CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Khalid’s entire body ached, including his eyelids. Too bad he couldn’t sleep through the pain. Between the nausea and the shakes, he hadn’t had any respite in several days.
Still, lack of sleep couldn’t compare to the gnawing ache in his belly--a hunger so voracious he was willing to do any and everything to sate it. If he didn’t get a hit soon, he would go crazy. Lucid, yet in need of an escape, Khalid focused on his surroundings.
A fire crackled in the fireplace. Ceylon blue draperies, which matched the toile coverlet and pillows, adorned the antique four-poster bed. The walls were painted a soothing shade similar to desert sand. Coordinating furnishings in dark cherry wood had been meticulously placed around the room, along with several photos and decorative knick-knacks.
Exceptional, the room provided all the creature comforts for a restful night’s sleep. Khalid sneered. The room could’ve been a plywood box for all he cared.
Khalid eyed the snowflakes swirling across the windows. Wet globs stuck to the pane and slid down to puddle at the base. With a groan, he crawled from the bed. He staggered over to the window and was struck at how bright it was outside. Squinting, he tried to remember the last time he’d seen natural light, or the sun for that matter, and came up blank.
The yard spread out behind the house for several acres, every inch blanketed with snow. The pond was frozen over and the trees barren of leaves stretched their limbs to a gray sky. This winter wonderland, so quiet, so peaceful, should’ve brought solace to his troubled mind, but it did not. The cold was simply an obstacle he would need to overcome to satisfy the monkey riding his back.
Khalid fingered the window lock.
“Don’t even bother. All the windows have been nailed shut.”
A chair in one hand and a food tray in the other, Aksim sauntered into the room. He slid the food onto the nightstand, and set the chair beside the bed. Straddling it, he looped his arms over the back.
Resentful, Khalid flopped onto to the bed. As he threaded his hands behind his head, he cast a cursory glance at the soup and hunk of bread and essentially ignored both. He hadn’t had a substantial appetite in weeks.
“You need to eat. You look like shit.”
“I feel worse,” Khalid countered. “Why are you keeping me here?”
“I’m your brother. I couldn’t sit by while you self-destruct.” Aksim couldn’t hide his exasperation. “What happened to you? You’re a shadow of the man I know.”
If Khalid still cared about his brother’s opinion, hell, if he cared about anything, he would’ve been embarrassed. Instead, he felt annoyed. “F*ck off, Aksim.”
His brother’s expression darkened with anger. Khalid smiled. Pissing Aksim off had always been a piece of cake. And at this moment, in his present state of mind, he derived considerable pleasure from riling up his sibling.
With a grave nod, Aksim stood. “I’ll be back later for the tray.”
“You can take it with you. I’m not hungry...for food.” Khalid rolled over onto his side. “Do you think you could do me a favor?”
“Eat and then we’ll see about granting favors.”
Aksim ignored the curses Khalid hurled at his back. He walked from the room and seconds later his sister-in-law, Soraya, entered.
“Mon Dieu!” Khalid groaned. “Why can’t you all leave me be?”
Sporting a serene smile, his brother’s wife took the seat her husband had vacated. Having children had done wonders for the exotic, hazel-eyed beauty. Her tall, slender frame had filled out nicely, with five or so extra pounds enhancing her curves.
“We’ve left you alone long enough. A week to be exact.”
Khalid looked at her sharply. “I’ve been here for a week?”
Soraya nodded as she pulled an orange out of her skirt pocket and began peeling it. Khalid eyed the fruit. For the first time in many months, he actually had an appetite for something other than liquor or tar.
“Do you have another one of those?” Thinking of the bowls of soup they’d been pouring down his throat, the orange resembled a steak.
She pulled out a second orange and tossed it to him. Starving, Khalid tore into it.
“You’ve been here only a week. Hopefully long enough to purge the liquor out of your system. The other vice, that’s another story altogether.”
Khalid’s hand stilled.
“From what your father’s personal physician told us, that addiction is purely psychological and you may never be cured. The mind is a powerful thing, much like the heart.”
Soraya stood up and walked over to the bed. She took his hand in hers as she sat down. Embarrassed by the sticky liquid coating on his fingers, Khalid tried to pull away, but she held on tight.
“Speaking of the heart, I think what we should focus on is what set you on this downward spiral in the first place. So?who is she?”
Khalid looked at Soraya sharply. “Why would you think my downfall, as you call it, was because of some putain?”
Soraya leaned toward him. “I’m married to your brother. If it’s one thing I know about the Saeeds, you do not love lightly.”
While he deliberated, Khalid looked into Soraya’s heart-shaped face. Her beauty and serene smile hid a fierce warrior, a chieftain’s daughter who’d grown up traveling from oasis to oasis for survival. Would this proud woman judge him for kidnapping a woman and then mooning over her after she’d left him?
Khalid pulled his hand from hers and crossed his arms.
“Don’t you give me the silent treatment, Khalid Du?s. You almost destroyed yourself, and your brothers in the process. So, who is she?”
Khalid envisioned Olivia lying beneath him, her soft thighs clutched around his waist. Overwhelmed by the image, he squeezed his eyes shut. “She’s the younger sister of a friend.”
“Did you fall in love with her?”
“More like obsessed over her. I orchestrated her kidnapping.”
Khalid glanced at Soraya to gauge her reaction. There was none, she simply sat there, composed and unaffected as if he’d just remarked about the weather. “I took her to Hassan’s camp off the coast of Mauritania and kept her captive for almost three months.”
“Why didn’t you go after her?”
“I’ve never chased a woman in my life,” Khalid scoffed, “and I sure as hell wasn’t going to go running after her. She left me. No note, no last word of goodbye.”
“You’ve never kidnapped a woman and held her captive either. Going after her would’ve been par for the course.” Soraya sighed heavily. “Just admit your silly pride got in the way.”
“I’m a man and a Saeed. Pride is an inherent trait.” Khalid cut his eyes at Soraya and he chuckled. “That feels good,” he muttered, rubbing his hand over his beard. “I haven’t laughed in a long time.”
“It’s good to hear you laugh.” Soraya reached out and touched his arm. “It’s a hundred percent improvement from all the screaming and cursing.”
“Well, rest assured I’m not going down that road again,” Khalid vowed. What he’d done had been cowardly.
“What are your plans for the future, Khalid? Once you’re healthy and strong, Aksim and Iz?l will be more than happy to see you reassume your duties with the company.”
Khalid blinked. “What did you say?”
“Once you’re healthy—”
“No,” he cut her off, “the part about my future.”
“What do you see for yourself in the future?”
A sickening feeling curdled Khalid’s belly. The night before she left him, Olivia had asked him exactly the same thing. And he, the self-centered fool he’d always been, bragged about material things and not the one thing that mattered the most—her.
“I’m not even sure at this point,” Khalid lied.
“Liar.” Soraya shook her head. “Men and their silly pride.”
For a while, they sat in silence before Soraya excused herself to go down to dinner. She’d invited Khalid, but he’d declined. He wasn’t quite ready to face his siblings and definitely not his father. Unlike his mother, his father was the worry wart. He’d do nothing but fuss over him during the entire meal.
Plus, in all honesty, Khalid needed to sort things out—mainly his future and how he was going to face it without Olivia.
Six days later, Khalid emerged from his room. Hungry for both food and fresh air, he came downstairs just as the sun was setting.
“Well, if it isn’t the walking dead,” Iz?l drawled. “I thought we would have to burn the house down to draw you out.”
“Iz?l,” Soraya admonished, to which her brother-in-law simply shrugged his broad shoulders.
“No worries.” Khalid sat down on the bench. Served en plein air, dinner was being held outdoors on the patio. “Plus, after twenty-two years on this Earth, it’s too late to teach the reprobate any manners.”
Khalid glanced across the large rustic table at his two nephews. Normally a handful, Naim and Taaraz sat silently gaping at him as if he’d grown two heads. He leaned forward, and both boys huddled closer to their mother.
“Miss your favorite uncle?”
“Uncle Kal?” Naim, the older of the two asked.
“The one and only.” Khalid smiled in the face of their wide-eyed wonderment.
“You look like a pirate.” Taaraz pointed out.
Self-conscious, Khalid scratched at the thick black beard he’d refused to cut during his convalescence.
“And he’s been acting like one, too,” Iz?l quipped. “Carousing and causing mayhem.”
Naim’s green eyes widened in obvious wonderment. “Really, Uncle Kal?”
Smiling wickedly, Khalid nodded. Squealing, both boys bounded from their seats, tore around the table and jumped on him.
With a mop of inky black curls swirling around his head, Taaraz climbed onto Khalid’s lap, but was quickly unseated by his older brother. “Did you come across any booty?”
“Did you loose it?” Naim chimed in. “Is that why you were howling so much?”
Taaraz leaned in and wrapped his arm around Khalid’s neck. “You scared us, Uncle Kal.”
“He scared you,” Naim corrected. “Raz wet the bed more than once.”
The five year old struck out at his sibling, punching him squarely in the shoulder. “I did not.”
“Oh, yes you did.” Naim retaliated with a quick jab of his own.
“Boys!” Soraya was a little too late as a punching match ensued on Khalid’s lap.
“BOYS!” Aksim smacked his hand on the table and both his sons snapped to attention. “Give your uncle some breathing room and go sit down.”
Sulking, his nephews shuffled to their seats.
“Is this permanent or a one-time appearance?” Iz?l picked up his wine glass and swirled the contents.
“Hopefully, the former.” Khalid paused to breathe in the country air. Even with the magnificent spread before him, the mouth-watering aromas couldn’t compete with the sweet smell of lavender blooming on his brother’s estate. “It’s rather nice smelling something other than your own breath.”
Iz?l scrunched up his nose. “And here we thought we were providing a relaxing retreat and not a poisonous environment.”
Chuckling, Aksim passed Khalid a basket of fresh baked baguettes. “Other than the beard, you look good, Kal.”
Khalid placed two hunks of bread on his plate. “I feel good?great actually.”
“Is that another embellishment to snow us?” Khalid stopped buttering his bread and looked at his sister-in-law. Her hazel eyes bored into him as if trying to decipher the truth.
Khalid couldn’t blame her. In his delirium, he’d tried every trick in the book to convince them to let him go.
“No,” he answered. “It’s nice to feel something other than dead inside.”
Iz?l held his wine glass aloft. “Here, here! A toast to the living.”
Khalid didn’t begrudge his brother’s histrionics. He had plenty to celebrate. He’d risked his heart, been swallowed up, and even broken. And yet it still beat in his chest, which meant the things that hurt us are the very things that make us stronger. And a life without experience is no life at all.
***
Dust and leaves kicked up in Khalid’s wake as he charged down the country road in his custom coupe. In less than two kilometers, La Belle Vie, his brother’s country estate, would be up ahead on his right. The red chimneys and towers were visible above the tree line.
Recently off the assembly line, the six-cylinder race car ate up the dirt road as if it were newly poured concrete. Khalid whooped, reveling in the machine under his hands. It was great to be back in the driver’s seat. His brothers had the car transported from Paris as his reward for four months of sobriety.
Always a micromanager, Khalid had wanted to assist in the delivery—the car had been his brainchild—but his brothers had feared he would be corrupted by Paris’s vast temptations and fall into his old habits.
Khalid didn’t blame them for their lack of confidence in him. He had no clue whether or not he would relapse. He did know one thing his rehabilitation had not numbed his yearning for Olivia. More than six months had passed and she was impossible to put behind him. His memories of her proved to be much more potent than any game of chance.
What he had to do was paramount to his well-being. He just hoped his brother would agree. Impatient, Khalid up-shifted as he depressed the gas pedal, opening the coupe’s engine full throttle. He whipped by beech trees and meadows filled with purple wildflowers more beautiful than any Renoir painting. His stay in the country, the fresh air, the natural landscape, had done wonders for his constitution.
Eyeing the entrance to the chateau’s private lane, Khalid downshifted. The low-slung race car handled the quick turn without stalling. Grinning ear to ear, he straightened the wheel and sped up the private road.
His brothers and father weren’t outside waiting on him, but Khalid could feel their eyes on him as he careened up the circular driveway. Gravel crunched under the car’s tires, and he bemoaned the end of his ride. In all honesty, Khalid would’ve kept driving, but he didn’t want to cause his family any unnecessary grief, considering all they’d done for him. During his drive, they’d probably sat in Aksim’s study wearing the carpet thin.
Leaving the keys in the ignition, Khalid made a beeline for the kitchen. He’d done them a favor by returning as promised, and he didn’t need to check in as well. He retrieved a hunk of cheese, plucked a pear from the fruit basket and poured himself a glass of milk. As he sat down at the table, Khalid brought the fruit to his nose and inhaled. The sweet, earthy smell made him yearn for the outdoors again.
“So how did she handle?” Aksim swept through the kitchen door, his father and baby brother in tow. Three against one, Khalid mused as they took the vacant seats across from him.
Sebastian Du?s looked woefully out of place between his two sons. They’d inherited his height and powerful build, but they’d had their mother to thank for their olive skin and dark curly locks. Tall and blond, the French industrialist recently celebrated his fifty-seventh birthday. His handsome looks had only improved with time. And yet, after he and their mother had separated, Sebastian had never taken a mistress or filed for divorce.
“Was it like riding a bike?” Iz?l asked, his cheeks ruddy from excitement.
“Even better.” Khalid sliced the pear in half. “I want to rejoin the circuit.”
Khalid’s brothers looked at each other as if in silent communiqué.
“Are you sure that’s wise?” his father asked.
“I sure as hell don’t think it’s wise.” Aksim slammed his fists against the table top, causing Khalid’s glass to wobble. “The circuit is non-stop travel and it’s stressful. I’m never stepping into an opium den again.”
“No one asked you to come for me.” Eternally grateful for his family’s intervention, Khalid regretted the words as soon as they left his lips. “Look?a few races won’t pitch me off the wagon.”
“How can you be so sure?” his father asked.
Khalid reached up and ran a hand over his shorn locks. Less than an inch, the prickly strands tickled his palm. “Because the circuit didn’t send me into a decline.”
Iz?l sat forward. “What exactly was it then?”
All of them waited for an answer. After all these months, Soraya had not betrayed his confidence.
Still, her loyalty didn’t prevent the guilt from weighing on Khalid’s shoulders. His entire family had put their lives on hold to help him. They, of all people, deserved to finally know the truth.
“I fell in love…more like obsessed over a woman who didn’t love me back. I forced my affections on her by kidnapping her last fall. Over time, I thought I’d won her heart, but she left me with Malik’s help.”
Khalid studied his brothers’ body language to gauge their reaction to his tale of temporary insanity. Unfortunately, their expressions, like their silence, didn’t hold any clues.
His older brother lifted his arms and folded them behind his head. His blue eyes, so much like their father’s, never wavered from him. “When it comes to love, the Du?ses are a bunch of bastards, aren’t we?” he quipped, finally breaking the ice. His shoulders began to shake with laughter, which proved infectious as all four doubled over in stitches.
Sebastian patted his youngest child on the shoulder. “When are you and Khalid leaving?”
“Us?” Iz?l balked.
Khalid took offense as well. His father tended to forget he’d reached his majority a decade ago. “I’m drawing the line on taking a babysitter with me on the circuit. Mon Dieu! I’m almost thirty.”
Suddenly all business, his father placed his elbows on the table and steepled his fingers. “Youdon’t have a wife and two small boys.” Sebastian dismissed Iz?l and looked pointedly at Khalid, “?and you aren’t ready to be alone, traveling from city to city without support from people who really love you.”
Khalid caught the emphasis on “love” and the line he’d set blurred. He rose from his seat, glass and pear core in hand. “Pack your bags, mon frère,” he directed Iz?l, “we leave on Thursday for the Island of Sicily.”
Aksim’s mouth dropped open. “You’re racing in the Coppa Florio?”
Nodding, Khalid backed out of the kitchen.
Iz?l whooped in glee. The two-man open road endurance race was one of his brother’s favorites. “I’m riding shotgun.”
Personally, Khalid didn’t care if his brother rode shotgun or on the trunk, he was just happy his life was back on track. Now, if he could only figure out how it wouldn’t intersect with Olivia’s.
Like his other vices, he’d decided to abstain from indulging again. His obsession had been the greatest of all possible evils, his folly, and his madness.
Love without some madness was reasonable, but obsessing over Olivia and expecting a different result was insane.