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“Why lie to me, Ms. Donnelly? We both know that my brother left you weeks ago.”
Rachel looked up. She had never seen eyes more filled with contempt.
“Why ask me a question if you already know the answer?”
“What I know,” Karim said, his mouth twisting, ‘is that you don’t give a damn that he’s dead.”
“You’re hurting me!”
“How long did it take you to find his successor?”
She stared at him. “His—?”
“Another fool who’d keep you. Pay your bills. Buy what you’re selling.”
Her eyes flashed.
“Get out of my home!”
“Your home?” Karim raised her to her toes. “Rami paid the bills here. All you did was have the good fortune to warm his bed.”
“If warming your brother’s bed was an example of good fortune, heaven help us all!”
God, he wanted to shake her until she was dizzy!
Once, a very long time ago, he had loved his brother with all his heart.
They’d played together, told each other the secrets boys tell; they’d wept together at the news of their mother’s death, bolstered each other’s spirits the first weeks at boarding school in a strange new land.
That boy was only a memory … A memory that suddenly raised a storm of emotion Karim had kept hidden even from himself.
Now that emotion flooded through him, set loose by the coldness of a woman his brother had once cared for.
Karim had seen people show more sorrow at the sight of a deer dead on the road than Rachel Donnelly was showing now.
“Damn you,” he growled. “Have you no feelings?”
Her eyes glittered with a burst of blue light.
“What a question, coming from a man like you!”
There was a red haze in front of his eyes. Karim cursed; his hands tightened on her.
“Let go of me!”
She slammed a fist against his shoulder. He caught both hands in one of his, immobilized them against his chest.
“Is that how you dealt with Rami?” he growled. “Did you drive him crazy, too?”
