AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Yes.’ She smiled as she thought of him. ‘He was offered his college placement, right before they died. They were so happy. Medicine’s all he’s ever wanted to do. Even as a boy, he used to walk around with this little toy med kit, asking to listen to our heartbeats all the time.’ Her expression was laced with nostalgia, her eyes sparkling with the warmth of her memories. ‘Then Mom got sick and he became even more determined. All he wants to do is help people get better.’ She shook her head wistfully. ‘I swore I’d do whatever I could to send him through school.’
His eyes closed as he stopped walking. ‘And let me guess. His degree will cost one hundred thousand dollars?’
She nodded. ‘I should have told you that’s what I needed that amount for.’
‘You were under no obligation to tell me anything.’ He looked away again, so she barely caught his muttered oath. ‘But I should have asked.’
‘Would it have changed anything?’
He turned to face her, lifting his hand and catching her hair, his eyes on hers. ‘It would have helped me understand you better.’
It was such a specific—and low—amount, given her bargaining position. All this time he’d been thinking of her as mercenary, just like Fatima, when she’d given him incontrovertible proof that money was not—and never had been—a driving force for her. Why hadn’t he queried that at the time? Why hadn’t he asked her why she needed precisely one hundred thousand dollars? Why hadn’t he pushed her, when he’d asked about her job, and her reasons for doing what she did?
She hadn’t said she ‘wanted’ one hundred thousand dollars—she’d said she ‘needed’ it. He’d pushed that aside at the time but now he saw the desperation behind her plea, and the embarrassment she felt at asking for such a paltry sum, and was furious with himself for being so thoughtless. Anger had blinded him and he’d failed to see her predicament. Or had he simply not wanted to see it?
He had taken everything at face value because it had suited him to think the worst of her. It had suited him to see her as another Fatima, to believe she was just the same, driven purely by money, when the more the heard from India, the more he wondered if, actually, everything she did was driven by love.
