
Only he wasn’t sure. Not at all. Where Effie was concerned he couldn’t seem to control himself.
But this time he had no choice.
CHAPTER TWELVE
EFFIE STRODE THROUGH the hotel lobby, through the doors and practically skipped down the steps and away from the stuffy, windowless, airless conference room.
She stopped abruptly and tipped her head up. The sun was glorious in a cloudless blue sky. Like every stunning glossy magazine photo she’d ever seen all rolled into one.
Only better.
Not just because she was actually here, rather than merely standing holding a holiday brochure and imagining she was, but also because of the man who had brought her here.
For the best part of a week she’d been nodding courteously to Tak when she’d seen him at the hospital, smiling politely at him when he’d passed by whatever room she and Nell had been in at his home, and chatting amicably to him whenever actually meeting him had been unavoidable.
She absolutely, definitely, categorically had not been imagining him kissing and licking her, turning her inside out and making her cry out with unabashed abandon as she climaxed over and over again.
Shaking her head—her hair was wild and free, as it so often seemed to be these days—Effie tried to eject the memories from her head. She was here, in Paris, without a single other person to think about. She could do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted to.
So, where to go first? Effie wondered, picking one cobbled street at random. Would she find herself in a square full of artists, all gathered together to share their creativity, or perhaps the famous cabaret house of the Moulin Rouge, or perhaps she’d even stumble upon Montmartre Cemetery, the last resting place of literary greats like Zola or Dumas?
She wound through the streets, scarcely
able to believe she was here—abroad. It felt so different from anything she might have anticipated and yet simultaneously exactly as thrilling, from the sights and sounds to the language itself.
Effie had no idea how long she’d wandered, taking in a museum here or a sculpture there, wandering in the footsteps of Picasso and Van Gogh, when suddenly she rounded on a tiny crêperie, squashed between bigger, sturdier, architecturally more attractive buildings, and the mouth-watering smells lured her inside.
By the time she exited, sugary crumbs from her glorious hot treat still coating her lips, she felt like a kid again, practically skipping up the steps she saw opposite her. Steps and steps and yet more steps.
And suddenly there she was, with the white dome of the Sacré-Coeur, Montmartre’s sacred basilica, right in front of her. Like a perfect dollop of whipped cream in the dazzling sunlight. People were spread out everywhere—on the steps, in the grassy areas, even on walls and benches—laughing and happy and making her feel like a part of something without even saying a word to her.
Which made it all the more curious that Tak should once again sneak into her thoughts. That she should wonder what it might be like to visit a place like this as a couple. With him.
It didn’t matter how much she pushed that night into a box and tried to turn the key on it, reminders always found their way out. Into her head and her chest, until she ached for him all over again.
Stalking away, as if she could somehow outpace it, Effie’s eyes alighted on a caricaturist impressively capturing the fun, carefree young girl who was willingly posing for him. Her friends were jostling to be next as they gasped and admired the image.
It was a symbol of all the things Effie had never, ever been able to be, let alone when she was their age. She’d spent her entire life just trying to stay safe and under the radar. Watching other people have fun but never being able to enjoy it for herself.
She even held herself back with Tak—with the exception of the other night—and suddenly Effie couldn’t help but wonder what she thought she was achieving by it. Was she protecting herself, as her head would argue, or was she in fact depriving herself of even a few snatched moments of something good for herself?
These few days in Paris with Tak were her time. And if she didn’t seize the moment then who knew when it would present itself again?
* * *
‘You look breathtaking,’ Tak murmured as she met him that evening in the hotel bar, as per her own instructions.
She inclined her head to one side and just about kept her smile of delight from taking over her entire face. ‘Thank you.’
She should hope so. An afternoon at a spa, and swimming, and even an indulgent visit to the hotel’s hair salon had taken every bit of spare money she’d had. But it had been worth it to pamper herself for once. To feel as though she was being spoiled.
Carefully she took Tak’s proffered arm and walked with him into the dining room, where the maître d’ accompanied them to their table with economical gestures and an expansive smile and the sommelier fluttered around them as they made their wine selections.
The meal passed by pleasantly enough. Tak asked about her day, and in between her tantalising starter and succulent main course she told him about Abbesses, the Bateau-Lavoir, the Sacré-Coeur. She kept to herself the lingerie boutique she’d visited on her way back from Montmartre. And after the cheese course was done and her dessert had arrived she enjoyed surprising him by telling him that she had eventually plucked up the courage to sit for a caricature.
Tak looked impressed. ‘You’ll have to let me see it.’
‘Only if you promise not to laugh,’ she warned him.
‘Isn’t that the point of a caricature? To amuse?’
‘Yes,’ she conceded, savouring her crème brûlée. ‘But pleasantly.’
‘Then I assure you I shall not laugh.’ He managed to look solemn. ‘And what about tomorrow?’
‘Tomorrow I’m taking the Métro, and I’m going to visit the Eiffel Tower and walk along the Seine.’
‘You could always come and join our team for a day. You could provide a different perspective for one of our talks—the first-on-the-scene account.’
‘No, thanks!’ Effie laughed. ‘I’m here to play, not to work.’
‘You haven’t really ever had time to play, have you?’ asked Tak, without warning. ‘Time to yourself.’
‘Have you?’ she threw back softly. ‘I mean, really? You have your games suite, and you see your brothers and sisters, but isn’t it all really still your way of taking care of your siblings? You didn’t buy that house for yourself, did you? You bought it for your sisters and your brother to live in with you until they had their own families. And you always meet up with Rafi because you want to check on him—although I’m not sure why.’
Something shimmered in the air between them. All around them was the hum of chatter, the clinking of glass and the scrape of cutlery against china.
It felt like an eternity, but then at last Tak answered her. ‘You really want to know?’
‘I do.’
He took a long drink of wine, quite unlike his usual carefulness. Effie stayed still. Patient.
‘I told you about Saaj, and how I had to hold things together for my other siblings whilst my mother was with him,’ he said. ‘But I didn’t tell you that he was a deliberate mistake. That my mother had him late in life as a way of trying to win my father back.’
‘I don’t understand...’
‘My parents had an arranged marriage. She was a good match for my father and she was determined to be a good wife. But my father was handsome, a doctor, and to some a meal ticket. He had women throwing themselves at him and he was weak and greedy and he wanted it all. A very proper wife back home, having his children and raising his family, and a naughty young mistress who would do all the dirty things with him he felt a wife should not do.’
Every word cut into her. Tak’s mother might have suffered a different fate from herself, but ultimately it was still rejection, betrayal. She couldn’t imagine what Tak’s mother must have gone through.
A thought occurred to her. ‘Did your mother know?’
‘Oh, she knew. She made excuses for him. Told us all that he was a clever, powerful man and that it was his entitlement—even though it killed her so much she used to self-medicate.’
‘Tak, that must have been awful for her. For all of you.’
She wasn’t prepared for the fury he directed at her.
‘Don’t make excuses for her! Everyone makes excuses for her. Including me. For years. But we were there—Hetti and Sasha, Rafi and I. We lived it. And what she did to us is inexcusable. I’ve finally started to accept that fact.’
For a moment she felt as if he’d shouted the words, hurling them at her with all the rawness and the pain he’d bottled inside for far too long. But one look around the oblivious diners at the restaurant told her that he had barely hissed them loudly enough for her to hear.
It didn’t lessen their impact one iota.
‘Tak, she must have felt so isolated...so alone—’
He cut her off before she could say any more.
‘You have empathy because you’re kind and you’re caring. That’s who you are, Effie. But in this case you’re wrong. She didn’t have to make excuses for him, or stay with him. She didn’t have to put us, her children, through years of suffering because of their twisted relationship. But she did—because she was selfish.’
‘Tak—’ She stopped abruptly as the waiter arrived to clear their plates and bring them coffee.
All she wanted to do was send him away, so that she could talk to the man sitting stiffly, wretchedly, opposite her. Not that anyone else could see it but her. And what did that say about their relationship—or lack of one?
‘No, Effie,’ he snarled as they were finally left alone agai
n. ‘You feel for her because you think you see a parallel, but the two of you are nothing like each other. You went through far, far worse than my mother and yet look what you did. You put your daughter first from the instant she was born. You put her needs ahead of yours. You struggled alone through university, with a baby, because you knew that was your responsibility.’
‘It isn’t that simple,’ Effie offered slowly. ‘Not everyone is the same.’
‘She could have left him. She had family—quite a lot of family—who would have supported her leaving with her children rather than staying with him. They knew he was cruel, and that he deliberately rubbed his affairs in her face. He even told me, his son, that he was more compatible in bed with any one of his whores than he was with my mother. Despite the fact they’d had four children together.’
Effie hesitated. With Saaj, that was five children, which meant it had been going on long before Saaj had been born.
‘Now you’re getting it.’ Tak laughed, but it was a hollow, grating sound. ‘Yes, he was throwing those insults about, sleeping with his tarts, and my mother was still weak enough to let him into her bed. Still stupid enough to believe that if she fell pregnant one more time he would finally come to his senses and realise that he wanted to be a family man, after all.’
‘She always hoped he would change,’ Effie whispered sadly. ‘But he was never going to.’
‘Of course he was never going to,’ Tak scorned. ‘Which was why she spent fifteen years medicating herself into oblivion and leaving me to raise her children when I was still a child myself. I was ten when I first took over responsibility for them. When really I needed her just as much.’
‘Is that why you’re so adamant about never marrying? Never letting anyone close? Because you’ve already practically raised a family and now you want to reclaim the childhood you lost?’
Somehow that didn’t fit the Tak she knew.
‘I don’t want a family because I don’t want to do to anyone what my father did to my mother.’
He bit the words out, stunning her into silence. For a moment Effie couldn’t move. And then she sucked a breath in. ‘Why would you even think you would do that? That isn’t you at all.’
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