Mills & Boon Modern Romance Collection: February 2015. Кэрол Мортимер
regret and somehow it calmed him.
‘What you don’t know is the full story. I spoke to Samira before I came here and she agreed to me telling you.’ He’d hated even asking.
‘I know enough.’ Jacqueline frowned. ‘Her boyfriend, her lover...’ she paused on the word and Asim wondered what she was thinking ‘...had an affair with his married co-star. Her husband caught them and is dragging his wife through an acrimonious divorce. Now the press are dragging up every detail of both their marriage and the relationship between Samira and Jackson Brent.’ She spread her hands. ‘Since Samira is gorgeous and talented, plus she’s a princess with wealth and an exotic background, it’s not surprising the press want her story.’
Asim inhaled slowly, a familiar weight crushing his chest. ‘But what they don’t know, what they must never know, is that Samira was pregnant at the time.’
‘Oh, Asim!’ Jacqueline’s eyes bulged, her face a mask of horror. ‘She didn’t...?’
He nodded, his gut clenching as he remembered his sister, parchment-white and dazed, her face marred by the salt tracks of tears, lying beneath a starched sheet, a nurse hovering. ‘She miscarried just after she arrived here. Whether from the stress or whether it was going to happen anyway, no one could say.’
Asim had never felt so helpless, so utterly useless, in his whole life.
‘I’d always done my best to look out for her. It went against every instinct to do nothing when she hooked up with Brent. But I told myself she had to grow up some time. She had to make her way in the world.’ He dropped his head, torn between shame that he hadn’t done better by Samira and frustration that she’d made him promise not to exact revenge on Brent.
‘I wasn’t much of a protector. All I could do was look after her till she recuperated and give her privacy.’ The feeling that the world had spun out of his control, that there was nothing he could do for someone he cared for, wasn’t one he ever wanted to experience again.
‘You did the best you could. You did all anyone could.’ Supple fingers closed around his fist and a jolt of power sizzled through him. Jacqueline had moved to sit beside him, he realised. Her arm was across his, her slim frame warming his side.
Asim clamped his other hand over hers, unwilling to let her slip away again. He didn’t try to understand how her touch, her sympathy, could ease his turmoil. He simply accepted that they did.
He breathed deep, drawing in the scents of sand and warm, sweet woman, and felt that terrible roiling in his stomach quieten down.
‘You were right, Asim. You had to let her go. She’s not a child.’
He stared at their joined hands. They looked so right.
‘Samira was so fragile, so distraught, we feared she might have a complete breakdown. The one thing I knew was she had to be kept safe from the press.’
‘And then I turned up, bearding the dragon in his den. No wonder you hated the idea of me staying in the palace.’ She squeezed his hand and, despite everything, Asim’s mouth turned up at the corners.
‘I’ve been called many things but never a dragon.’
‘Really?’ He caught a lighter note in her voice. ‘But it’s so apt. You’re very fierce and proud, and handsome, in a dangerous sort of way.’
Asim huffed humourlessly. ‘Don’t forget fire-breathing.’ His hold on her tightened. ‘Jacqueline, I’m ashamed of how I reacted tonight. I saw you with that reporter and I lost it. I should have known better.’
Jacqui felt the ripple of tension through Asim’s broad shoulder and arm. Regret laced his voice as he squeezed her hand and she felt the last of her fury fade.
She’d been hurt, unbelievably hurt, but now she understood what had driven Asim and why he’d overreacted.
‘I’m not surprised you lost it,’ she murmured eventually. ‘Tonight pressed every one of your hot buttons: your fears for Samira, your need to protect her, your distrust of the press. Even down to the idea of a female journalist taking advantage of her.’ It all made a skewed sort of logic.
‘But you didn’t deserve that tirade. You put yourself out for my sister.’
Jacqui shrugged. ‘She’s a good friend.’ Amazingly, after just weeks, it was the truth. They had clicked in a way Jacqui never had with another woman. In the past she’d kept to herself, focusing on work, the part of her life where she felt competent, where she fitted. Her friendships had been limited to colleagues and her job meant she was often moving on. Only Imran had been a constant, keeping in touch even when they weren’t working together.
‘So I understand now.’ He paused. When he spoke again his voice was gruff. ‘What you did for her—not just managing the press, but posing with her model friends to show off her designs for the cameras—that took real guts.’
Asim was right. Being photographed with a bevy of beauties had tested her. It was one thing to bask in Asim’s assurances, quite another to parade for the press. Only knowing how much it meant to her friend had kept her there. Samira’s need was greater than hers.
‘Then there were the fireworks.’ Asim shifted and she looked up to see his eyes fixed on her. ‘How did you manage? You hate loud noises.’
Jacqui lifted her shoulders, arrested by the gleam of warmth in that look. Heat trickled through her where just a short time ago there’d been an arctic chill.
‘I don’t know. The first bang nearly had me on the ground, till I realised everyone was looking up and smiling. After that it was easier.’ No point admitting every eruption of sound had jarred through her like the crack of doom.
‘You’re a remarkable woman, Jacqueline Fletcher.’
Her eyebrows rose. ‘All I did was help Samira choose how to face the public. She just needed a positive angle.’
Asim shook his head. ‘Don’t downplay it. I know your demons.’ His thumb stroked her wrist. ‘I’ve seen the nightmares and I’ve watched you break into a cold sweat at a sudden loud noise.’
Jacqui squirmed, trying to move away, but he wouldn’t release his grip.
‘I’m fine.’
‘But you never talk about it.’
Her breath snatched in as tension clamped her ribs. ‘There’s nothing to talk about.’
Asim said nothing. Reluctantly she looked up to find him regarding her through narrowed eyes.
‘What? You think everything would suddenly be better if I relived it all?’ Sharp anger rose. He knew nothing about it! She’d been through it all multiple times in counselling.
‘It seems to me you’re reliving it anyway. How often do you dream of Imran?’
Like air rushing from a punctured balloon, Jacqui’s ire bled away. No matter how she tried to escape, the memories crowded back. Memories of that day, the doom-laden sense of guilt and regret, rather than recollections of her friend alive and happy.
She shook her head, hunching her shoulder.
‘Jacqueline!’
‘What?’ She met his stare, striving for defiance and finding only pain. She pulled air into her tight lungs. He refused to back down.
‘Have you seen a dead body, Asim?’
He nodded.
‘Have you ever seen someone blown apart by a bomb?’ She snatched another breath, the movement jagging pain through her chest. ‘What about a street full of debris, where it’s hard to make out what used to be people? Living, breathing people who just seconds before were—’ Her next breath was a sob and she stopped, sinking her teeth into her lip, trying to fight the trembling that radiated from somewhere deep inside.
‘I’ve