“Oh, he will be, I promise you that. And I’ll get you help, Noah.”
“Nah, man, I’m done. I made my choices that day—they were wrong, but I made them. I need to take responsibility for that and then maybe I can learn to live with it, and myself.”
Raif made a mental note to ensure that Noah received the psychological and legal help he’d need. Sure, he’d done wrong, but he needed support now that he was trying to do the right thing. “Noah, you were a victim, too.”
“I may have been, but I didn’t pay the ultimate price like Laurel did. You have to stop him, Raif. The guy’s dangerous.”
“I will, rest assured. Are you prepared to come with me to the police station to make a statement?”
Noah looked around him, then back at Raif. “Money’s not all it’s cracked up to be, is it? Not if you can’t live with yourself.”
Raif stood up and looked down at the shell of the man who’d once been a vibrant, fit and happy person. “That’s true, but you’re doing the right thing, Noah. And I meant what I said about helping you.”
Noah stood, too, and shook his head. “I don’t deserve it, but thank you.”
It was a simple matter to head to the nearest police station and for Noah to make his statement. Raif was mindful of how late it was getting, but this situation wasn’t something that could be rushed.
By the time Noah was finished, he was exhausted, but Raif could see how a weight had lifted from the man’s shoulders. Maybe there’d be hope for him yet, Raif thought, as they shook hands and parted ways.
Fifteen
“Are you sure you want to do this, meri pyaari beti?”
“It will be okay,” Shanal replied, as her mother finished dressing her once again in the much-loathed bridal gown. Shanal frowned in distaste at the reflection in the full-length mirror in her parents’ bedroom. The dress was a symbol of everything Burton was. Show and glamor with very little substance.
She felt sick with nerves, which was not much of a change from the nausea that usually assailed her upon waking each morning. What would she do if Raif didn’t show up in time to call a halt to the wedding? He’d asked her to trust him, and she did, but that didn’t stop fear from creeping up from the shadows in her mind.
Burton had exposed a side of himself that she’d never thought possible. If anyone had told her back when they first got engaged that he could be cruel and manipulative like that she would not have believed it. Now, of course, was a different story. She couldn’t believe she’d been so oblivious to his true nature. Granted, she’d never been all that attracted to him—certainly not in the way that Raif set her blood pumping and her heart skittering.
To think she’d even initially felt guilty about using Burton to solve her problems. It was enough to make her doubt her own judgment. If she’d made a mistake like that, was she making an even worse one by trusting Raif to make her problems go away? Surely she should be capable of doing that herself?
She looked up in the mirror and studied her reflection again, and that of her mother as she fussed and tweaked with the fall of the new veil until it was just so. Shanal reminded herself she was a capable woman. She’d gained a doctorate in her field. She’d written respected papers. She ran the lab at Burton International without fault or flaw. She wasn’t weak or incapable—she was just in over her head. And in those circumstances, it showed how intelligent she was that she was willing to let someone else lend a hand. Despite all the things she could do on her own, she needed help now.
Her mother’s eyes met hers in the mirror, a question behind them. What if Raif doesn’t show?
“It will be all right, you’ll see,” Shanal said, injecting as much enthusiasm into her voice as she could. “Everything will be all right.”
Her parents had chosen not to come to the church this time. Her mother had argued that it had been hard enough last time to get her father out of the house and to the cathedral, where he’d felt the eyes of everyone around them as he’d accompanied Shanal in his wheelchair. Shanal had agreed. Besides, it wasn’t as if this wedding was going to go ahead. At least she fervently hoped not. Her hand strayed to her belly, where Raif’s child nestled safe and secure inside her.
She had to do this. She had to go through the motions for her child and for Raif. He’d promised he’d find a solution to her problems and she had to believe he would. He was, she thought with a private smile, a Masters, after all. They were not the type of people to ever quit. Knowing that gave her the inner strength she needed, and she straightened her posture and squared her shoulders.