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“No, you didn’t.” Her smile was knowing. “My pride needed an excuse for falling into step with your plans so easily, that’s all. In truth, I knew from the minute we slept together that I would never willingly leave your side.”
He expelled a slow sigh of confused disbelief. “You really feel love me?”
“Uh huh.” She smiled up at him. “And you’re making me happier than I’ve ever been in my life, right now.”
He pulled her to him, gently cradling her against his chest, stroking her hair, kissing the top of her head. “I think I fell a little bit in love with you, that first time we met.”
She frowned. “At Etienne’s funeral.”
“Yes. You were a child, but even then, I felt this enormous desire to protect you. It scared me. I was horrible to you.”
“Yes.” She laughed. “I definitely fell in love with you. I fantasized about you for years.” She sighed dramatically. “But never heard from you again. Unless you count the charmingly businesslike emails your lawyers sent on your behalf.”
He ran a finger down her spine, his body swelling with waves of longing. “I told myself I hated you, because it was the easiest way to keep you at a distance. But then, when you arrived in Mehran, so beautiful and defiant and accusing, and completely grown up, I knew I was in trouble. So I went away, hoping I would get you out of my system, somehow.”
“And?”
“It didn’t work.” He grinned against her hair. “I returned determined to have you. I pretended it was just a matter of physical desire, but, like you, the minute we came together, I knew I would marry you.”
“And you’re never wrong,” she said with a smile of satisfaction.
He held her tight, unable to believe he had been so lucky. How easily it could all have come apart. How dreadful it would have been had he never learned the truth about Etienne. “If your step-father still lived, Phoebe, I would find a way to hurt him.”
She shivered at the cold note of steel in his voice. “Don’t worry about Etienne. I have a plan, Hakim. I just needed my inheritance to see it through.”
His smile was quizzical. “You received your inheritance on our wedding night. And what plan?”
“Come to London with me next month and I will show you.”
“Phoebe Al Meshuda, my beautiful Queen, I will go anywhere with you, anytime. For without you, my life has no meaning, and I am a man without purpose.”
* * *
A month later, to the day, Phoebe stood in the middle of a large room that had been divided into several small partitioned spaces.
“Well, what do you think?”
Hakim’s body filled with a mix of pride and affection. Absentmindedly, he fingered the business card she’d given him. The Andrea Douglas-Cauve Center for Domestic Violence was a testament to Phoebe’s determination and strength of character.
He nodded, not sure he could find words to adequately describe his thoughts on the matter. “This is what you used your inheritance for?”
She grinned. “I just pictured Etienne rolling over in his grave. It seemed to have a certain poetic justice, to fund a domestic violence sanctuary from the money he left me. I feel I’ve outed him as an abusive bastard in the most wonderful of ways. Don’t you?”
“Perfectly,” he said, turning around to look at the space they were occupying. “He would be mortified by the exposure.”
A thought struck her. “Do you mind?”
“Of course I don’t mind. Do you think I have a shred of respect left for the man?”
“No.” Her smile was wicked. “I knew you’d see it my way eventually.”
She linked her fingers through his and led him out of the meeting area, to another room at the back. “This will be the kitchen. I consulted with several psychologists and social workers and decided on this layout for a very simple reason. Cooking is a balm to the soul, and cooking in a communal kitchen can force connections that are otherwise hard to forge. The very act of domestic violence breeds shame, and tendency to push people away. This will bring them together. Downstairs, there are forty small rooms, some with cots, some with bunks, and we will have the ability to convert the attic eventually. I have enough funding for the first three years of operation.” She was proud. So very proud of her achievement. And even more so of being able to share it with Hakim.
“You have enough funding for the rest of the center’s life, and you may begin attic conversions immediately.”
Her eyes opened wide. “Hakim, you don’t need to put your own money into this. It’s something I wanted to do.”
“It is important to you, so it is important to me. Think of me as a silent benefactor.”
