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‘She did,’ he said, then watched her make the connection. His mother had taken men into her bed for money while she had been with child.
A part of him wanted to let Kasia believe that was all there was to the story, the truth he had lived with his entire life. What difference did it really make why his mother had become a prostitute? And when?
But instead of looking shocked, or disgusted, Kasia’s eyes brimmed with tears and the ache he was trying to numb started to pulse again.
‘Why are you crying?’ he said, as he watched her swipe the moisture away.
‘She must have been so desperate. I can’t even imagine it.’
No one had ever cried for his mother, no one had ever mourned her, not even him. But as he watched a single tear track down Kasia’s cheek, something was released inside him and the prickle of guilt and shame—in himself, not his mother—that he had held at bay joined the brutal ache in his chest.
Why would she cry for his mother? Defend her? Lament the terrible choices his mother had been forced to make?
And if this girl could cry for her, who had never known her, and still only knew the worst about her, how much of a bastard did it make him that he could not?
‘She was desperate,’ he said, no longer able to deny the truth he had never confided in anyone, never wanted to acknowledge or confront, until now. ‘She was a virgin, only sixteen years old when he took her to his bed. But he refused to marry her, and when she became pregnant he discarded her, had her branded a whore. She did not return to the Kholadi because of the shame, so she ended up in a brothel in Zafari,’ he said, mentioning the city that had sprawled around the walls of the Golden Palace for generations.
‘The madam there brought me to the palace after my mother died in childbirth. And the women took me in. My father was furious, of course, but even he could not order a baby cast out of the palace, especially one that carried his blood, however tainted. But he never acknowledged me and always refused to see me—until Zane arrived in the palace and Tariq wanted me gone. Everyone told me always that my mother was a whore, and I believed it, but I found out two years ago, when Zane gave me our father’s journals, that it was not the whole truth.’
He had been furious with Zane for giving the journals to him and insisting he read them, especially when he had discovered the inconvenient truth contained within them. He had felt nothing for his mother’s plight, his heart already hardened towards her, but he had been instantly suspicious of Zane’s motives.
Why would Zane presume he would want to unearth ancient history? To revisit something about his birth that would rewrite the principles on which he had founded his life? Was Zane expecting him to be grateful? Expecting him to give Narabia political and economic concessions in their trade negotiations in gratitude for this interference in his private life? Or was it even simpler than that? Did Zane simply wish to weaken him?
Zane, of all people, had to know that the chaos, the struggles, the disadvantages of his childhood had ultimately given him strength—therefore he must have known that showing Raif that his mother had been a victim too might undermine that strength.
But as Raif watched Kasia struggle to hold back her tears, the sympathy and understanding in her eyes probed that place deep inside him that he had never wanted anyone to find—and the ache in his chest rose up to push against his larynx.
No. No. No.
Kasia pressed a hand to her belly, trying to contain the pain, not just at the hideous truths Raif had revealed about his childhood and his mother’s mistreatment and exploitation but also at the guilt tying her stomach in tight knots. Because Raif’s revelations about his mother put a whole new complexion on what had happened a month ago.
‘Is that why…?’ She paused, her throat dry as the guilt sharpened. ‘Is that why you were so insistent we marry? Why you wanted to obey the Law of Marriage of the Sheikhs.’
Had he been trying to right the wrongs his father had done his mother, and him, by observing the same sacred law his father had broken so callously?
She had so easily dismissed his demand that they marry as a backward and autocratic request based on arrogance and a misguided honour system that had no place in modern society, but it had always been much more personal than that. How could it not be after what he had discovered about his mother’s treatment? She had put him in an untenable position by not telling him about her virginity, then had compounded it by dismissing his attempt to solve the problem. She had used him for her own pleasure, and then underestimated him at every turn.
‘I don’t know.’ He shrugged, the movement stiff. ‘I’m not sure what I was thinking at the time. I was shocked by your untouched state. I had not expected it. Or the intensity of our lovemaking.’
Her skin flushed at the bald statement, and the knots in her abdomen heated. She wasn’t sure whether she was moved or flattered or simply aroused by his honesty and the knowledge she wasn’t the only one who had been blindsided by their intense physical connection.
‘But afterwards…’ He sighed. ‘Especially as I lay for days in the Golden Palace with nothing to do, I kept recalling our last moments together. And questioning why I had been so inflexible, so belligerent, so determined to insist upon marriage.’ He hesitated. ‘And it occurred to me that maybe I was more affected by what I had learned about my parents’ past than I had assumed.’
‘I?
??m so sorry,’ she said. ‘For putting you in that position.’ It wasn’t the first time she had apologised for not telling him of her virginity, but it was the first time she had meant it without reservation.
Maybe she’d had no knowledge of his past, his priorities, when she had slept with him, but she had assumed he was a thoughtless man, and had never examined his motives properly. His honour was important to him, not because he was arrogant or overbearing but because he had been forced to fight for it every single day of his life.
He lifted her hand, stared at her fingers as he brushed his thumb across her knuckles.
The heat in her stomach warmed further and glowed, and seemed to wrap itself around her heart, making her ribs feel tight.
The guilt twisted, though, when he raised his head, his expression tense. And guarded.
‘I think perhaps it is I who should apologise to you,’ he said, his voice gruff but forceful.
‘Why?’ she asked.
