The Mark of Cain (44 page)

“I just don’t understand,” she said through a sob.

“I don’t want to take advantage of you. I want it
perfect for you when we go there. I want you to mean it. Right now you’re upset
so you aren’t thinking rationally….”

So now the tables were turned. Since when was
she
the one trying to talk
him
into sex? And since when was he refusing it?

Part of her was thankful for this turn of events.
Tomorrow, when the world had righted itself, she would be grateful to him for
this.

“Let’s talk instead,” he suggested. “Let me just
hold you and we can catch up. What have you been up to while I’ve been gone?”

“Just missing you,” she said, accepting defeat. Now
that her mind was thinking a little more rationally, she burrowed into his
forest, ocean, spices scent, letting it relax her. “But let’s not talk right
now. We can talk tomorrow. Right now, I just want you to hold me.”

He pulled her farther into his arms until they were
both comfortable. Then, taking a deep whiff of his musk, she closed her eyes.

“Promise you won’t let me go?” she asked.

She felt his warm lips on the top of her head.

“I swear.”

That was the last thing she heard before she fell
into a blissfully silent sleep.

***

Hara felt safe even before she really began to wake
up. A part of her wondered if Inac had really been a dream but, as she woke,
she still felt his strong arms around her. He’d kept his promise. He hadn’t let
her go. She took a deep breath through her nostrils, breathing in the scent
that had danced through her dreams last night. It was just so intoxicating as
well as relaxing. She’d slept with a shirt of his while he was gone so she’d
have that scent with her to get her through his absence, but now the delicious
smell was strong and undiluted. She’d really missed that the past couple of
months or so.

She felt his lips softly graze her forehead just
before he whispered, “Morning, beautiful.”

She opened her eyes to find him staring into them,
such love emanating from his warm gray eyes. None of the hardness of his walls
were present as he looked at her in complete adoration.

“Morning yourself,” she said as she nuzzled back
into him. “I wasn’t sure if last night was a dream or not.”

“It wasn’t.”

Moving again so she could look him in the eyes, she
said, “Did Crystal let you in?”

He shook his head.

“Then how did you get in?”

A wicked glint took over his sparkling gaze and one
corner of his mouth turned up with mischief. “I picked the lock.”

“You
what
?!” she asked. Surely he must be
kidding. “Are you serious?”

“Yup. Crystal wasn’t home, and you were out cold.
After knocking and ringing the doorbell a few times, I finally just picked the
lock.”

“But
why
?”

“I know you have classes all day today and then work
tonight and the rest of the weekend, and I couldn’t wait until Monday to hold
you.”

She smiled. “I’m glad you did.”

“Yeah?”

She kissed him. “Of course. But, instead of breaking
in, I’ll get a key made for you. That way, you can surprise me whenever you’d
like.”

“Okay. And, once I have a key, I’m going to make it
more difficult to break in.”

Grimacing, she asked, “Was it really that easy?”

“Took me all of two seconds.”

She was really glad that she had Inac. Now she
wouldn’t have to worry about someone breaking in…though she hadn’t really
worried about it in the first place—they hadn’t ever locked the orphanage at
night so it had taken some getting used to once she’d moved out here to Los
Angeles. Crystal was always harping on her for it, asking if she
wanted
to be raped and murdered.

“Why don’t I skip my classes today?” she suggested.
“We haven’t seen each other for so long…. Besides, you can help me catch up
easy. You’re so smart….”

She didn’t think she could get any closer to him,
but she was wrong. He pulled her even farther into him as he agreed to them
spending the day together.

They spent the morning in bed, mostly just cuddling.
They kissed some, and talked a little, but they were mostly silent;
comfortable.

It wasn’t until around noon that they finally rolled
out of bed for “brunch,” as Inac called it. She showered as he made quiches.
Then, because he’d come straight here from the airport and had his own clothes
in his gunny sack—he was so weird that, even with how rich he was, he didn’t
use nice luggage, instead using what he would get in the military—he showered
while breakfast cooked in the oven.

He’d been in the bathroom for a while after the
water had turned off, making her worry for some reason, so she walked down the
short hall, finding the bathroom door slightly ajar. Not wanting to embarrass
him if he wasn’t fully clothed, she peeked in, taking a sharp breath in from the
horror she felt upon doing so. She must be imagining what she thought she was
seeing….

Apparently Inac heard her because he turned and
wrenched open the door, looking at her, his hardened gaze giving away nothing
of his feelings.

“I’m sorry, Hara. I didn’t want you to see this,” he
told her without emotion.
This
was a vertical wound about two inches
long stitched together right where his heart would be.

“But…what
happened
? Are you okay?”

He smiled at her and turned back to what he was
doing. Out of the corner of her eye—she couldn’t stop looking at the wound—she
realized that he was preparing some kind of bandage with gauze and tape.

“I’m fine. This happened about a week ago. I would
take the stitches out today if the wound wasn’t still seeping every once in a
while. I usually heal better than this, but I keep opening it back up. Give it
another day or so now that I’m not fighting and you won’t even notice it.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” she said, finally
looking into his eyes. What she saw now surprised her. He didn’t
want
to
tell her the truth.

“You didn’t think I could just waltz into the
Iranian president’s office without getting hurt, did you?” he said. “It took
some convincing to get him to listen and become my ally.”

“They could’ve
killed
you. That’s right over
your heart. If they’d stabbed you deep enough to pierce it….”

With a snippy tone she knew meant that she should
drop it, he said, “Hara, the point is that they didn’t and I’m fine. This is
why I didn’t want you to know. I knew you’d overreact.”

“Overreact?!” Now
she
was getting angry. “Is
me being upset because my fiancé almost got stabbed in the heart
overreacting
?”

Frowning, he said, “No. But now you are.”

She was about to yell at him, to tell him that he
was being a jerk, but something told her not to. He seemed to be on an edge
that, if pushed, could take him into violent territory. It was like a storm was
brewing just underneath the surface, and the only thing he needed for it to
rage out of control was her pushing his buttons. She wasn’t afraid
of
him, but afraid
for
him. She didn’t know what he would do if that rage
was unleashed.

She took deep breaths to calm herself as he taped
the gauze onto his skin, suddenly realizing why he was so defensive. The poor
guy was
scared
. He had almost been killed a week ago and here she was
getting angry, blaming
him
for it, when his intentions had been noble.

“I’m sorry,” she said, lightly touching his bare
shoulder. “I shouldn’t be getting all angry when you were doing the right
thing. I just…” she said, sniffling. “I just don’t want to lose you.”

He threw on his shirt, turned, and opened his arms
until she threw herself into them. “I promise you, you aren’t going to lose
me,” he whispered comfortingly into her ear. “This is why I didn’t want you to
know. I didn’t want to upset you.”

She nodded, wiping her face on his shirt as she did
so. “I know. But I would rather know and be worried than be kept in the dark.
It makes me feel like I’m being lied to.”

“Okay. I’ll make sure to tell you the next time I’m
almost stabbed in the heart,” he said with a small smile in his voice.

She chuckled, saying, “Okay. I forgive you for
keeping it from me then.”

It wasn’t until they were almost done with “brunch”
that she realized something.

“Inac?”

“Hmm?” he asked, looking up from the English paper
she had written that he was proofreading for her. It was such a normal scene
that she could almost forget that he’d been stabbed.
Almost
….

“Is that why you didn’t want to…well, to…?” she
asked, her fingers touching her chest in the same place he’d been stabbed on
his. Even though she didn’t finish her sentence, she knew that Inac would know
from her embarrassment what she wanted to ask.

“Why I said no to sex last night?” he asked so
bluntly that she felt her flush deepen further.

“Yeah.”

He took a sip of his coffee while contemplating.
Finally, he said, “No. At least not for the most part. Like I said, I want it
to be perfect for you; for
us
. I don’t want you regretting it the next
day. But mostly, I don’t want you
hating
me the next day.”

“I wouldn’t—” she started, but he interrupted her.

“You say that. But last night you didn’t even know
whether or not you were awake. It’s easy to go along with something like sex
when you think you’re just having an unbelievably awesome dream,” he said with
a boyish grin. No longer joking, he added, “I don’t want you to be upset with
me, thinking that I took advantage when you weren’t sure whether or not there
were real consequences. That’s almost the same as rape in some people’s minds
because your heart wouldn’t really be saying yes.”

“I wouldn’t ever—”

Again, he interrupted. “No Hara. Don’t say it. You
don’t ever know what you’ll think or do until the moment presents itself. You’d
be surprised with the things you think you wouldn’t do but find yourself doing.
You might find that you would feel like I
had
raped you.”

The bitter edge to his tone told her that he was
speaking from experience. But was it something he did or something that had
been done to him? It was true, though. She never thought she’d have S-E-X
before marriage, but wasn’t
she
the one trying to instigate exactly that
last night? On the other hand, she knew he would never rape her. H-E-double
hockey sticks, he wouldn’t even take advantage for fear that she might have an
inkling of that thought in her mind. He was such a good man….

She really wanted to know why he sounded bitter but
didn’t press him, knowing that he would talk about it when he was ready. So,
when he
did
start talking, she was elated that she hadn’t asked because
then he would have shut down completely instead of opening up.

“I was wandering around, not sure where I was
going,” he said into his coffee. “I ended up in Oklahoma where there was this
cattle ranch hiring hands. With my experience and size, they hired me on the
spot. It didn’t take long for the owner’s daughter, Olivia, to notice me,
though I didn’t notice her. I had barely escaped a loveless marriage and didn’t
want to get into another one.”

“So what happened?” she asked when he paused.

He chuckled. “She made sure that I noticed her by
always bringing me lunch and freshly squeezed lemonade. She was pretty enough,
and I guess I was a little lonely, so we soon began dating. It wasn’t long
after we did that I got her pregnant. To make an honest woman out of her, we
married before anybody could find out.”

A smile softened his usually hard features, though
his eyes were far away. “Our baby was the most beautiful child I’d ever seen.
She had glossy black spiral curls Shirley Temple would have envied, as well as
large green eyes.”

He looked Hara straight in the eye, chuckling as
though his daughter was right there with them. “She was such a daddy’s girl,
Hara. You should have seen it. Every time I was near, she was there in my
arms.”

“What was her name?” she whispered. She was trying
her hardest not to cry because she knew that he no longer had a daughter. She
knew that his daughter had died.

“Delilah. My little Delilah,” he said with such love
in his eyes she thought her heart would shatter. Suddenly, they darkened to a
stormy gray. “Everything was great until she caught the fever. She was so
little. I remember holding her, trying to comfort her as she moaned in pain.
She just put a hand in my hair and twirled her fat little fingers in it. My
hair was long then, about shoulder-length.”

When his voice choked up, though his eyes locked on
hers stayed dry, that’s when she couldn’t keep from crying any longer.
Maybe…maybe she could cry for the both of them.