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It was done.
I was happy to have shared, but now...the urgency to leave pressed far too insistently.
Tossing the blush blanket off my legs, I stretched and swallowed a moan of discomfort. “Thank you so much for staying all night.” I smiled and reached for the armrest of the couch. I didn’t need a walking stick like Aslan did sometimes, but I wasn’t nearly as nimble as I used to be. Especially after sitting for eighteen hours. “I’ll walk you out.”
“No, wait.” Margot scrunched up her tissue. “But you haven’t told us the rest.”
“The rest?” I frowned, staying sitting. “There is no rest.”
“Did Zara always keep Aslan’s secret about what he did to Ethan? Did she marry Cooper? What about Joel and—”
I held up my hand, stemming her questions. “Zara and I patched up our friendship when Aslan returned to me. We see each other once a month for coffee. And yes, she has always kept the fact that she saw Aslan knocking Ethan out by her rubbish bins a secret. She has never betrayed us, and I will always be grateful to her. She did marry Cooper, and they have two lovely sons who have given them four grandchildren. As for Joel, he married a woman from Samoa, and they live there together, running a boutique hotel.”
“Did Aslan remain head of the Kara empire?” Dylan asked, consulting his notes. “You mentioned he was going to dismantle it when he’d helped whatever government he was working for clean up a few messes.”
“He did.” I folded my hands in my lap. “He officially shut down every aspect of his inherited business when he was forty-four.” I winced, remembering why but not willing to share.
Unfortunately, Margot noticed and said, “It was because of his heart, wasn’t it? He stopped straddling the law of right and wrong because his heart needed less stress?”
I narrowed my eyes and chuckled under my breath. “Even after such a long day, you’re still shrewd.”
“I have to be.” She shrugged. “I’m invested in your story, Nerida. Wait—” Her eyebrows knotted together. “You go by the name Nerida Avci. All your biographies mention you as Avci.”
“I’m sure there’s a question in there somewhere.” I smiled.
“Why did you never change it to Kara? After all, that’s who you legally married.”
I looked into the distance, forming a suitable answer. “I suppose my first marriage to Aslan was the one that solidified my true purpose. I married him as Aslan Avci. I loved him with all my heart and soul. I was grateful he shed his demons and ghosts, but a part of me wanted to keep loving that tortured boy even though the man was free. I always wanted Aslan to know that I loved both sides of him. The good and the bad. The dark and the light. In Turkey, our friends and extended family we’ve reached out to over the years and reconnected with all know me as Nerida Kara. Ayla goes by Kara, or she did until she married Harry.
“I suppose, if I had to put my finger on the exact reason I stayed an Avci, it’s because Cem never deserved Aslan as his son. Yet Emre and Jale Avci, kind people who raised him during his most formative years, did. He learned his love of math from them, even if his synesthesia was genetic. He learned how to love and protect from them, even if they weren’t originally his to love and protect.”
“That’s beautiful, Neri,” Dylan said softly.
“Thank you.” I did my best to hide my impatience for them to go but Margot once again picked at a sore spot.
“I didn’t give you a chance to answer my other question...the one about why he shut down the Kara empire.”
I sighed.
I wanted to refuse.
It was a little too close to home and the reason I was now desperate to leave.
But...I’d given everything else away; I couldn’t hold on to the final pieces.
“You’re right that Aslan dismantled his holdings and trades in Turkey to protect his health. The legitimate companies we’d invested in remained, but the illegal stuff was handed over to the operation that only ever met Aslan in secret.
“I never truly knew what he had to do for them because it was safer that I didn’t. And Aslan never put us at risk because although the deal he’d made had allowed him to return to Australia, he would never put his family in danger.
“We came first. Above everything.”
“Do you still come first, or...are we speaking past tense again?” Margot winced.
Taking pity on her, I tampered my impatience and gave her what she needed to hear. “Do you want me to say the words that Aslan Kara, my most wonderful husband, is still alive?”
She melted into the couch. “Oh, would you? Please. That would help me sleep tonight. If you don’t, I’ll always imagine him keeling over while you enjoyed your twentieth anniversary in Lunamare.”
Glancing at Dylan, then back to Margot, I sucked in a breath and told her the truth and nothing but the truth. “Aslan is still alive. Forgive my use of dramatics for the article, but I stand by what I said. I never saw Aslan Avci again because he was ruled by shadows and grief. Aslan Kara is light and faith itself, even after everything he’d endured.”
