Chapter Two #2
He didn’t fidget, or tap, or hum as the woman on the other side of her currently was.
He didn’t read, and from memory he hadn’t had headphones in…
Liliana stole a glance at his reflection in the black window opposite, just to be sure of that fact.
Or was she attempting to meet his gaze…?
She had never flirted really, or been so bold, but whatever she was doing didn’t work, because he was far too smooth to bother sneaking a peek.
Or simply he gave no thought to the blushing woman seated beside him.
People were starting to get off in droves now as they pulled out of the next station. Apart from one gentleman in a cap standing by the doors it was only them.
Sitting together.
In a deserted tube.
As if they were together.
‘Well, this is awkward,’ she said and he turned and frowned.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Us…’ She waved to the empty seats and saw that his frown simply deepened. Oh, why did she always say stupid things and talk too much?
‘If you would prefer, I can move,’ he offered as the train started to pull off. ‘I certainly don’t want you to feel awkward.’
‘Of course not.’ She shook her head. ‘I was just making a joke. A bad one, clearly, given you didn’t get it.’
He offered a brief upturn of his lips—it could not be construed as a smile—and he turned away, the tube grinding from the station, then coming to a halt in a tunnel where they sat for a little while before the driver made an announcement.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is your driver speaking…’
They were told they were being held due to congestion ahead and would resume moving soon.
Liliana, more than used to it, gave it no thought.
Rafiq could not escape his thoughts.
He wished he’d never keyed in that code, for his mind was still back in the tunnel that had brought him here, or was it back in Al-Nawar and the baking hell of his prison, with the guards taunting him, trying to get him to break?
‘Your king, your father, still refuses to negotiate… He cannot think much of his sons…’
Rafiq already knew his father’s stance; before his capture they had argued about it on the phone. If he wouldn’t negotiate for Khalid, the heir, there was really little hope for him.
Instead of responding he repeated the question he’d been asking since first captured. ‘Where’s Khalid?’
For the first time his question was answered.
‘Talking,’ the guard smirked. ‘Khalid sings like a bird.’
Rafiq inhaled sharply, hating the memories that rained on him today. Rather than sit reliving hell, he chose a sweeter option and turned to the woman by his side.
She was very beautiful. Her wavy hair was coiling as it dried, and now that she wasn’t blushing in apology, her skin was as pale as porcelain, and he would like to know the colour of her eyes.
‘So,’ he said. ‘You’ve had a bad day at work?’
She breathed out a silent laugh and turned to him.
Blue.
Her eyes were a very dark blue and framed with long dark lashes, her face so much sweeter than going over memories.
‘Every day seems to be a bad day at work at the moment,’ Liliana admitted, ‘but then it got worse.’
‘How so?’
She hesitated, because while she was good at small talk, she didn’t open up easily to anyone, and certainly not about things like this.
Yet delight flared as he prolonged the conversation.
And there was just something about his effect on her that had had her turn her head and smile.
‘I went on a date with this guy I’ve been talking to online.
’ She screwed up her nose. ‘I didn’t really want to go but he suggested we meet for coffee and…
’ She shook her head. ‘I shan’t bore you with the details. ’
Rafiq doubted that she could bore him. Mere moments ago, his mind had been consumed with dark memories. Now, suddenly he was hearing about her world.
And he liked hearing it.
‘I’m Rafiq,’ he said. ‘Can I ask your name?’
‘Lili,’ she said, ‘or Ana.’ He perhaps frowned again because she chose to enlighten him. ‘My actual name is Liliana but it must be a bit of a mouthful because people either call me Lili or Ana. I answer to all three…’
Yes, he liked hearing about her world.
‘So, how come you were meeting this man when you didn’t even want to go?’
‘Because…’ It was a very good question, and she rested her head back against the window behind her and closed her eyes as she accepted what it all boiled down to. ‘I lied.’
‘Oh?’
‘A stupid, pointless lie.’ She sat quietly for a moment pondering the mess she’d landed herself in and then thought of a Sir Walter Scott poem that summed up her situation perfectly. ‘“Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive…”’
‘I remember that from school.’
‘I remember it from my mum telling me off!’ Liliana laughed.
‘Do you lie a lot?’
‘No,’ she said and then thought about it for a moment.
‘Maybe. I’m not very…’ She paused, because how did she tell him that she wasn’t usually so chatty with strangers, and that usually she found so many things awkward and often spoke just to fill gaps?
‘When I was little, I used to make up stories.’
‘Really?’
‘All the time.’ She nodded, then paused as the driver informed them they’d soon be moving.
‘Very detailed, elaborate ones.’ As the tube moved on, so did their conversation, and she couldn’t help but wonder how she could speak so easily to this man who she should surely find daunting.
Perhaps it was the way he leaned his head in a little as if he really wanted to hear what she had to say as he listened to her tale.
‘When I was little, I told all the other girls at school that my father was a captain in the navy and that was why he was away from home so much.’
‘He wasn’t a captain in the navy?’
‘No, he was a vet and married—just not to my mother. He would turn up now and then at a school play and such.’
‘Did you tell the girls that he was on shore leave?’
‘I didn’t get a chance to. I’d already been caught out by then, or rather my father had…’ She winced at the memory of her father’s wife coming to their door, and the gossip spreading through her village. ‘They teased me mercilessly.’
‘Children can be cruel.’
‘Yes,’ she said, then smiled it all away, as if it hadn’t mattered a jot. And normally people smiled back when she did that, but Rafiq did not. It was as if he knew her smile was false. ‘So, you see,’ Liliana quickly concluded, ‘I’m not very good at lying.’
The tube could rattle and jolt at times, but as the gaps between stations grew longer there was a nice hum, the occasional peek of the evening sky and the world outside as it moved above ground and then the world disappeared again as the windows turned back to black… and it was really rather relaxing.
Or was it the pleasant, polite man next to her, who simply got her little jokes? At one point she thought the conversation was over.
It was.
Rafiq was not one for idle chatter.
Not anymore.
He’d used to be.
He thought of a whole day spent at the track, watching others, chatting while waiting to be called.
Those had been the best of times. Nobody treating him with reverence, and his bodyguard had stayed well back.
So much so, Rafiq would forget the other man was there; at meets he was just another athlete.
Liliana didn’t know who he was, and it was refreshing.
New.
‘So,’ he asked, ‘what is this tangled web you’ve weaved?’
Readily she turned back to him. When surely she should be a blushing, bumbling mess, they just spoke so easily, sort of in a new language made just for them, as if they’d known each other for ages rather than just met. There was something patient about his eyes and his smile.
‘My manager at work likes me.’ She wrinkled her nose.
‘Am I right in assuming it’s not reciprocated?’
‘You’re right. But there’s a huge fashion ball at the beginning of spring…’ She told him the pickle she was in, although he rather frowned at the pickle word, but then nodded to let her know that he’d got it.
And then when she told him all about her latest tangled web, she suddenly smiled. ‘But the dress is divine.’
Rafiq found that he smiled back, and that was actually a newsworthy event. It wasn’t that he never smiled, but they tended to be polite, or official ones, not a slow, soft smile as you looked into the other person’s eyes.
For Rafiq there was this rare feeling of freedom as he let his eternal guard down.
‘So,’ she continued, ‘I was talking to this guy online and he seemed nice.’
‘Seemed?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Did something just happen?’
‘No, nothing like that. It was more something he said. I’m not going to tell you what. It’s too embarrassing. Suffice to say I got up and walked out…’ She paused. ‘Well, I paid my half of the bill and got up and walked out.’
‘I’m intrigued,’ he admitted, ‘I want to know what he said to ensure I don’t say the same thing!’
‘Honestly,’ she said and gave a shake of her head, felt his eyes dart to her hair, to her moving curls and then back to her eyes. ‘I don’t think you ever would.’
For Liliana there was a small revelation occurring. That was it, she realised; that was why she could sit here and easily speak. At a level she hadn’t known existed, there was the recognition that this person was safe.
‘Anyway, after he said what he did, I dashed for the underground and slid on a puddle. I was just all cross with the world, oh, and men in particular, and then you offered me a seat…’
‘As any gentleman would do.’
‘Not in my world.’
‘Then you’re in the wrong world.’