Cristo spotted Farrah standing next to Hussein in front of the arch in Place de la Victoire. Her long, coat-like dress brushed against the tiled ground, and it was the first time he’d seen her wear a headscarf. Although he could only see her beautiful face, he drank in the sight of her after three long weeks away.
The Baku trip had been a bitch from the start, with all the staff covering for their unethical colleagues. Lies and deceptions had flown at him so thick and fast he’d been tempted to fire every single one of them and start fresh. He’d have to return on Tuesday, sort out the restructuring, install new supervisors, and put the fear of God into each and every employee so this didn’t happen again.
Farrah waved, a gorgeous smile lifting her lips and shining out of her eyes. Grazie a Dio, she was glad to see him. During their nightly calls, she was friendly and seemed happy to chat with him. But she’d once more donned that inscrutable mask that hid her true emotions. He ended every call with the sensation that she was telling him what she thought he wanted to hear rather than what she truly felt.
But he sincerely doubted she was enough of an actress to fake the warmth in her gaze as he approached.
Personally, he wanted to go straight home so they could greet each other properly. But Mario and Bella had invited them for dinner. After his delayed flight, they were meeting here and then going straight to their friends’ place.
“Ciao, bellissima,” he said. He leaned down to kiss her, but she turned her cheek. Maybe she wasn’t so happy to see him after all. But then her eyes darted to Hussein. That’s right. Public displays of affection, even between married persons, were frowned upon here. He prided himself on being able to adapt to other cultures. But, face-to-face with his delectable wife after weeks apart, he was hard-pressed to remember his own name.
Cristo shook hands with Hussein and thanked him in Arabic for looking after Farrah. With a small bow, the other man turned and strode away, taking Cristo’s suitcase with him.
“Welcome home, husband,” Farrah said in Italian. Her fingers laced with his felt so good as she led him toward Mario’s house. On a map, he knew it was only on the other side of the medina. In reality, the streets were a maze he might never master.
He stopped her when they were out of earshot of those in the square. “Everything okay? I’ve never seen you in an abaya and hijab.” His eyes swept over her once more.
“I’m fine. It’s just that Hussein and Nura are devout Muslims, and I don’t want to embarrass them with what I’m wearing. Hussein insisted on waiting with me until you arrived, and I knew he’d feel uncomfortable unless I covered up.” A soft blush accompanied her words. Now he really wished they were going home and not out for dinner.
“What are you wearing?” His body was already shooting images into his brain. Her blush darkened, and his blood thickened in response.
“You’ll see soon enough.” She tugged on his hand, and within ten minutes they stood in the courtyard of Mario and Bella’s home.
Bella greeted them with kisses on both cheeks, Italian style, and he noticed Farrah stiffen beside him when his former love-interest embraced him.
But his reassurance died on his lips when Farrah slipped off her hijab and abaya. She’d straightened her hair, and it hung nearly to her waist, a cascade of tempting black satin. When she reached to smooth it, a glimpse of her bare back sent his heart rate accelerating. Then after handing her outerwear to Bella’s housekeeper, she turned around. His mouth went dry, and he blinked several times to make sure his eyes weren’t deceiving him. Not even his lust-starved body had been able to conjure a vision this sensual.
The tiny shoulder straps of her dress strained to contain her pregnancy-enlarged breasts behind the thin scraps of fabric. The V-neck plunged almost to her navel, and the silky burgundy material called to his fingers to test which was softer: the dress or the skin it barely covered.
“Oh, good, you wore it. I told you it would look fantastic on you.” Bella’s voice came to him through the pounding of his pulse in his ears.
Farrah’s eyes never left his, which he was sure broadcast his desire. “Yes. Thank you. Although this is about the only place I’ll be able to wear it. And not for much longer.” Her hand fluttered over her stomach where the material was stretched tight. Not because her expectant state was showing yet, but because the fabric clung to her every curve.
“Nonsense. You won’t be pregnant forever. And as Cristo’s wife, you’ll need some glamorous outfits to wear to his banking functions.”
If she did, he’d inevitably get fired for pummeling half the international banking division.
“This dress came from you?” he asked Bella, although his eyes never left Farrah.
“Yes. I bought it, but it didn’t fit quite right,” Bella answered. “But I knew it would look fantastic on Farrah.” She took his wife’s arm and started toward the sitting room. “Come along. I want to introduce you to Kai.”
“Kai’s here? Your ex-fiancé Kai?” His question came out high-pitched, and both women stopped and turned to him. He’d met the guy a couple of times when he, Kai, and Mario had all been competing for Bella’s affections. Merda, was he now going to have to battle for Farrah’s attention?
“He might be my ex-fiancé, but he’s always my friend. He’s moving to Europe to take up a permanent position at the head office of Doctors Without Borders, and he stopped off for a visit.”
A bead of sweat broke out on Cristo’s brow. His wife, looking like a sexy goddess, was about to be introduced to a man who resembled Thor from the Marvel movies. Could this day get worse?
He followed the two women, noting the provocative sway of Farrah’s hips as she walked carefully over the tiled floor in her stilettos.
“Kai, this is Farrah Meddeb-Bernini, Mario’s business partner and Cristo’s new wife.” Bella’s trill of laughter raised the hair on the back of Cristo’s neck. “Funny, I’d originally thought to try and match Kai and Farrah. She loves children, and Kai wants someone to help raise his daughter. But before I could get them together, Cristo scooped her up.”
“Knocked me up, I think you mean,” Farrah said without glancing at him. She extended her hand toward the other man, who engulfed it in his larger one, his eyes devouring Farrah’s overtly displayed curves. At least, Cristo reassured himself, Kai greeted Farrah with an American handshake and not the European hug and kisses.
“My loss,” Kai replied. There was a hint of amusement in his eyes when he shook hands with Cristo. He might have put a little more pressure into his grip than required.
Cristo cleared his throat to make sure it came out even. “You’re moving to Europe?” How close? was what he really wanted to ask.
“Yes. Geneva to start. But I’ll probably do some traveling. My wife was from Ethiopia, so I have a fondness for Africa.”
Right, Bella had told Cristo that Kai had been married and his wife had died in a car accident about a year ago.
“What about your daughter?”
“She’s coming to Switzerland. I’ve hired a live-in nanny.”
Cristo nodded. Dio, now he was channeling his mother’s interrogative conversation style.
“Bella mentioned that you are a heart doctor in New York. You’re giving up your career?” Farrah asked.
Cristo narrowed his eyes. His wife was just being friendly, wasn’t she? Or was she interested in the other man?
“I can always go back to being a cardiologist in the States. But this opportunity came up, and I need a break. What I do is emotionally devastating some days.”
“Kai has been specializing recently in pediatric heart medicine,” Bella said.
“There’s nothing worse than telling parents you can do nothing to help their dying baby. Too many need transplants, and there just aren’t the donated organs available.” The empathy showed clearly on his face.
It was hard to hate a guy who cared so much about others. But Cristo managed it.
“Enough talk about sick children,” Mario said, his gaze darting to Farrah’s belly. “Let’s eat.”
“Did you meet your wife in Ethiopia?” Farrah asked as she passed a dish of vegetables to Kai.
“No, at a Doctors Without Borders clinic in Yemen in the early days of the civil war. Tsion was a nurse.”
Farrah perked up like a street hawker sensing the approach of gullible tourists. “You lived in Yemen? I—”
“Farrah, we’ve had that discussion. I will not change my mind,” Mario said abruptly.
Her eyes narrowed, and for the first time Cristo saw his wife’s icy anger. Grazie a
Dio the expression wasn’t directed at him. “You’ve made your position clear. But what I may do independently is not for you to decide.”
Mario opened his mouth, but it was Bella who said, “Cristo, have you told Farrah about the time you tried to milk my goats?”
Abrupt change of subject, but he played along. “It’s a very short story. The nannies objected. I had to get three stiches in my hand and couldn’t sit for a week. Which was very awkward as I led a panel discussion on equity diversification the next week and had to insist on standing.”
“I got two full buckets when I milked them,” Mario added smugly.
“Then next time, I shall leave it to your expert hands.” Although the fact that Mario couldn’t currently return to his native Sicily rather nullified that threat. And it put a downer on a story he’d told more than once to break ice or bring laughter back to a tense situation. But at least it started other conversations that took them through the rest of the meal with no punches thrown.
“Shall we have our coffees or after-dinner drinks in the sitting room?” Bella rose from her cushion, signaling an end to the dinner they’d been eating Tunisian style.
“Sounds good. First, though, could someone direct me to the nearest washroom?” Kai asked.
“I’ll show you,” Farrah said, leaping from her seat as though this was the opportunity she’d been waiting for.
Mario dropped one plate on top of another, drawing Cristo’s attention away from his wife and the doctor. “You have to stop her.”
“You think Kai will do something?” Cristo was already around the table and heading toward the hallway before Mario could respond.
“No. You have to stop her plans to go to Yemen. It’s not safe.”
Yemen? Had Farrah ever mentioned going there? Their conversations revolved mostly around day-to-day stuff and plans for the baby.
“She still sees herself as a village girl,” Mario continued. “She thinks that no one will take notice of her and she can traipse around war zones with impunity.”
“Back up. My wife wants to go to Yemen? To do what?”
“She wants to start up an outpost of IAA. Bella and I voted against it. But it sounds like she hasn’t given up on the idea.”
“Yemen. Odiomio, why would she risk it?”
“She has this need to save everyone.”
“Why’s that?”
“I don’t know.” Mario ran an agitated hand through his hair. “It’s just the way she’s made, I guess.”
Was it? Or did she have a more personal reason? Could it have something to do with the mysterious past she wouldn’t talk about?
“I’ll talk to her about it,” Cristo promised.
“Good.”
Bella hesitated in the doorway, holding a tray with glass cups, a double-stack Arab teapot, and a plate of honey cake with pistachios sprinkled on top. “I thought we’d move into the sitting room,” she said. “Are Kai and Farrah already there?”
Cristo hadn’t seen them pass the doorway. And he’d been watching for his wife’s return.
“Here, let me take that.” Mario took the tray from Bella then nodded at Cristo. “You may want to check my home office for your wife.”
Cristo heard voices as he approached the office. Farrah and Kai were speaking in Arabic. Farrah was pointing at a map spread out on the desk, and Kai was shaking his head at whatever questions she was asking.
Why did he feel like an outsider, walking into a room where his wife was? As an only child with a gregarious personality, he was used to being the center of attention at any family or social gathering. But here, in his wife’s life, he had no place, no purpose. Now that she had the marriage certificate and the gold band on her left ring finger, she didn’t need him.
It was almost a minute before Farrah even noted his presence in the room, and her eyes were not welcoming when they finally met his.
He was the proverbial third wheel. Useless and unwanted. Worse, he had no idea how to change that.
“Bella has coffee and tea ready in the other room,” he said.
Kai said something else to her in Arabic, then skirted around Cristo and made his way down the hall.
“I don’t want to hear it,” Farrah said. She refolded the map and put it on a shelf behind the desk.
“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
“I do. Mario told you to tell me not to go to Yemen.”
Okay, so she did know what he was going to say. “Maybe I want hear your reasons for wanting to go first.”
“Will it change the outcome?”
“In all honesty, probably not.”
She crossed her arms in front of her. “We both agreed that we wouldn’t interfere in each other’s work and travel.”
“Farrah—”
“Not here. Not now. We’re guests, and our hosts are waiting for us in the other room.” She stalked from the office without waiting for him to join her.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Farrah said as she stopped in the doorway of the sitting room, “but I think Cristo and I should be going. He’s tired from his trip, and I need an early night as well.” No blush accompanied her words. Apparently her motive wasn’t to get him alone to welcome him home properly.
“No problem. We understand,” Bella replied.
In the courtyard, Farrah tugged the abaya back on but held the hijab fisted in her hand. Cristo shook hands with both Mario and Kai. Farrah gave Bella a brief hug and merely nodded at the other two men.
They walked home in silence. It didn’t take a mind reader to know that his wife would have stomped home if her shoes weren’t unsuited to the rough cobbled streets. As it was, she held herself stiffly, refusing his offer of assistance with a look that said she’d rather touch a three-week-old, plague-riddled animal carcass.
Once they were inside their own home, she rounded on him, fire in her eyes, her body nearly quivering in anger. She dropped her outer covering as soon as they walked through the door. He swallowed. Now was not the time to mention how amazing she looked all riled up.
“Why is it that every man I meet thinks he can tell me what to do?” Her hands were on her hips, and the V-neck of her dress spread even farther apart.
“I can’t speak for other men, but my sole concern is your safety. Yemen is in the midst of a civil war.”
“That’s exactly why I have to go. The women there are desperate. Have you seen the starving children on the TV?”
“Farrah, you didn’t start the war; it’s not your responsibility. And there is nothing you can do at this time. Maybe when a ceasefire is negotiated and they have a stable government in power, you can set up your cooperatives. At the moment, there’s no way you could even get any product out of the country to sell—never mind getting money back in that wouldn’t be stolen by one side or the other to buy munitions.” How she could even think of going there was beyond him. “And while we’re having our first fight, you’re not to wear that dress outside of this house.”
She blinked a couple of times, clearly not sure which of his statements to argue with. Thankfully, she chose the latter. “It’s a bit immodest by Tunisian standards, but it wouldn’t be out of place anywhere in Europe.”
She had a point. But he was too far gone to concede it.
“We’re not in Europe. And we were having dinner with a guy who could be a stand-in for Chris Hemsworth. You can’t tell me you didn’t notice that whole Norse-god thing he’s got going on. Plus, he speaks your language and understands your culture.” Had he done her a disservice by rushing her into marriage? But, dammit, she was carrying his child, and he wasn’t about to let her go. She was everything a thinking man could want in a wife.
Farrah took two steps toward him, the anger in her eyes scorching him through his clothes. “Yes, Kai is incredibly good-looking.”
He clenched his teeth so hard he might have cracked a molar.
“But I’m not married to him,” she continued, her accent becoming thicker. “I’m married to you. I made vows, and I will live up to them. How could you even think I’d have an affair? Is it because I came to your hotel room the night of Mario and Bella’s wedding? You think I’m a … what is the English word … a slut?” Her face creased in mortification.
“You’re not a slut. Far from it. But we also said that if one of us fell in love with someone else…” He couldn’t even complete that sentence.
“And when exactly do I have time to fall in love? When I’ve got my head in the toilet every morning throwing up? When I work fourteen-hour days because I hate even the thought of coming back to this big, empty house alone?”
“Nura and Hussein are here.”
“They are very sweet, and I appreciate them. But I can’t tell them about my day or discuss the baby or how I’m feeling. They’re employees, paid to look after me.”
“I call.” His throat thickened. What a pathetic excuse of a husband he was. She really did deserve better. “Tesori—”
Farrah was clearly not ready to be placated. Her hands were clenched in fists. “Did you use to call Bella that?”
He hesitated and took a couple of steps back. “Maybe.”
“Then don’t call me tesori. I don’t want your recycled endearments.”
He strode to her and pulled her into his arms. She held herself stiffly at first but eventually relaxed against him.
“Habibty, Farrah, I’m sorry.”
“I wanted to look like a woman who could catch your interest. Not a Tunisian farm girl you married because you had to,” she mumbled against his chest. “I wanted to make you proud.”
“You do, every single day, whether I’m here or not. I’m honored to be your husband. And for the record, you looked so amazing tonight I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to be the man who got to take you home.”
“I guess you can thank a faulty condom and determined sperm for that.” She pulled back and stared up at him. The band that had squeezed his chest all night snapped, releasing a flood of warmth.
“I think I’ll thank God instead,” he replied. He swept her into his arms and climbed the stairs.
It was time to get her out of that scintillating dress and into his bed. How he was going to keep her out of his heart was another matter. Because if he lost any more control of his emotions, he’d be a complete wreck.
And that wouldn’t do. Not when he had no clue how his wife felt about him. And he was too much of a coward to ask.
He’d become the new definition of pathetic.
***
Farrah pasted on her fake smile so Cristo wouldn’t know how much she hated these constant goodbyes. She missed his arms around her at night. Missed the way he rubbed her back until she fell asleep. She missed the way he squinted when he tried to read an Arabic word, like that would make it more decipherable. But mostly she missed the way he made her feel: precious.
How ironic. She’d gone to Cristo’s hotel room the night of Mario’s wedding because she was overwhelmed by loss and loneliness and wanted to take the pain away. Now she was married herself and even lonelier. And unless she gave up her career and everything she’d worked her ass off to achieve, it looked like it was going to stay that way for the foreseeable future. Because if she wasn’t willing to quit her job, how could she ask Cristo to walk away from his?
Maybe once the baby arrived, things would be different. Or maybe she would be the only one to hear the wails at 3:00 a.m., with no one to nudge that it was their turn for a diaper change.
The ache in her heart intensified.
This was what she’d wanted, wasn’t it? A marriage of convenience where they both led their own lives. But that was before she’d experienced the warmth and security of waking up next to her husband.
“Habibty,” Cristo whispered against her hair. “I have to go. They’re already calling my flight.”
After only three days home, he was leaving her again. Other passengers and their loved ones surged around them, but for once Farrah didn’t care if any of them looked askance at her for clinging to her husband in public. If you couldn’t get emotional at the airport, where could you?
“Don’t mind me, it’s just the hormones.” She pulled out of his arms but couldn’t manage even a reasonable facsimile of a smile.
He ran his thumb over her lips. “Not all hormones, I hope. I’d like to think that some part of you misses me when I’m gone.”
Every part misses you. “Call me when you get there.”
The smile in his eyes faltered then disappeared. “I will. Look after both of you.”
And with that, he was gone. She waited until he was out of sight, hoping that he’d turn back and wave once more. But he didn’t. He had more willpower than that.
Or he cared less.
She turned and caught a glimpse of her reflection in the airport’s glass walls. Where was the girl who’d defied her father, talked her way onto a bus without a ticket, and fled to the city with only fifty dinars in her pocket? At the time, it had felt like a fortune, but it had barely been enough for a couple of meals. If the women’s shelter hadn’t taken her in, she’d never have survived.
Hussein waited for her next to the car. Rather than ask him to take her to work, which had been her original plan, she gave him the address of the shelter. If she visited, she’d hear true horror stories of what some women had to endure. Then missing her husband would pale in comparison.
By the time she made it into the office, it was nearly noon. But she held her head high, and there was a lightness to her steps that had been missing for too long. No man was going to define her or become her reason to exist. She had a career, an imminent art exhibition, and a baby to love.
It would be enough.