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‘They’ll be a little big, but they should be warm.’
They were big. She had to roll up the legs and the waistband of the loose cotton trousers several times, and the T-shirt looked more like a mini dress. But they were soft and warm.
Omar was sitting on the bed as she came into the room, and he watched in silence as she carefully laid her dress on the armchair by the window. As she turned, he stood up, and she felt her stomach lurch.
She had half expected him to still be there when she finally walked back into the bedroom. What she hadn’t expected was the fierce, chaotic rush of relief, and for a few half-seconds she fought the same urge as earlier, to step into the circle of his arms and let him hold her close as he had in the garden.
But she couldn’t just hand herself over to him again. It had been so hard to trust him the first time and leaving him had been brutal. She wasn’t about to start up that whole cycle again. Only the flipside of that was that she couldn’t expect him to comfort her either.
The bed was still warm from where he had been sitting and she wriggled under the covers. In a moment she would tell him to go, but it wouldn’t matter if he stayed for a few moments longer, she told herself. Just until the nightmare faded a bit more.
‘Here.’
He handed her the brandy again. Her fingers brushed against his as she took the glass, and she felt the contact like an electric current. Only how could such an impersonal touch make her feel like that?
The answer to that question made her panic so much that she wanted to bolt down the brandy in one frantic gulp. But she didn’t. They were over. Her mind was straight about that, and she didn’t need alcohol un-straightening it.
‘Are you not having one?’ she asked.
He shook his head. ‘I’m not the one who had a nightmare.’
Except he had, in a way, she thought, remembering his shocked expression when she’d told him about the miscarriage. He just hadn’t been asleep.
‘I’m sorry about the party. I’ll write to your parents...tell them it was my fault we left early.’ She gave him a small, tight smile. ‘They’re going to hate me soon enough anyway. Your whole family will.’
And it shouldn’t matter, but it did. She thought about Jalila taking her hands. She had been so open and welcoming. They might have been friends—like sisters, even. But now that was ruined too, before it had even started.
His eyes rested on her face. ‘Why would they hate you?’
‘Because I’m divorcing their son, their brother, their uncle.’
Picturing Khalid in his arms was almost enough to unloose the emotion trapped inside her, and she took a shaky sip of the brandy. It was smooth and rich and complex—a bit like the man who had handed it to her, she thought, glancing up at Omar.
While she’d been in the bathroom he had switched on a lamp by the bed and its light was spilling across the room, chasing away the dark shadows in the corners. And now that there was more light, she could see his face clearly.
Her heart began beating faster. His dark eyes looked smudged, and there was a tension in his shoulders as if he was holding some invisible weight.
‘You look tired,’ she said quietly. Actually, he looked exhausted.
‘There’s been a lot going on.’
‘You mean work.’
There had been a hint of bitterness in her voice, and she knew from the tiny, defensive flash in his eyes that he had heard it. But there was no trace of anger or pent-up frustration in his tone when he replied. Instead, there was a rough edge that hurt, high up between her ribs.
‘Work. Planning the party. But mostly trying to find you.’
His beautiful face was taut.
‘I don’t know which was worse. Being told you were in hospital. That you’d been in a car accident. Or finding out about the baby.’
She thought back to the moment when she’d told him about the pregnancy and the miscarriage. They hadn’t been touching, but she had still felt the physical impact of those two statements on Omar. Now the pain in his eyes knifed through her.
‘And then hearing you cry out like that—’
He broke off and walked towards the window, his head tilting up towards the moon, hovering serenely in the blue-black darkness.
Delphi stared at his profile. She didn’t know what to do...what to say. Normally, she was the one who retreated into herself, and the more questions Omar asked the deeper she retreated, the longer her silences. But now, for the first time in her life, she was the one wanting to break the stillness in the room.
