“I wasn’t joking,” Paige informed them both as she crossed her arms over her breasts and glared at her brother. “The only reason I’m not trying to slip into his bed right now is because he’s not here. ”
Khalid’s lips thinned. #x201C;I’ll be damned if I’ll argue with you over this. ”
“Of course you won’t,” Paige agreed mockingly. “It’s so much easier to have a little man-to-man chat with Abram. ” She let her eyes widen. “Oh but wait, that didn’t work so well either, did it? The first chance he had, he ignored that too. ”
She could feel years of anger rising inside her now. For as long as she could remember her parents had deferred to Khalid regarding her protection, and in any choices that they had to make in her life.
Khalid had chosen the schools she attended, the bodyguards she had as a child, her first ugly car, and was behind her father’s refusal to allow her to date her first boyfriend.
“She’s not a child anymore, Khalid,” Marty reminded him softly. But Paige knew her brother, and he wasn’t about to listen to anyone but himself. She was simply at the end of her patience.
“Do you even care how much it hurts or humiliates me to have you step in and play lord of all you survey with my life? I lost my job today, Khalid, because I haven’t been there in two weeks. Now, I can either lose my car or bum money from you or my parents. I’m twenty-five years old, not eighteen, and I enjoy taking care of myself,” she cried out furiously.
“And I enjoy waking up each morning knowing you’re alive and safe,” he bit out, his tone dark with anger. “Do you have any idea of the danger you are in at the moment, or the man you are tempting to take you into his bed? The two are entwined, Paige. Being with Abram draws you front and center into Azir’s attention, if you weren’t already there. And I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that no matter what happens, Abram will break your heart. He will not be an easy lover, Paige, nor will he understand your independence and your determination to do as you wish. ”
“And none of this is your choice to make. ” She dropped her arms to her sides and faced him without the anger she knew she should be feeling.
She was tired of arguing with him. She was tired of the lectures and she was tired of trying to force him to treat her like an adult rather than a child.
“Paige, would you come between Abram and me?” he finally questioned her harshly.
“Khalid!” Marty gasped as she turned on him furiously. “That’s low, even for you. ”
But Paige wasn’t surprised in the least that he had attempted such emotional blackmail. It was reminiscent of her childhood years when he had used her emotions to get what he wanted every time she attempted to defy him.
“Would you really lose me over this?” she asked in return. “Because that’s what will happen if you keep standing me and Abram. Whether or not he wants me, or I want him, shouldn’t be tainted by your demands that we stay away from each other. Because honestly, Khalid, there have been times when the very fact that you didn’t want me to do something made it all that more appealing. Do you really want to chance that in this situation?”
“So I’m to just stand by and watch him break your heart when he becomes the man he is and he tries to subjugate you as we both know he will? He may have different ideas on sexuality and women’s rights on the surface, Paige, but trust me when I tell you that only in your sexuality will he be more accepting. He is still a product of the culture he was raised within. ”
Paige could only stare back at him incredulously. “How little you know your brother, or your sister for that matter,” she told him, pity and anger converging together. “Does he beat his women, Khalid? Does he lock them up, or demand that they have no life outside of him? Does he have six wives and twelve children that I know nothing about?”
Khalid’s frown deepened. “You know he would never do such things. ”
“Then your only objection is that you’re worried Abram may try to curb my independence?”
“You’ll forget the meaning of the word independence,” he told her.
“Has Leyla forgotten the independence you taught her?” Leyla was one of the six young women Khalid had raised after his father sent them to Khalid as teenagers. They were young women Azir had bought and then given to his son to begin his own little harem.
Leyla was engaged to a young man who had come to America with his parents from Saudi Arabia.
“Leyla’s fiancé is much younger than Abram,” he snapped. “Don’t you understand that, Paige? Abram is a full-grown man who has spent much of his life in the Middle East. A man that will never—”
“Stop preaching at me,” she demanded roughly, her head practically ringing with the list of objections he was repeating from earlier. “You say Abram would attempt to make me live by his rules? What the hell do you believe you’re doing? You’re trying to force me to do what you want, whether it’s what I want or not. ”
And that was beginning to piss her off. She had tried to avoid these confrontations for the past few days. Several times she had simply left the room only to have him follow her and continue the argument.
“Paige, I’m trying to protect you,” he snarled. His frustration was readily apparent but she couldn’t make herself feel sorry for him, or even suggest they agree to disagree.
“Go to your party, Khalid. I’m sick of your lectures and I’ve had enough of your judgmental attitude. Now leave my room. ”
She didn’t wait for him to leave. Paige turned and stomped to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.
Then, the tears she’d only barely held back filled her eyes and began to fall down her cheeks. She didn’t sob. She remained silent, pressing her hands to her lips and tried to stop the tears as she had so many times in the past.
She loved her brother. Khalid had always been a mainstay in her life, even if he had frustrated the hell out of her. He’d been amused at her father’s nerves when she rode her bicycle without training wheels, and laughed at her mother’s fears when Paige got her driver’s license.
He had always acted damned strange about Abram though, despite the fact that Abram had been married the first time Paige had met him and his wife Lessa.