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“Jada,” he said painfully, but she put her hands up to stop him.
“No. I’m your wife, and I’ll continue to be your wife. I’ll do it in another country so you can stay here and be with the woman you clearly love. And I’ll go home and perform my wifely duties. But when you’re done here, you need to leave her here. Because it’s one thing to suffer this humiliation now, but I won’t do it forever. So you can either leave her behind, or you can stay here. I don’t care.”
She turned and stormed out, and as the whole world slowed, Kalil realized that this was it. This was the moment of clarity that he’d been waiting for. He’d spend months pining for the woman that was holding his hand, and he didn’t even realize that he was in love with the woman he’d married.
He was in the love with the woman that he’d just ripped apart. He was in love with the woman who was running to get as far away from him as possible.
“Look at that, everything worked out for themselves,” Sara said as she reached up for him. Kamal immediately pulled away.
“I don’t love you. I don’t say that to hurt you, Sara. At one time you were my world, but the woman that I love has just seen me with another woman. And I have to go to her.” He tried to wrench away from her, but she grabbed his hand.
“Wait. Kamal, just wait a second. We can be together. You can marry me, and we can be happy. Why are you throwing that away?”
“Is that what this is about?” he said coldly. “What happened, Sara. You thought you could be with someone better than me? Someone richer or better? And now that you realized that you can’t, you want to come back. But you don’t want to date me. You just want to marry me. You just to win. But my life and my happiness is not a contest for you to win. You are vapid and narcissistic, and I have no idea how I didn’t see that before. Get out of my way, Sara. Now.”
Her jaw dropped, and she stared at him. “You’re serious.”
“I’m serious. This was a mistake.” Instead of waiting for her to leave, he just pushed past her. Anxiety twisted inside him as he raced through the halls and down the stairs. When he got into the lobby, the staff behind the staff stared at him. “My wife? Where is my wife?”
“I’m sorry, sir. She asked for a car to take her back to the airport. She’s gone.”
Pressing his hand against his mouth, he sagged against the wall. His mother was right. She had raised a fool. And now he might have seriously destroyed his marriage.
* * *
Jada stared out the window the whole way to the airport. She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream and sob, but she felt completely empty. There wasn’t any pain or rage. She was simply hollow.
Reaching up, she pushed the button to lower the partition. “Did you need something, ma’am?” the driver asked as he looked at her through the rearview mirror.
“My husband is cheating on me. I don’t actually know that I can call it cheating. We’ve only been married a couple months, and he doesn’t see me. It was an arranged marriage. We were friends as kids but we grew apart. He fell in love, and I went to school and completely changed myself. But some things don’t change, and we’re still married. And I don’t show who I am because I’m afraid that he’s not going to like me. It doesn’t seem to matter. He’s still in love with her, and he’s never going to love me. “
The driver stared at her. “I’m sorry ma’am.”
“I can’t leave him. He’s going to be Sheikh one day, and if I try to leave him, an entire country will alienate me. But I love him. I love him, and I don’t think I can live my life married to him if he doesn’t love me.”
“I’m sorry ma’am.”
Jada stared down at her hands. “I’m pregnant. I can’t leave him anyways. I can’t let my baby grow up without a father, and I certainly don’t want my baby to grow up in a loveless marriage.”
“I’m sorry ma’am.”
The car bumped along, and she fidgeted. “I don’t know why I care that I’m in a loveless marriage. It was arranged. It was loveless to begin with.”
“I’m sorry ma’am.”
“What do I do? I have to stay in this marriage, so I can either put my foot down and tell him that he can’t see her, or I can let him be happy. It should be important that one of us be happy. I love him, so I want him to be happy.” Her body started to tremble, and she felt a lump form in her throat.
“I’m sorry ma’am.”
“Will you quit saying that?” she shouted. “Stop! Quit pitying me. Quit telling me that you’re sorry and say something helpful!”
The driver lowered his eyes to the road, and Jada reached up to close the partition. As the tears formed in her eyes, she sat back and hunched her shoulders. And finally, the tears began to fall. Her whole body wracked with sobs, and she lost all of her control.
Slumping, she knocked her head lightly on the window over and over again. Her marriage was over before it had ever begun. And the worse part was that she couldn’t get out of it.
Chapter Eleven
“What do you mean that the plane won’t go. Why now?” Jada said as she crossed her head. “I want to leave. You’re supposed to take me back.”
