by Donna Alam
‘My goodness,’ I reply, coming over all Pollyanna for some reason. ‘It’s wonderful to meet you, too!’ From behind his mother, Kai chuckles.
‘An Australian. How delightful.’ Her eyes positively shine as she studies me. It’s more than a bit unnerving.
‘Settle down, Mother, you’ll frighten Kate off.’ Kai pulls me closer to his side.
‘Nonsense. Kate looks like the capable type, and that’s just what he needs,’ she adds conspiratorially. ‘Someone to keep him on his toes.’
My mouthful of champagne goes down the wrong way. As I cough, I try desperately not to snot it all over her. Keep him on his toes? More like the other way around and definitely less metaphorically. Thankfully, she doesn’t appear to notice my reaction, distracted by someone’s arrival, excusing herself in a swirl of skirts.
‘Do you want to join me in the gym in the morning?’ Kai’s amber gaze is still amused.
‘Are you trying to get me to snort more bubbles? Anyway, who says I’m staying with you tonight.’
‘Of course you are. It’s a great start to the day, getting hot and sweaty,’ he whispers, pulling me closer. ‘I wonder what kind of noises I could get you to make, pushed to your peak in public?’
‘You’re not about to find out, kinky.’ I giggle and squirm away, reaching for a morsel from a passing tray.
‘Dirty girl. I didn’t mention sex. I simply meant how loud you’d be, worked over really hard.’
‘Sure you didn’t, and shush, your mum’s coming back. And I so don’t exercise.’
‘Fuck the hors d’oeuvres,’ he growls. Taking the tartlet and glass out of my hand, he discards them to another passing tray. ‘Let’s get straight to dessert.’
‘Are you hungry, darling?’ Mishael’s smile is bland, except where it reaches her eyes. I get the feeling there’s nothing wrong with her hearing. ‘Look who I found.’ Turning, she rests a hand on the forearm of a man dressed in a gleaming white kandura robe. Strikingly tall, the man’s eyes flick to Kai.
Kai’s forehead shows signs of a developing frown. ‘Essam.’
‘Kais.’ Kais, not Kai, the initial sound delivered from the back of his throat. Drawing himself taller, the newcomer adds, ‘Keef haluk.’
‘I’m fine,’ Kai grates out. ‘Thank you for asking.’
The pair bear more than a passing resemblance, though Essam is taller and thin rather than lithe. And without the sharpness of cheekbones, he’s a pale imitation of Kai. He does have fantastic eyes, though. Any more almond-shaped and he’d be part cat.
Mishael places her hand under my elbow, intent on steering me away. ‘Let me introduce you to my friend Sameera and leave the men to talk shop.’ When out of earshot, Mishael’s voice drops to an apologetic tone. ‘Excuse me for dragging you away, but Essam is devoutly religious. I thought it best to spare you both the discomfort of an introduction.’ I don’t so much answer as vaguely nod. ‘My nephew would mean no offence. He’d be dreadfully disturbed if he thought he’d upset you by his manner. Perhaps next time you’ll meet him with his wife, Maryam, things would be less awkward then. They’ve just had their first child. What a darling little girl; she’s so adorable. I’ll admit to a little pseudo granny lust.’ Her words trail away in a peal of laughter.
Several overwhelming introductions later, I excuse myself to find the bathrooms, mainly to grab a few moments to myself. Lost in the labyrinth of stairs and outdoor corridors, I find myself suddenly behind Kai and his cousin as they stand on the stone patio, facing the garden.
‘. . . introducing her to your mother. That has to be a first.’
‘Is it?’ Kai uses a bored tone, raising his glass to his mouth. ‘You’re quite the expert on my life, it seems.’
‘Wallah, I swear not!’ Essam’s shoulders move rapidly with his chuckle. ‘Though she . . . this is very different. I take it your father knows.’
Kai’s shoulders lift and fall once, insouciant. ‘What is there to tell?’
My heart slips to my Vampanado’s.
‘Risky, with what he has in mind, I hear.’
‘If you have a point, get to it, would you.’ Kai sounds almost bored.
‘Just, if it’s over with Sofia . . .’
With a breath of laughter, Kai turns to his cousin. ‘Wouldn’t that be overextending, even for you?’ Too late, I realise I have nowhere to hide. I’m stood like a sneaky eavesdropper as I’m spotted by Kai.
‘Kate.’ In three strides, my hands are in his, his expression having morphed to tender from bland.
‘Aren’t you going to introduce us?’ Essam asks, sounding quite pleased with himself.
‘No.’ Kai doesn’t turn, rather steering me away, his hand at the base of my spine.
‘What was that all about?’ I ask, glancing back at Essam, his cold gaze and a gleam of teeth following our retreat.
‘A difference of opinion.’
‘Yeah?’ I ask, doubtfully. ‘Your mum said he was deeply religious.’
‘He plays his part well.’
Engaging Kai in conversation right now is like trying to milk bricks, and his features, much like his responses, give nothing away.
‘And his wife has just had a baby?’
‘I expect she’ll be the first of many.’
‘Do they want a big family?’
‘I meant the first of many wives, Kate.’ His tone is as dry as sticks. Despite his hand on my back, propelling me along, I grind to a stop.
‘I thought you could only have four wives?’ Four wives as in only—just mad!
‘Marriage may be a dying institution in much of the world but here, for some men, quadruple the number still isn’t enough.’
‘You can bend the rules?’ I ask, incredulous. ‘How?’
Kai’s hand slides from my back, fingers raking through his hair. ‘There are always ways. Some divorce, take temporary wives, and then there’s good old fashioned adultery.’ His mouth curls in a gesture of irony. ‘For those willing to risk their eternal soul.’
‘Temp—no. I don’t think I want to know.’
‘Why anyone would want to be tied to another by marriage, I’ll never understand.’ His tone is blithe, but his words no less telling. A can of worms I’m not interested in opening as his hand finds mine. We begin to walk again.
‘Sofia sounds like a popular girl.’
Crap. Sometimes I wonder if my mouth is at all connected to my brain. He’ll definitely think I was listening in now.
His expression is disconcerted, his hand loosening from mine as he turns as though to speak.
‘My goodness!’ With a beaming smile, Mishael joins us quite suddenly again, preventing his response. ‘I’m afraid it’s that time, darling.’ She touches Kai’s arm before turning toward the stage. ‘He’ll be back in a jiffy. We really must chat more.’
As she turns away, Kai stares down at me, eyes now grave. ‘You and I need to talk. Can we continue this after?’
‘I’ll be here.’
Lights from the garden set him in silhouette, darkening his face as his fingers touch my cheek.
‘Promise?’
‘I’m not going anywhere.’ Not yet, anyway.
On a small stage set against a backdrop of palms, Kai approaches the podium and the noise of the crowd dies away.
‘Ladies and gentlemen. As’salaam Alaikum. Welcome to the fifth annual Al Bayt Charitable Trust Evening.’
There follows a small ripple of applause, people drifting nearer to the stage. Small groups gather around me, one figure paused almost at my elbow. A woman. Viewed from the corner of my eye, she looks almost familiar. Chestnut hair falls sheet-like almost to her waist, and she’s tall; legs up to my chest, at least. She seems to have that effortlessly stylish look of someone famous, but I suppose it would be effortless if you paid a stylist to pick your clothes. Dark painted nails match her tiny rock-chic black dress and ankle-boots.
My heart suddenly sinks as I realise where I recognise her from. She was with K
ai at brunch, his supermodel date.
‘Have we met?’ Her question is vague, her eyes only briefly lighting on me as she twists a lock of hair around her thumb.
‘Nope. Don’t think so.’ Quick, my answer is almost a bark.
Shrugging, she flicks the dark sheet of hair over her shoulder before really looking at me. Her eyes make a slow progression from my feet to my face, her expression part amusement, part sneer.
‘You’re the girl,’ she drawls. ‘Sofia.’ She holds out her hand, almost in a position to be kissed. ‘Kais and I . . .’ She wriggles the fingers of her other hand in the air, a gesture that could mean anything or nothing. But I know exactly what she means. And Kais again, not Kai, with the slight inflection of an accent. Odd that I note these differences, accent and diction, as the actual context screams in the back of my head.
‘Kate,’ I answer, filling the word with a boat load of get fucked and ignoring her hand.
Reduced to covert glances her way, she gazes at the stage with a sycophantic smile, the lock of hair back between her fingers. ‘You know, it never lasts with Kai.’
‘And you’d know from bitter experience?’ I don’t turn, just bark again.
She shrugs with indifference this time, the crowd around us laughing at something said from the podium. I can’t help feel I’m being laughed at. Just look at her, look at me. Standing beside her, paling into insignificance.
Kai shakes his head almost imperceptibly, his gaze fixed on mine. Is there supposed to be some meaning in that? Don’t talk to her? Don’t listen? I don’t know who the fuck she is?
‘He is a . . . tombeur, no? One woman is never enough, and he has needs you can’t understand.’ Her eyes flick over me again, this time almost apologetically. ‘I offer him something you can’t.’
Absurdly, the word anal pops into my mind. I actually laugh myself as I turn to face her, despite jealousy and anger tightening my gut. ‘I hope it’s something other than vagaries and obscure references.’
‘He always comes back to me.’ She spits the words out, eyes turning to flint. ‘You don’t even live here, this is just some holiday romance.’
‘Wrong. I do live here. I live near the mall, you know the one’—my hand moves to one cocked hip—‘on the corner of I don’t care and I don’t give a fuck?’
Then, for the first time in my life, I actually appreciate what spinning on your heel is all about. I do so, gratifyingly, ignoring curious glances and the ominous sound of my heels against the stone floor. I head in no particular direction before remembering the bar, so head indoors.
Vague bitch! Why couldn’t she have just said it: she fucks him? Or he fucks her. My heels click angrily, each step pounding in my skull.
‘Vodka tonic,’ I growl at the barman, adding, ‘please’ as an afterthought. ‘No. Wait. Hold the tonic—vodka, straight up.’ Taking a leaf out of Matt’s book, I decide I’ll use it as a disinfectant: hard liquor to cleanse her clinging insinuations, to numb my brain. Elbows against the bar, I put my head in my hands.
‘You said you’d wait.’
Kai’s voice is relief and persecution all in one breath. I don’t turn around, just take the tumbler of vodka into my hand.
‘I haven’t left. Yet.’ My reply is as hard and sharp as shards of glass, the shards I’d like to poke him with. I don’t want to look at him, and not stab him, exactly. Maybe just punch his face.
Lifting my drink, I tilt the glass at the barman in silent salute.
‘It’s not what you think.’ Kai’s low-pitched words fall in a tumble, the heat of his body scorching me from behind.
‘No? Then what is there to tell?’ I use his earlier words, the same bland inflection. ‘Besides, I thought your talents didn’t extend to mind reading.’ I half turn, my grip on the glass like a vice, realising, after all, that I do want to chuck it at his head. At the wall. At something.
‘She wasn’t invited and I meant what I said.’
‘About her being an easy lay? Yeah, I got that, thanks.’
‘That we’re over.’
‘And Essam wants sloppy seconds?’
‘He isn’t to be trusted.’
‘Is that a family trait?’
‘Is that . . . straight vodka?’ His hand sears my wrist, but I refuse to turn fully, to acknowledge him.
‘It is. Today’s clusterfuck is brought to you by the letter V.’ I make the victory sign with my fingers against the glass, without the benefit of triumph. ‘The cleaner of all thought.’
The glass slips from my hand in an instant. ‘Mixed drinks cause injudicious decisions.’ With a flick of his wrist, he empties it on a nearby potted palm. ‘You don’t need it but you do need to hear me out.’
‘Yeah? How about you don’t tell me what I need, especially after hearing what you need from her.’ I twist back to the barman. ‘Another one please and he’s paying.’
‘No. No more. And this is a free bar. My tab. And for the record, she’s got nothing I need.’
And, of course, it’s a free bar. Have I not been humiliated enough?
The glass meets the wood of the bar with such force I’m surprised it doesn’t shatter. He braces his hands on either side of my body, blocking me in and I try hard not to tremble, to suppress my body’s reactions, the anger, the desire. The absolute need to turn and kiss him brutally, mark him as mine.
‘Turn around.’
With the intention of smacking the arrogance from his tone, I do turn, but we don’t speak. Just stare, eyes boring into the other in a silent battle of wills. My hand twitches from the force of needing to slide it into his hair. Slap his face. Pull his head to mine. One or all of those things, but my anger is like another person pressed between us, hands out and keeping us apart.
‘Kate.’ His stony expression cracks for a moment, fingers tentative on my jaw. ‘Believe me, I would never—’
‘Kais, darling.’
Right before me, his eyes close, almost as though hearing something painful, the muscles in his frame drawing tight. His fingertips slip from my face as he turns to Sofia. Stepping out from behind him, I render us a triangle of awkwardness and unease.
‘What are you doing here?’ His words are loaded with a quiet menace, much more threatening than a whisper should ever seem.
‘I like art,’ she simpers coquettishly. ‘And you forgot our Friday.’ Her eyes touch mine like lightening as she exhales a brittle laugh. ‘Did I really mean so little to you?’ With a seductive sway, she draws nearer. ‘Habibi, you expect me to just step aside, pretend we meant nothing at all?’
‘Yes, because that’s exactly what it was, Sofia. Nothing. You need to leave.’ A harsh and intractable order she ignores, as like a cat, she slinks closer still.
‘Introduce me to your little friend,’ she purrs, her tone winding around us like a tiger’s tail, her hand sliding around his arm. ‘I’ve missed you, and you know I don’t mind sharing. Three has never been a crowd in your bed.’
‘This is over,’ he growls, untangling himself without even a glance in my direction. ‘If you answered your phone, or spoke to your assistant, you would have saved us this scene.’
‘You can’t mean that.’ Her eyes are venomous. ‘Darling, not for . . . for . . . vanille!’
‘This never should have begun.’
‘But . . . you need me. When you have family in Riyadh—’ The look on her face morphs instantly, from panic to knowledge, or possibly power. Her demeanour altered, the tension in her posture seems to fall away. ‘This is a secret, no?’
Kai’s shoulders rise and relax as he exhales a disinterested sigh. ‘If I weren’t already ignoring what you were saying out of a sense of deep repulsion, I might actually give a fuck.’ He sounds almost bored. A tactic he uses well.
‘Tu récoltes ce que tu sèmes—’
‘Ta Gueule!’ he yells, startling us both. ‘Je m’en fous!’ The noise reverberates around the stark hall, echoing off the bare wattle walls. I don’t know what it means b
ut by the look on her face, it’s not something you’d say to your mother. Curious eyes turn to our trio, eyebrows raised at the vulgar scene. ‘Rashid will help you find your driver.’ His tone returns to boredom as the taciturn man appears at her side.
‘Va te faire foutre,’ she snarls, her accent more pronounced. Her eyes shine with fury, as with one last penetrating look in my direction, she storms away, Rashid following at a distance.
‘Well, that was—’ I raise my chin aiming for disdain but as my mouth wobbles, I give in. ‘I think I’ll go home.’
‘Of course,’ Kai murmurs, reaching for my hand as I snatch it away, bringing it to my chest.
‘You probably need to stay. I’ll get a cab.’ Choose me, my mind chants the unspoken request.
‘No.’ He grips my forearms tightly, causing me to start. ‘No,’ he repeats softer. ‘Please. Let me take you home.’
Chapter Twenty-Six
The journey home is an uncomfortable one, a ribbon of melancholy weaving through the silence of the car. I want to hear him deny her, need his reassurance, but the questions remain balled in my throat.
‘I’ll call when I’m ready,’ he directs Rashid as we pull alongside my building. I open the door without waiting. I want to get this over with, a quick escape to lick my wounds, but his hand is on my arm before I can step out.
‘Wait, please.’
‘Just let me go.’ I won’t look at him, won’t let the straining tears fall.
‘You don’t want me to come in?’
‘I don’t think it’s a good idea.’ My head is rigid, eyes unseeing beyond the window. As he murmurs something low in Arabic, Rashid steps from the car without a word.
‘Please.’ His voice is as soft and compelling as his hand on my arm. I lean back against the seat, eyes closed in a moment of tear taming. ‘She and I . . .’
His hand hovers over my own in indecision as a traitorous drop rolls down my cheek.
‘I don’t want to know,’ I lie, biting my lip, determined not to do this, to not let him see me cry. I want to appear grown up, like a sophisticated woman of the world, or at least what I think this mythical creature looks like.
