Her skin did not arouse him this grey morning. Instead, he answered the tiny goose-bumps on her arms and her stomach in their plea for strength and warmth and held her tightly to him. ‘I’m here to get you through today,’ he said. ‘Our stuff can wait. I will call you in a few days and then we can speak properly.’ Zahid felt her nod on his chest. ‘Today you have enough on your mind without being concerned about us.’
So much on her mind.
Not just that Clive would be there today.
It was the first funeral she had been to since her daughter’s, which had been the loneliest day of her life.
‘I’m here with you,’ Zahid said, and he could never know just how much those words helped. ‘Now, get ready.’
He did not avert his eyes as she dressed. There was no point—her scent was on him and his mind would caress her intimately later.
Right now, though, there was a funeral to attend.
* * *
As they took their places in the church Zahid recalled their last conversation. ‘You could almost make family functions bearable.’
Nothing could make this bearable, though.
As he stood to read the eulogy, she reminded him of a fragile flower blooming in winter surrounded by the ice of grief.
He looked at Donald’s wife, Yvette, whose face was etched in bitterness, and wondered about her pain of the last weeks as her handsome groom had faded to the husband from hell.
Speaking at the funeral of a man you did not admire was a hard task but Zahid executed it well. He spoke of better times, of a younger Donald and family gatherings that...
Zahid glanced up from the notes he had written on the plane. Even as he had penned them he had known that the words were inaccurate, though the right ones to utter, yet Zahid never lied. His eyes turned to Trinity, who started down at black-stockinged knees, and there was the reason he had kept going back. Having admitted that to himself, he was able to speak the truth then. ‘Family gatherings that I always looked forward to and will remember with deep affection...’ He gave a pale smile as Trinity looked up. ‘While we remember the good times,’ Zahid said, and looked to Trinity, ‘we should not ignore the pain left to us now.’
It was the only time Donald’s life was painted as anything other than perfect, Zahid realised as the Fosters micro-managed their son’s funeral.
The cemetery was awful. Zahid watched as Trinity held back despite her mother urging her to step forward.
Zahid moved and stood beside Trinity.
The light refreshments were downed with whisky back at the swanky hotel, yet when he wanted to be by her side, the Fosters still kept pulling him away, dragging him into other conversations when he so badly needed to be with her.
He saw her glance at the clock, knew that again they were running out of time and Zahid excused himself from second cousins and made his way over to the one who came first to him. ‘How are you?’
‘Fabulous!’ Her smile was as dangerous as her eyes.
‘How are you?’ Zahid said again.
‘I’m going to lose it in about thirty seconds from now.’
‘You’re not.’
‘I might.’
‘You won’t,’ Zahid said.
Zahid watched as she pushed on a smile as someone approached and offered their condolences but soon it was just them and she told him a little of what was on her mind.
‘I don’t understand how everyone keeps saying he was a wonderful man, how tragic it was and how sudden. I’ve been saying for months that this would happen.’ She could not stand to be here even a moment longer.
‘When do you fly?’ Trinity asked.
‘In a couple of hours.’
‘We could go to my room.’
‘I think that would be completely inappropriate,’ Zahid said.
‘Aww...’ Trinity smiled that dangerous smile. ‘A playboy with a conscience, how sweet!’
Crunch went the eggshells beneath his well-shod feet. ‘You know, Trinity, if it wasn’t your brother’s funeral...’ He halted, not just because Dianne had come over but because of the strength of the words he had been about to deliver, because privately he would like to take her aside and rattle her till she behaved, or tip her over his knee and spank her till she conformed.
He was angry, not just at Trinity but at himself for the foolish moment when he had even considered she might belong by his side, for she could barely behave at her own brother’s funeral.
‘We’ve decided to have people back to the house after all,’ Dianne informed her daughter.
‘I thought the whole point of having it at the hotel was that you wouldn’t have to ask people to the house.’
‘Well, your father thinks we should ask people back so I need you to go and open up and set up the drinks and glasses—’
‘I’m not going back to the house.’
‘Trinity...’ Dianne had this black smile on in an attempt to disguise the venom in her voice. ‘Go and open up and you are to greet—’
‘I told you earlier,’ Trinity said, ‘I’d come to the hotel but I am not—’
‘Grow up!’ Dianne hissed. ‘Grow up and show some respect for your brother’s memory.’ She walked off and left Trinity standing, her cheeks on fire with years of suppressed rage.
‘I will take you back to the house,’ Zahid said. He knew today must be agony for her, but there was a part of him that was very cross with Trinity. There were things you did, things that simply had to be done.
He took her rigid hand and led her out to his driver.
‘In a couple of hours it will all be over.’
‘It will never be over.’
He could not abide her melodrama. Zahid loathed raw emotion unless it came with an orgasm attached.
They pulled up at her house and he noticed her cheeks were no longer pink but instead as white as the lilies that had filled the church.
‘Let’s just set up then I’m going,’ Trinity said. She let them in and started to pull out glasses from the dresser as Zahid sorted out the drinks.
Perhaps realising the reception she might get from Trinity, Dianne chose not to ring her daughter when plans changed yet again. Instead, she dialled Zahid. ‘Could you ask Trinity to set up the guest room?’
Trinity said nothing at first when Zahid relayed the message, she just marched angrily up the stairs and started pulling towels out of the airing cupboard. ‘She’s got a bloody nerve.’
Zahid was fast losing his patience. Yes, the Fosters were hard work but Trinity was behaving like a spoilt brat and, frankly, he expected more from her.
‘Can you just, for five minutes in your life, do the right thing?’ he said, as Trinity opened the guest-room door. ‘Your mother has lost her son.’
She could hear the front door opening and cars pulling up and everyone starting to arrive, and she was past staying quiet, could not hold it in for even a second longer as she stood in the room where so much had been taken from her.
‘She’s lost more than her son,’ Trinity said. ‘How dare she pretend that it never happened? How dare she tell me to set up the guest room when she knows full well what went on in here that night?’
‘What night?’
‘The night you left me here!’
Oh, it had been but the tip of her anger back at the hotel, Zahid realised. He knew, with sick dread, the night she was referring to, he knew from the bleached whiteness of her lips and the anguish in her eyes what must have taken place.
He remembered Dianne telling her to set up the guest room for Elaine and Clive and her fingers grasping his as he’d climbed in the car.
Zahid even remembered the time.
Ten minutes after eleven was the moment that now he would regret for ever.
‘My aunt’s husband...’ Trinity gagged. ‘After you’d gone, he attacked me.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
ZAHID KNEW THAT how he reacted to this was important to Trinity so he fought for calm as he processed the news, but there was a dangerous instinct kicking in. One that might see him head downstairs this very moment, as the funeral party had now arrived, and for once it would not be their daughter who misbehaved.
‘You need to let your parents know,’ Zahid said, relieved when he heard his own voice, for it sounded calm, in control, when he felt anything but. ‘They need to know what went on that night and why family functions are so hard for you.’
He had always been proud of his self-control but he was in awe of it when she responded to him.
‘They know.’
Just two words but they were almost more than he could process. Zahid could hear long breaths coming out of his nostrils as Dianne called up the stairs for Trinity and he struggled to stay calm. ‘Oh, Zahid, your driver said you need to leave.’
‘You need to get your flight,’ Trinity said, feeling guilty and panicked for telling him and seeing him fight for control. ‘Please, Zahid, you can’t say anything. It’s my brother’s funeral.’
He didn’t care what day it was.
‘Please, don’t make this worse for me.’
He pulled her away from the room and wrapped his arms around her in the hall as Zahid for once struggled with what to do.
There were so many reasons not to do what he was about to, so very many, but he simply could not leave her here.
‘Usually now you ask to come with me.’
‘You always say no.’