CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
V ALENTINA LEFT BAHR-AL-DAHAB as soon as a replacement could be trained to help with Hind, clearance letters from the bank in hand. She squeezed Desmond’s hand in a sisterly fashion, the same fashion they’d adopted since the night of their party, living on opposite sides of their villa, meeting in the middle for a strained meal once or twice, trying to prove to themselves that they were both unaffected. Promised to be in touch.
Desmond dropped her off at the airport himself. He didn’t ask what her destination was, he didn’t use any of his resources to find out, and she didn’t volunteer the information. Her beautiful face looked drawn and there were hollows beneath her eyes. She didn’t kiss him. She barely looked at him.
“I’ll come back for any events you deem necessary,” she croaked.
He shook his head. “I’ve put you through enough, don’t you think?”
At that, she laughed, but it was a raspy, painful sound. “Yeah.” She reached out a hand for him to shake as if they were business partners wrapping up a deal. In some ways, he supposed they were. He took her small, soft hand in his, and felt something hard against his palm. When he looked at it he had to clear his throat.
It was the vintage solitaire she’d picked out on that flight from London, what seemed like an age ago.
“You could keep it, you know,” he said.
She shook her head. “You’ve given me enough.”
It was true, in some respects, but it hadn’t been enough, had it? He shoved his hands in his pockets and watched her hips sway gently as she walked away, disappearing into the airport security line. She’d refused his offer to fly her wherever she wanted to go, no questions asked.
It was probably for the best.
So Desmond went home and he got to work. Now that his relationship with Val had been completely dissolved, he saw clearly that the only thing that had been fake was his conviction that he’d be able to leave unscathed. Whatever they’d had, it had been as real to him as the blood running through his body.
Worse than that, he missed her. Missed her enough to wonder for the first time in ten years if there was something that could occupy his mind more than the Flight 0718 disaster, or the deal that was already pumping hundreds of thousands into his accounts. Never had doing the right thing felt so wrong.
He used long nights in the office and back-to-back meetings to keep thoughts of her at bay. But then, inevitably, his body would succumb to tiredness and he’d wake up dreaming of her.
He lay there hard and aching, his longing for her pushing out the faces of the victims from his memory that he’d spent so many years obsessing over. They were gradually being replaced by memories of laughing with her in his office in London, of sipping champagne with her in a gilt opera house, of chasing Hind all over London. And most vividly, that last night, when he’d pinned her down in the cool darkness of her bedroom, where she’d gripped him as if—
Something had broken in him that night that had allowed her to seep through the cracks and take hold somewhere deep inside. Part of him wondered if his bruised mind had merely replaced one obsession with another. The other part of him wondered if—and he could barely even allow the thought to skim his mind—if he had grown to care for her, if he could deserve her…
He could not complete the thought. Instead, he dove into the Sheikh Rashid project with an energy that left his team looking on helplessly half of the time as he tore through deliverables and made Sheikh Rashid look pleased every time he submitted a report.
“I knew you were the man for the job,” he said, patting Desmond’s arm, his face florid with satisfaction. He did not ask about Valentina, who he assumed was in her new bridal home, preparing it for their new life together; he did not comment on Desmond’s sunken face or wild eyes. Hind, however, who had resumed her internship, did look at him from under heavily mascaraed eyes that were dark with curiosity. The teenager had surprised him these past few weeks. She’d showed up on time, paid attention and actually contributed to her team’s project. His social media marketing manager had approached him about giving her more responsibility and perhaps featuring her in some content—she was the daughter of the owner, after all!
He avoided her to the best of his ability, but she lingered after a team meeting.
“Val hasn’t been answering my messages,” she said, by way of an opening.
Desmond had prepared for this. “She hasn’t seen her family in a few years. I told her to go and enjoy this time off, and I’ll join her later after your father’s project wraps up.”
Hind compressed her lips; she did not look convinced at all.
“You must miss her.”
“You have no idea,” he said truthfully.
Hind was still standing there, twisting her rings round and round on her fingers. She looked very young and very apprehensive. He sighed, inwardly. What did she want from him? Praise? He’d give it if it got her out of there quicker.
“I’m pleased with your work,” he said after a beat. “Very fresh and quick-witted.”
“Oh.” She looked surprised, as if she hadn’t been thinking of that at all. “Thank you,” she said almost shyly. “I like it.”
“You’re good at it.”
Another beat, and she was still there. Desmond sighed inwardly; it was ridiculous that a sixteen-year-old was driving him out of his own office but he really didn’t want to continue the conversation. “Well. If you’ll excuse me…”
“Did I mess something up?”
Their words overlapped each other. Hind chewed the inside of her lip, then repeated herself. “Did I do something wrong?”
“What do you mean?” asked Desmond, trying very carefully to keep his face bland.
“I mean, the night after the party.” Hind’s voice was growing softer and softer. “I didn’t mean— It was all that social media stuff, all the attention, all the pictures…”
“Hind.”
“It was my fault. I knew Val wouldn’t like the exposure and I did it anyway. People were just so into her. Into both of you.” She waved a hand in his general direction. “I mean, you’re like, so old, but mashallah , you made for some good content—”
Old? He tried his best not to look as offended as he felt.
Surprisingly, Hind took the hint. “And now she’s not here,” she said, staring at the ground. “I know something’s wrong. Val always answers.”
“Hind…”
“Do you think she’s mad at me?”
“I’ll tell her to call you,” he promised, and unceremoniously ushered the girl out. “Don’t feel guilty, Hind. It’s self-indulgent and won’t get you anywhere. As long as your intentions are good, you can feel sorry about how something turned out. You can learn from it, but you shouldn’t feel guilt.”
“But that’s impossible,” she said after a pause.
“It feels impossible but it is not actually impossible. You should concentrate on the lessons learned, not the fallout from what happened.” As the last words left his mouth, he paused. Hard.
You could be talking about yourself.
No! the little voice deep inside his chest hit back, licking up like a flame he’d been tending for years. She didn’t hurt people the way you did.
But was it really so different? Would he have reacted differently to Flight 0718 if someone had advised him the way he’d just advised Hind? Or, if he’d sought out someone who could help him work through the pain of what he’d done?
He realized after a long moment that he’d been holding his breath. He released it, slowly, then rubbed his aching jaw.
He knew exactly what it would take to get help. Hell, this wasn’t his parents’ generation. He had access to the best care, the best therapy, that existed, both mentally and physically. What had held him back was the fact that he knew it would hurt like hell, working through this—and that abandoning his guilt felt like abandoning the victims of Flight 0718. They’d suffered, so why shouldn’t he?
Then, a still, small voice somewhere inside, a voice that had been stoked to life by Val’s gentleness, spoke as if in a whisper.
You’ve invested so much in their healing. Why not your own?
Why not, indeed? He was looking at himself clearly for the first time in years. The years ahead stretched before him like a yawning abyss. What would they look like? Would he continually push away what felt so perfect? Had Valentina Montgomery and that one mad night been a catalyst for freedom for him as well as for her?
He hoped, but he was afraid. Desmond lifted his hands and ran them over his head. He could go and see her. Find her. Explain why he’d pushed her away. The memory of the way Val had looked at him during those dark nights in London when there was no turmoil, when she unfolded in his arms like a bud to the sun…
What would it be like, to return fully the affection he’d seen written all over face? What would it be like to be free to love her? What would it be like to deserve her?
Could he do it? And if anyone was worth it, wasn’t it Valentina Montgomery?
* * *
It had been so long since she’d been in the States that Valentina felt like a stranger. Sand and desert heat seemed more natural to her now than the lush greenery of North America. Everything here was Technicolor-bright, blurring her eyes with expanses of green. Even the air felt different. And here, in her family home in New Orleans, a feeling that she’d missed so much was combined with an odd sense that time had stood still. It was home, but it wasn’t her home, not anymore.
She’d vacillated between surprising her mother and letting her know in advance that she was coming. In the end, the prospect of, at best, an incredibly awkward reunion and, at worst, giving her mother a heart attack, she had decided to call. When she announced that she was coming to visit, her mother was completely silent on the other end of the line.
“Mama?”
“I’m here.” Her mother’s dulcet, buttery-warm accent sounded a bit garbled through Valentina’ s mobile. “I’m just trying to figure out one, how long it’s been, and two, why you want to come now .”
“Mama—”
“I don’t think I’m out of order, wondering about these things, baby girl.”
It was the old name from her childhood that brought the tears up, and she snuffled them back. She was so tired of crying. She’d cried more since she’d met Desmond Tesfay than she ever had over Malik, despite what he’d done to her. “I— It’s hard to explain over the phone.”
And where would she start? Her stubborn insistence on marrying Malik? Her husband’s mistreatment of her, and subsequent abandonment? Her time in prison for debt that was not her own? Nearly a decade working as a glorified nanny? And now—and this was her most colossally foolish move so far—falling in love with a man who she would owe for the rest of her life but could never repay?
Nearly forty years of consistently bad decisions, nearly forty years with little to show for it except her terrible taste in men and no idea whatsoever what to do now.
“Mama, I’m so ashamed,” she whispered. “I haven’t done anything right since I left.”
The long silence that followed lasted thirty-seven seconds. She knew because she counted.
“Come home, honey.”
And so, she had. Tired, jet-lagged, haggard, with no more than a single suitcase of belongings. When her Uber dropped her off in the driveway of the two-bedroom house where she’d grown up on North Villere Street, she’d tried her key in the door and found it still worked. And the moment she entered, she smelled the rich creaminess of beans. Fried fish. Honey-and-butter-laced cornbread that was crisp at the edges. Greens, with smoked ham. And there was her mother—a little thinner and looking a little more tired, with a mouth that trembled when she finally laid eyes on her daughter.
“There’s time for us to have it out after this,” the older woman said, her voice low and rich. “But, honey, let me hold you for a minute.”
And when Valentina was enveloped in the softness of her mother’s arms and smelled talcum powder, White Diamonds and the cool cucumber melon scent of the body lotion she’d been using since the nineties, she closed her eyes and lost herself in being loved, although she surely didn’t deserve it.
She’d abandoned her mother as readily as Malik had abandoned her—and for what? Why?
Foolish, foolish pride.