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That he was nuts.
The hypothesis was loosely based on Johara’s testimony.
With his repeated appearances of late, which Johara hadn’t tied to Kanza, Johara had started talking about him. Among the tales from the past, mostly of their time in Zohayd, she’d let slip she believed he’d been sliding into depression. Kanza had barely held back from correcting Johara’s tentative diagnosis to manic-depression, according to that inexplicable eagerness and elation that exuded from him and gleamed in his eyes.
Johara believed it was because he’d long been abusing his health and neglecting his personal life by working so much. Again, Kanza had barely caught back a scoff. In the past two weeks he hadn’t seemed to work at all. How else could he turn up everywhere she went, no matter the time of day? Her only explanation was that he’d set up his business with such efficiency that its success was self-perpetuating and he could take time off whenever the fancy struck him.
But according to Johara, he had been working himself to death for years, resulting in being cut off from humanity and lately even becoming physically sick. It had been why she and Shaheen came so often to New York of late, staying for extended periods of time, to try to alleviate his isolation and stop his deterioration.
Not that Johara thought they were succeeding. She felt that their intimacy as husband and wife left Aram unable to connect with either of them as he used to, left him feeling like an outsider, even a trespasser. But she truly believed he needed the level of attachment he’d once shared with them to maintain his psychological health. Bottom line, she was worried that his inability to find anyone who fulfilled that need, along with his atrocious lifestyle, was dragging him to the verge of some breakdown.
But this man, stalking her like a panther who’d just discovered play and couldn’t contain his eagerness to start a game of all-out tackle and chase, seemed nothing like the morose, self-destructive loner Johara had described. Which made her theory the only credible explanation. That his inexplicable pursuit of her was the first overt symptom of said breakdown.
Not that she was happy with this diagnosis.
While it had provided an explanation for his behavior, it had also influenced hers.
She’d dodged him so far, because she’d thought he’d latched on to her in order to combat his ennui, and she hadn’t fancied being used as an antidote to his boredom. But the idea that his behavior wasn’t premeditated—or even worse, was a cry for help—had made it progressively harder to be unresponsive.
“So where do you want to take me?”
Doing her best not to swoon at the caress of his fathomless baritone, she turned to him as they entered the garage. “I’m open. What do you want to eat?”
“You pick.” He grinned as he strode ahead, leading the way to his car. Seemed it was time for that spin in his near-sentient behemoth, a black-and-silver Rolls-Royce Phantom that reportedly came with a ghastly half-million-dollar price tag.
She stopped. “Okay, this goes no further.”
That dazzling smile suddenly dimmed. “You’re taking back your invitation?”
“I mean we’re not going in circles, each insisting the other chooses. I already said I’m open to whatever you want, and it wasn’t a ploy for you to throw the ball back in my court, proving you’re more of a gentleman. I always say exactly what I mean.”
His smile flashed back to its debilitating wattage. “You have no idea what a relief that is. But I’m definitely more of a gentleman. It’s an incontestable anatomical fact.”
She made no response as he seated her in his car’s passenger seat. She wasn’t going to take this exchange that lumped him and anatomy together any further. It would only lead to trouble.
Focusing instead on being in his car, she sank into the supple seashell leather while her feet luxuriated in the rich, thick lamb’s wool, feeling cosseted in the literal lap of luxury.
After veering that impressive monster into downtown traffic, he turned to her. “So why did you suddenly stop evading me?”
Yeah. Good question. Why did she?
She told him the reason she’d admitted to herself so far. “I took pity on you.”
“Yes.” He pumped his fist. At her raised eyebrow, he chuckled. “Just celebrating the success of my pitiful puppy-dog-eyed efforts.”
“If that’s what you were shooting for, you missed the mark by a mile. You came across as a hyper, blazing-eyed panther.”
Those eyes flared with enjoyment. “Back to the drawing board, then. Or rather the mirror, to practice. But if that didn’t work…what did?”
And she found herself admitting more, to herself as well as to him. “It got grueling calculating the lengths you must have gone to, popping up wherever I went. It had me wondering if you’re one of those anal-retentive people who must finish whatever they start, and I was needlessly prolonging both of our discomfort. I also had to see what would happen if I let go of the tug-of-war.”
“You’ll enjoy my company.” At her sardonic sideways glance, he laughed. “Admit it. You find me entertaining.”
She found him…just about everything.
“Not the adjective I’d use for you,” Kanza said with a sigh.
“Don’t leave me hanging. Lay it on me.”
