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“Anwar, please. I’m not ready?—”
“Not ready for what? Not ready for a man who loves you with all his heart? Not ready to start a family with a man in love? Not ready for a life of happily-ever-afters, sunsets, and sunrises?” He clutched at his chest. Suddenly, all the pain and repressed memories of his past came tumbling back. “Is there someone else?”
“Anwar!” She flung herself over and faced him. “No! How can you even think that? There has only ever been you.”
“I don’t believe you.” The force of his words startled him. All he saw were broken hearts, free-falling from the sky and shattering at his feet. “You have betrayed me. You have lied.”
Emotion galloped ahead of him like fleeing Arabian stallions racing against recapture. “Nobody’s honest. Nobody’s true.And now you,” he thundered. He felt like everything good was gone. “I thought you felt differently. I thought our love would save us from a world that’s gone mad with narcissistic self-obsession,” he threw at her as he paced toward the door.
Anwar clenched his eyes shut as torrid memories began to rise. He needed to leave before he turned into his father. A violent despot who would kill rather than be left. A tyrannical husband who would destroy rather than be destroyed. A jealous tyrant who would?—
No!He couldn’t let those memories breathe. Anwar was not his father. He would never repeat his unthinkable sins. He turned to take one last look at the woman who had broken his heart. It was better that he left and never came back.
CHAPTERTWENTY-SIX
What have I done? Lucy pulled the bedsheets around her until she resembled an Egyptian mummy. Anwar was giving me everything I ever wanted. Why couldn’t I take his heart when it was offered?
'Fear' came the answer.Fear you’re not worthy. Fear you’ll be abandoned. Fear you’re not loveable. Plain and simple.
Why couldn’t she shake her wounded past? Why did she keep sabotaging her happiness? It was so bloody irrational.
She ran her hand over the crumpled silhouette where Anwar had lain, pledging his love to her. The sheets had felt soft, sensual, and sexy as they cuddled together. But now they felt like sandpaper. Without him. Without his love. Without a future together. She had given him the cold shoulder and erased him from her life.
She shivered and pulled her hand away. The sheets upon which moments before Anwar and she had writhed in pleasure, kissing each other in the most intimate places, now felt cold. Without Anwar, she may as well be lying on an ice cube.
He wanted her in ways she didn’t understand. For weeks, she had witnessed him wrestle with his emotions, his patience tested by their decision not to make love until their child was born. They had explored their bodies in every way possible. She had never wanted the night to end, and then, at last, he had repeated the words she had always longed to hear. His confession of love hadn’t been a mirage. He had repeated the truth of his feelings over and over.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
And she had frozen. Frozen like the sheets now froze around her and her pregnant belly. She had lain frigid, dead to him, fearful of losing his love the moment it had been given.
She had to go to him before it was too late. She unwrapped herself from the tangled sheets and threw her feet out of the bed. She heard the unmistakable roar of Fazzza’s Lamborghini. His brother was helping him flee.The tires screeched on the pebbled forecourt as they accelerated. She ran to the window and cried helplessly as they sped away, fusing into the sunset as their love faded.
“I love you, too,” Lucy shouted. “Anwar, I love you.”
But it was too late.
CHAPTERTWENTY-SEVEN
“It’s just too painful,” Lucy confided to Issy Riley during her hastily arranged Zoom therapy call. “I feel –” she paused.
A long silence ensued. Lucy had experienced enough of Issy’s counseling techniques to know she would wait for as long as it took for Lucy to process her emotions. She had taught her that silence was as therapeutic as talking. Sometimes, more so. If there were degrees in avoiding pain, Lucy would have a PhD, but she couldn’t marinate her feelings in silence forever.
“I’m terrified,” Lucy confessed at last. “I’m absolutely, bloody terrified.”
“Terrified?” Issy reflected, the slight lilt of her voice inviting Lucy to expand her thoughts. It was less a question than an invitation to go deeper.
Lucy hesitated. Did she want to go deeper? If she told Issy her dreams, she risked everything. They would be diminished, no longer the fantasies of a traumatized teenager who dreamed of marrying a prince and living happily ever after. Instead, they would remain the mad visions of a woman who held them within her reach and fled when they were poised to become her living reality.
Lucy gulped as bitter realization flooded her awareness. “I’m sabotaging my happiness, aren’t I?”
“Are you?” Issy asked.
“It’s classic narcissistic abuse survivor syndrome,” Lucy said.
“I don’t believe in labels,” Issy said. “Words can become things. Things youdon’twant.Like giant affirmations to the gods of misery.”
“I can capture happiness in my paintings but can’t make the feelings stick in reality,” Lucy sobbed. “My love life is a disaster. And I am the wrecking ball,” Lucy wept. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I promised myself I wouldn’t cry.”
