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It hadn’t been like that, Olivia wanted to say. We were in love. Only they hadn’t been. She had loved Zamir. But what had he been doing? Passing time? Assuaging his guilt for taking her innocence by spinning it into some kind of relationship?
“You’re trying to distract me so that you can win.” She lightened the mood with a joke, and Ra’if rewarded her with a laugh.
Olivia was surprised, when she had almost bankrupted Ra’if, to realise that three hours had passed.
“My goodness,” she stood. “I should get going.”
“Yes,” Ra’if observed with a small smile. “Unlike me, I suppose you have far more important things to do.”
Actually, she didn’t. Zamir had made sure of that. He’d paid her off so generously, and she hadn’t yet felt that she could face the demands of her job. She lifted her handbag over her shoulder.
“Will you come again?” He asked suddenly, his expression serious.
He looked so like Zamir that her chest began to thump with the racing of her heart. “Would you like me to?”
“Yes.”
“Fine. I’ll come again.”
“I’ll have the board ready,” he nodded towards their game.
“I suppose it’s only fair to give you a chance to defend your honour.” She lifted her hand in a wave, and slipped back into her car.
She cried the whole way back to town. Her heart was being ripped from her chest. Spending time with Ra’if was like a perfect Band-Aid to her Zamir scar. For he was similar enough to constantly remind her of the man she loved. And he spoke of Zamir with ease and comfort. She could take those tiny conversational breadcrumbs and use them to bind together some of her soul.
Eventually, she hoped, she would feel like herself again.
CHAPTER NINE
“You don’t want to get out?”
The sun was shining, despite the cold, and it dappled across their legs in a cross-hatch pattern cast by a nearby lattice.
“I don’t feel ready to get out,” Ra’if corrected. He ran his fingers over a leaf. “I’ve become used to it here.” He squinted up at the sky. “It is calm. It is quiet. I know there is no risk of my being tempted.”
Olivia settled her legs under her and studied his profile. She was looking at Ra’if, but she saw Zamir, and it hurt like hell. “But you’ve come so far. You’ve done so well.”
“Yes.” He slid a sidelong smile in her direction. “I look almost like myself now.”
/> “I don’t mean that you look well. I mean that you seem well. You’ve been here for months. You’re clean. You’re eating properly.”
“It is not so simple. I fear returning to the palace and meeting with my friends. Friends who were part of the life I used to lead.”
“These people were not your friends,” she snapped caustically. “Surround yourself with better people. Let your brother be your friend, and only him, until you are certain of your strength.”
“My brother,” he said with a harsh laugh. “Zamir has far too much regard for his duties to waste time on me.”
“How can you say that?” She asked, feeling a burning need to defend the man she had loved. “He came and stayed here, and visited you every day, because he cares for you. I would say you are more important to him than anything or anyone.”
Her impassioned plea watered the seed of suspicion he’d carried for the past three weeks. Since Olivia had arrived as an angel of mercy and brought sunshine back to his days.
“You speak, at times, as though you know my brother well.”
“Oh.” She shook her head and pulled her glasses down over her eyes in the same movement. It was an obvious gesture that she was hiding something, even if Ra’if didn’t know her as well as he now considered he did. “I don’t.” She swallowed nervously. “I haven’t spoken to him since he left.”
Ra’if sighed. “Liv …” It occurred to Olivia that the shortened version of her name was something Zamir had never used. He had always called her Olivia or Habibi. But then, she had become friends with Ra’if. They were friends. Nothing more. There was none of the same angst-filled tension thumping between them.
“What?” She looked at him bravely.
