Chapter 42
DEJA
Directly after Colin had left, I’d come back to Cairo. It hadn’t felt right for me to continue our grand tour of Egypt without him, especially since we wouldn’t even have planned it at all if not to show him the rest our country.
My family had stayed in Luxor, so for the last four days, my life had been uncharacteristically quiet. It would’ve been blissful if not for the fact that I hadn’t heard from Colin either. He hadn’t called or texted, and at this point, I wasn’t sure where we stood.
The ring still felt heavy on my finger where I sat in my office at White Water Lily, staring out at Cairo through the windows. Somewhere out there in the very far away distance, my mom, sister, and aunts were still planning a wedding I wasn’t sure was happening anymore.
That was another reason why I’d left. When I’d gone downstairs for breakfast at the resort that morning, Jasmine and my mom had already been in the dining room.
I’d cried my way through a shower and getting ready for the day, and since Jasmine hadn’t been in our room when I’d returned after he’d gone, I’d hoped she’d gotten an early start at the pools.
But no.
She and my mom had been sitting on the terrace outside, plates filled with croissants and fruit as they gushed over ideas they’d had for the wedding. While they’d known he’d gone back to Chicago, it hadn’t made a lick of difference in their minds.
They’d treated it like it was nothing more than a temporary hiccup, and technically, that was exactly what it was.
As far as anyone knew, myself included, the wedding was going forward, but after our slight falling out and the way he’d left, I hadn’t been able to bring myself to sit there, helping them plan it.
In the end, I’d been on a plane three hours later, not even waiting for Dad to fill up the jet. I’d simply bought a ticket online, packed my bags, and headed for the airport. As I stared at the sun-lit skyline of the city I’d grown up in, I wondered if I was ever going to hear from him again.
Samples for the winter collection were spread out across my desk, the bottle he’d chosen at center stage.
Around the back of my chair was a simple leather handbag he’d bought me in Sharm El-Sheikh when I’d complained about stupidly only bringing a tote.
The home screen on my phone was one of the pictures I’d snapped of us at our engagement party.
In the short amount of time he’d been here, Colin Thayer had infiltrated every part of my life, my mind, and my heart, and every time I considered the very real possibility that things might just be over between us, it felt like I would break.
When I felt tears burning the backs of my eyes again, I took a deep breath and grabbed my sketchbook, intent on making something beautiful come from all this heartache and uncertainty. I’d barely stared sketching a label for the winter collection when my office door burst open and Khaled walked in.
I frowned. “What are you doing here?”
“At White Water Lily or in Cairo?”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Both. You’re supposed to be in Luxor, or did Dad send you home to come check on me?”
A pinched sort of smile appeared on his lips. “It wasn’t Dad.”
“Ashanti?” I guessed.
He snapped his fingers and stepped into the room, shutting the door gently behind him. “The one and only.”
I laughed. “Well, you can tell her that you’ve done your brotherly duty and checked in. I’m fine. Thank you. You can go now.”
Instead of turning and heading back to the door, he got comfortable in the chair opposite my desk.
Something very few people knew about Khaled was that as much as he could be a pigheaded, ruthless asshole, he was also surprisingly easy to talk to sometimes.
He really cared about his family, and when one of us was in trouble, he would move heaven and earth to help.
When I stared into his eyes and realized that he probably hadn’t only come here because of his wife, the dam of emotions inside me suddenly burst wide open. “I don’t understand him, Khaled. I just… don’t.”
I didn’t generally offload my baggage on him, but he didn’t even flinch, simply nodding and leaning back in his chair. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“I wish I knew,” I spat, my volume control apparently broken as I threw my arms out to my sides. “I’m not sure if it’s just because I’ve spent my entire life around men who wear their hearts on their sleeves, but Colin isn’t like that.”
“He’s not,” Khaled agreed easily. “He’s also not dominated by his pride or his ego.”
“Exactly,” I snapped. “He’s a closed book. I know we’ve only known each other for a few months and maybe that’s all this is, but I don’t understand why he left things the way he did when he went home.”
“How did he leave things?” Khaled asked, his voice too soft and his tone too gentle, like he’d somehow already figured out how much I was hurting. “Did you two have a fight?”
“No, not really, but that’s the thing,” I admitted as my throat started burning with how hard I was trying to hold back tears.
“At least if we had fought, I’d have known what was going on, but I just don’t.
All he told me was that I don’t deserve to get dragged into what’s going on with his family. ”
Before Khaled could respond, a soft knock came from my door and my secretary peeked inside. “Sorry to interrupt, but I have your afternoon mail, Ms. Saad.”
She pushed the door open and placed a neat stack of envelopes on my desk. Then she left and I glanced at the pile. My breath caught when I saw the oversized cream envelope she’d put right on top. It was postmarked from Chicago, my name written across it in Colin’s meticulous handwriting.
Excitement and relief sparked through my entire body. My hands immediately started reaching for it, but then another thought crashed in. What if this is it? What if he went home, spent a few days buried in lawyers, and then decided he can’t do this?
Khaled frowned. “Why do you look like you’re about to faint?”
“Because I might.” I motioned toward the envelope and his eyes widened.
“Is that from him?” he asked. “What are you waiting for? Open it.”
“What if he’s breaking up with me?” I asked after a brief pause. “What if?—”
He cut me off with a gentle shake of his head. “Give him the benefit of the doubt, Deja. The man is crazy about you. Anyone with eyes would see that.”
I held his gaze for another beat, then took a slow breath and slid my finger under the seal, hoping like hell that my brother was right about this. Inside the envelope was only a thick letter, nothing else, and I pulled it out, praying that these pages didn’t contain the news I thought they might.
Deja,
I’m writing this instead of calling because we never really discussed how we would communicate if we were ever separated again, and honestly, I’ve missed our letters.
By the time you read this, I’ll have been back in Chicago for at least a few days and you’re probably wondering if I’ve vanished into thin air. I haven’t. I promise. I’m still here, and if I have to be entirely honest, I’m kicking myself over the way I left.
I owe you a massive apology.
I took off that morning without explaining myself very well, and at the time, I told myself I was protecting you, but instead, I think I probably confused you. I might even have hurt you, which I never wanted to do.
The long and short of it is that I found out in Luxor that our legal situation in Chicago was rapidly changing. Jane told me that the lawyers had requested an urgent meeting and that things didn’t look good.
Over the next few pages, he explained everything about what had been going on with his family’s legal battles since before he’d even met me.
He explained where they were at now and what had been happening while he’d been in Egypt.
He even explained how he blamed himself for having been so happy here while things had been going so badly back home.
Eventually, however, the legal dramas and the explanations about why his family name was still in trouble ended, and the tone of his letter changed again.
You asked if I was coming back and I’ve replayed that question in my head every day since I left. The answer is yes. Always yes. That’s what I should’ve told you before I left, Deja. I will always come back to you.
I’m not questioning whether I want to marry you.
I never have and I never will. It’s simply a matter of whether asking you to marry into my family is fair.
I desperately don’t want you to come to regret your decision of saying yes to a Thayer, but at this stage, I fear that you will.
I’m afraid that you might even come to resent me for it.
When I agreed to marry you, I thought that by the time it happened, my family name wouldn’t be a symbol of shame anymore, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.
If you do agree to go through with this, you will be burdened with a name that will be tarnished for generations, if not forever.
People will look at you and see the daughter-in-law of a criminal. They will judge you and treat you with disdain and disrespect that you don’t deserve.
I miss you.
I don’t know how long this investigation will take or how complicated our situation will become, but I do know this. Every decision I make, I will make because I want to build a life worthy of you.
Whether or not you agree with my reasoning or my methods, that’s the truth. I will come back as soon as I can, and when I do, I hope to be able to offer a name, and a future, you can be proud of.
Until then, don’t let Nanna forget about me.
Always yours,
Colin
For a long moment after I finished reading, I couldn’t move, but then something clicked into place in my mind like a bolt out of the blue.
I’d spent the last few days wondering why he’d shut me out so suddenly as soon as something bad and unexpected had happened back home, but as I sat there, thinking about what he’d written, I realized I already knew the answer.
This was who Colin was. Whether it was because of his family history or simply his nature, Colin Thayer was a protector. He was a fixer. A helper. He was the one people turned to when it all went sideways or when they needed well-reasoned, calm advice.
During the time he’d been here, I’d seen that firsthand. He’d gotten so many calls from everyone, his brothers, his sister, the Westwoods, and people at his office. He was just that guy.
But at the same time, he didn’t know how to let anyone help him carry his own burdens, or how to let them protect him, or how to ask for help when he needed it himself. I had a feeling it was because for so long, he’d been at the forefront of the storm they’d been facing.
Colin and Jane had stood in front of the rest of their family to shield them, but they’d had no choice themselves except to face it head on, with no one to shield or protect them in turn.
Jane had found that later on in Alex, someone to help her carry the weight of their father’s actions, but Colin?
All this time, he’d been going along with whatever my family wanted. He would never ask for anything, but right now, he needed someone to show up for him for a change.
I looked across my desk at Khaled, who hadn’t picked up the letter to read it like Jasmine might’ve. In that sense, Khaled had something in common in Colin.
They were the people their siblings turned to when they needed something practical done fast. He cocked his head when I met his gaze, the slight smile on his lips telling me he already knew what I was about to ask, but I went ahead and told him what I needed anyway.
“How fast can you arrange a flight to Chicago?”