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He hadn’t even been aware of the impulse to lean across the table and capture Sylvie’s wrist in his hand before he realised that was what he was doing. Panic made his gut clench. For the first time in his life he found that his words were tripping out before he could stop them—along with an urge to make her understand.
Because if Sylvie damned him then there truly was no hope for his redemption at all...
‘I didn’t seduce her. She seduced me.’
* * *
Sylvie looked at Arkim, her wrist still caught in his firm grip. There was something almost desperate in his eyes. Her anger, which had flared so quickly, started to fizzle out. ‘What do you mean?’
He let her wrist go and stood up, moving away from the table to pace, running a hand through his hair. Sylvie had never seen him like this. On the edge of his control.
He turned to face her, his face etched in stark lines. ‘I was back from England for the summer holidays. My father had refused to let me stay in Europe for the summer, even though I’d offered to pay my own way by working. I’d done my A levels. I was just biding my time until I had to go to college. My father knew I hated LA, so he taunted me with it.’
His mouth twisted. ‘Cindy was everywhere I was. Especially when my father wasn’t around. And invariably she was half-naked.’
Self-disgust was evident in his voice.
‘I thought I could resist her... I tried for the whole summer. I was only a few days from returning to the UK and she found me by the pool. I was too weak. The worst thing was that she stayed in control the whole time while I lost it. My father found us in the pool house.’
He didn’t have to elaborate on what had happened next for Sylvie to join the dots. She shouldn’t be feeling anything other than what he’d dished out to her—judgement and condemnation... But she couldn’t help it. Sympathy surged in her breast. She could well imagine that whatever judgement she might hurl at Arkim, he’d already judged himself a thousand times over—and far more harshly than anyone else could have.
‘You were seventeen, Arkim. There’s probably not a straight teenage hormonal boy on the planet who could have resisted the seduction of an older and more experienced woman—much less a porn star whose job is controlling sex.’
Arkim’s harsh lines didn’t relax. ‘She only did it because she wanted to make my father jealous...to push him into some kind of commitment. She gambled the wrong way, though. He threw her out too.’
He turned away from her then, to look out at the view. His back was broad, formidable. As if he didn’t want her to look at him.
‘Do you know I saw my first orgy when I was eight?’
Sylvie put a hand to her mouth, glad he wasn’t looking at her reaction. She took her hand down after a moment. ‘Arkim...that’s—’
He turned around again. He was harsh. ‘That was my life. Someone saw me watching, and of course I couldn’t really understand what was happening. It was after that that my father sent me to school in England. He got off on the idea of sending me to school with English royalty. But it saved me, I think. I only had to survive the holidays, and I learned to avert my eyes from the debauched parties he liked to throw.’
The thought of such a small child witnessing such things and then being sent away... Sylvie stood up. ‘That was abuse, Arkim. And what that woman did to you— seducing you like that—it was a form of abuse too.’
Arkim smiled, but it was infinitely cynical and Sylvie suddenly loathed it.
‘Was it abuse? When it was the most exciting moment of my life at that point? She showed me how much pleasure a man can feel. I submitted to her. Even though I hated myself for it.’
For a second Sylvie felt a blinding flash of jealousy so acute she nearly gasped. The thought of this man being helpless, submitting to a woman who had given him pleasure...and who was not her...was painful.
Thankfully he didn’t seem to notice her seismic reaction and he said, ‘Do you know what it’s like to grow up under the influence of someone with no moral compass?’
Sylvie shook her head, clawing back control.
He was grim. ‘It’s like you’re tainted by his deeds—no matter what you do to try and distance yourself. It’s a tattoo on your skin—for ever. And I failed the test. I proved I was no better than my father—a man who debased a sweet, innocent woman from a foreign country and all but dumped her by the road when she needed him most.’
His words sank heavily into the silence, and just like that Sylvie saw Arkim’s intense personal struggle. Saw why he’d always reacted so strongly to her. She understood now how very attractive a respectable marriage would be—it would offer him everything he’d never had. It all made sense. And her heart ached.
The approach of another staff member broke the bubble surrounding them. The man said something to Arkim that Sylvie couldn’t understand. She was reeling with all this new information, feeling such a mix of things that she hardly knew how to assimilate it all.
The man left and Arkim turned to her, his face expressionless again, as if he hadn’t just punched a hole in her chest with his revelations.
‘There are some nomads who want to meet with me. You should rest for a while—it’s the hottest part of the day.’
Sylvie felt his dismissal like a glancing blow, but before she could say a word Arkim was striding away. A middle-aged woman dressed all in black appeared by her side. She had a smiling face and kind eyes. She said something Sylvie couldn’t understand and gestured for Sylvie to follow her. With no other choice, she did, and was led to the smaller of the two big tents.
