Samira couldn’t take much more. Even her bones felt brittle with the effort of holding herself together on the outside when on the inside she was a shattered, bleeding mess.
She’d given her heart to Tariq but he wasn’t interested. What she’d thought was genuine tenderness in the hospital had been a mirage, an illusion brought on by exhaustion and wishful thinking.
All her life she’d known the dreadful danger of ‘love’. She thought she’d plumbed the depths when Jackson had betrayed her and that, as a result, she’d immunised herself against its power. Only now she realised what she’d felt for her faithless lover was nothing in comparison to this soul-wrenching love for her husband.
She must have made some sound of distress for Tariq swung around.
Her heart dipped as she read the familiar signs when he saw her—the instant stiffening of his shoulders, the guarded expression, the distance he somehow put between them even without physically moving.
Samira grabbed harder at the door jamb.
‘Hello, Tariq.’ Her voice was husky but firm and she jutted her chin higher.
‘Samira, shouldn’t you be resting?’
Her mouth twisted mirthlessly. She was always being told to rest when she wanted to be with him.
‘I want to see my baby. Between you and the staff I barely get any time with her.’ Bitterness made her exaggerate. She wanted to lash out at Tariq, sick of this distant politeness that was all they shared now.
She breathed deep, seeking calm.
For so long she’d craved a child, believing it would fill the stark emptiness within. And it was true; Layla was the light of her life. The tenderness she felt whenever she looked at her daughter had no comparison.
But too late Samira had realised a baby couldn’t make her whole. Only she could do that, except she’d made the mistake of giving away a vital part of herself to Tariq. The man who’d never be the husband she wanted because he was still in love with his dead wife. The man who viewed her not with love but as a responsibility.
Shoring up her strength, she walked into the room, not even flinching at the careful way Tariq passed their baby over so as not to touch Samira.
She compressed her lips, biting down the reproach that hovered on her tongue.
What was the point in berating him? He couldn’t help what he felt. In other circumstances she’d be full of admiration for a man so loyal to his one true love.
Something wrenched deep inside and she turned away, blinking back hot tears as Layla nuzzled at her breast. Love for her little girl filled her, yet even that couldn’t bring peace.
She was trapped in a web of her own devising.
‘Goodnight, Tariq.’ She didn’t look at him. Slowly, her body cramped with a soul-deep ache, she settled in the low chair by the crib and undid the belt of her robe.
* * *
Tariq’s hands clenched as he watched Layla suckle at her mother’s breast. He never tired of the sight, despite the raw discomfort it brought him. Who’d have believed watching a woman feed a baby would be so arousing?
Not just any woman but Samira.
Even with dark circles under her eyes and her skin pale with tiredness, his wife made him hard with wanting. More, she twisted his gut in knots.
He tried to do the right thing, to keep some physical distance while she recuperated from childbirth. Just remembering that labour made his belly churn.
It had been excruciating torture, watching Samira suffer, and pretending to a confidence that all would be well when at the forefront of his mind was the memory of Jasmin’s lifeless face after her emergency delivery.
Even now, weeks after Layla’s birth, he woke in a sweat most nights from nightmares where Samira didn’t survive. Where nothing the doctors did could save her, because Tariq hadn’t got her to the hospital soon enough.
The image of her when he’d burst into the bathroom and found her in labour still haunted him. She’d looked so vulnerable. If he’d needed anything to shore up his resolve to keep his distance until the doctor said intimacy was safe, it was that.
‘You’re still here?’ Samira looked up, a frown on her delicate features.
He stiffened. ‘It’s late. There’s nowhere else I need to be.’
She opened her mouth as if to speak, then turned instead to watch Layla.
As if he wasn’t there.
Tariq scowled. He wasn’t used to being dismissed. Even if his self-imposed rule was to avoid being alone with her so as not to be tempted into doing something he shouldn’t.
This was different. This was Samira withdrawing from him. Not physically, but mentally. She’d been like this since the hospital.