‘Good to know I’m still capable of surprising you.’
Feeling even more vulnerable now, Kat said testily, ‘You accused me
of lying, but you weren’t exactly forthcoming with information yourself.’
Zafir’s smile faded and air between them crackled. ‘It wasn’t talking about myself I was most interested in where you were concerned.’
A waiter appeared then, and took their order, and he was quickly followed by a sommelier who took their wine order. When the wine had been poured and they were alone again, Kat felt ridiculously self-conscious and aware of Zafir, his long legs bracketing hers beneath the table.
He sat back, the delicate stem of his wine glass between long fingers. ‘Why did you do it, Kat?’
She looked at him, feeling panicked. ‘What?’
His face was stark. ‘The pictures. Why did you let a man see you like that when you were so young? Why weren’t you in school?’
Kat’s hand tightened on her glass. She hated that she still didn’t feel ready to tell Zafir everything. She wondered if she ever would. ‘Now you want to know? It won’t change anything.’
Their starter arrived—deliciously creamy mushroom soup with truffle oil. To Kat’s relief, Zafir seemed happy to let the question go while they ate, and he told her some stories of working there under a famously mercurial chef.
She said, ‘I had no idea you were interested in cooking. And why take a job when you didn’t have to?’
‘I may be privileged—’
Kat snorted indelicately at that understatement.
Zafir continued. ‘But I soon got bored when I wasn’t studying. I was walking past this place one day and saw a sign in the window advertising for kitchen help, so I applied. No one here knew who I was. To them I was just Zafir Noury, a foreign student. It was only when my bodyguards made themselves a little too noticeable that questions were asked. But they let me stay working here and protected my identity. When Marcel, the owner, got into financial difficulty some years ago I was able to help him out, so now I have a stake in the business too.’
Kat’s jaw would have dropped again, but she kept her mouth firmly shut. This was a side to Zafir she’d never known existed. Happy to be anonymous. Not afraid of menial work. When she’d known him he’d been feted as the Crown Prince of Jandor, King in Waiting. Influential and imposing. Overwhelming.
To her surprise they fell into an easy conversation for the rest of the impeccably prepared meal. So when their plates had been cleared, and Kat was feeling semirelaxed in Zafir’s company for the first time since she’d seen him again, and he repeated his question about those photos she felt almost betrayed. As if he’d been lulling her into a false sense of security on purpose.
Feeling prickly, because she knew she was being a coward, she said, ‘What purpose will this serve, Zafir? You weren’t interested in knowing before. Why now?’
He shrugged minutely. ‘Let’s just say that when you ran out of my apartment that night you left more questions than answers.’
Kat bit back the accusation that he’d not been remotely interested in hearing any explanations that night, because truly, how hard had she tried to get him to listen to her? Not hard at all. Not once she’d known how he really felt. Or didn’t feel.
But she realised now that the time had come—ready or not—to tell him what she would have told him that night if she hadn’t felt so betrayed by his admission that he didn’t love her.
She took a breath and forced herself to look at him. ‘By the time I was seventeen I was the main breadwinner. Thanks to the endless round of beauty pageants I’d been entered into ever since my mother realised my looks had currency, I was working almost full-time as a model and supporting us both. I badly needed money for her medical bills.’
Zafir frowned. ‘Her drug use.’
Kat refused to let him intimidate her again. She said in a low, fierce voice, ‘No. I never funded her drug use. But no matter what I did, or how many rehab programmes I tried to get her onto, she always relapsed.’ Kat could feel her cheeks grow hot with shame as she said, ‘She used to steal from me to buy her drugs. No matter how careful I was, she always found the money.’
‘But surely you had a bank account?’
‘Yes,’ Kat said tightly, ‘but I was a minor, so she was the joint account holder. That was no safer place to hide my money than underneath my bed.’
Zafir’s eyes flashed. ‘You were a minor when that man took those photos.’
Kat felt bile rise when she thought of that awful day. A day when she’d crossed a line and knew she’d never feel clean again.
‘My mother was in a bad way. She’d taken all my money and she’d almost overdosed to death. She was in hospital. My last resort was to try and get her into a private rehab facility...but it was expensive. This man—the photographer—he wasn’t anyone I’d met before, but one of the girls I modelled with told me about him and about the money I could make...’
‘If you took your clothes off.’ Zafir’s voice sounded cold and austere, and the look on his face was one of disgust.
Kat threw her napkin down and stood up, emotion making her voice shake. ‘I am not here to be judged and condemned by you for a second time, Zafir. What I did, I did because I had no other choice. And it didn’t do much good anyway, because the day before she was due to go to the facility my mother managed to do what she’d been trying to do for years—she successfully overdosed herself to death.’