about we play chess?’
Khaled turned round, one eyebrow quirked. ‘Are you sure?’
Lucy touched one of the pawns. ‘Yes. I’ve never really played, but I learned how.’
‘All right.’ Smiling faintly, Khaled moved to the sofa. He glanced at Lucy, humour lurking in his golden eyes. ‘I’m very good, you know.’
Lucy smiled back, suddenly feeling happy, light, comfortable, perhaps for the first time since she’d come to Dubai. ‘Don’t play easy on me,’ she warned. ‘I hate that.’
‘Promise.’ Khaled settled himself on one side of the chessboard, Lucy on the other. ‘I’ll thrash you, though, you know.’
‘Bring it on.’
Of course, he did thrash her. But Lucy played surprisingly well, considering each move with so much care that when the game was finally over she said, ‘Where did you learn to play?’
Khaled shrugged. ‘Eton. I didn’t discover rugby until my second-to-last year. Before that I was in the chess club.’
‘Were you?’ Laughter bubbled up; somehow she couldn’t imagine it.
‘Yes, I was,’ Khaled replied, his lips twitching. ‘Really.’
Lucy glanced down at the board. Checkmate. ‘Do you miss it?’ she asked quietly. ‘Rugby?’
Khaled was silent for a long moment. ‘Yes,’ he finally said, his gaze on the board as well. ‘I miss the thrill of the sport, but I’ve come to realise I miss something deeper than that too. I miss…’ He let out a ragged breath. ‘I miss what rugby made me.’
Lucy glanced up sharply. ‘What did rugby make you?’
He shrugged. ‘You saw.’
Yes, she’d seen, and it disappointed her somehow that Khaled missed that—the stardom, the popularity, the press, the life that had crushed her in the end. She didn’t speak, and Khaled’s mouth tightened, his eyes dark.
He gestured to the board, his voice purposefully light. ‘You’re really rather good. How come you never played?’
Lucy drew her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on top. ‘I never had the opportunity.’
‘Never?’
She hesitated and then, trying to keep her voice as light as his, continued, ‘I learned as a child. My father was a terrific chess player. He was a bit of a layabout, but he used to play in the pub. I learned so I could play with him, but it never came to pass.’
Khaled held a knight in his hand, and he set it down carefully on the board. ‘What happened?’
Another shrug; Lucy was surprised at how hard this was. She’d made peace with her father a long time ago; time had healed the wound.
Hadn’t it?
Yet now, avoiding Khaled’s perceptive gaze, the chess pieces blurring in front of her, it didn’t feel like time had healed anything at all. It felt fresh and raw and painful. She swallowed.
‘He never came back.’ She blinked back tears and looked up, composed once more. ‘He was meant to pick me up one Saturday, spend the day with me. I’d learned chess by then, and was excited about showing him.’ For a moment she remembered that day—standing by the front window just like Sam had, nose pressed against the glass, waiting, hopeful. Then the hope had slowly, irrevocably trickled away. She took a breath. ‘He never came.’
Khaled frowned. ‘Never?’
‘Oh, he sent me a five-pound note in the post for my birthday a couple of times,’ Lucy said. ‘But after that, nothing. He just wasn’t father material.’
Khaled tapped his fingers against the board. ‘And that’s why you thought I wasn’t father material either.’
Lucy shrugged; the movement felt stiff and awkward. ‘I explained this before,’ she said, striving to keep her voice light but failing. ‘My little bit of pop psychology, remember?’
‘Yes. I remember.’ Khaled’s voice was dark. ‘I just didn’t realise he left you so…abruptly.’
Like you did. The words seemed to hover, unspoken, in the air. Lucy looked away.
‘Well, thanks for the game of chess,’ she said after a moment when the silence had gone on too long, had become awkward and tense and filled with unspoken thoughts. Accusations. She uncoiled herself from her seat and stood up.
Khaled looked up, otherwise unmoving. ‘You’re a good player.’ He made no move to join her, instead looking away, gazing out of the window at the stretch of silvery ocean.
Lucy hesitated, wanting—what? She wanted Khaled’s strength, his touch and caress to banish the memories the conversation had stirred up. Yet she couldn’t quite make herself ask. It would feel like begging.
Sex, she realised despondently, was not the answer to everything. After another long moment, when Khaled did not move or take his gaze from the fathomless night outside, Lucy turned and went to bed.
Khaled toyed with the silver queen, gazing out at the twinkling lights in Dubai’s harbour, each one so tiny, so insignificant, yet offering light. Hope.
He’d begun to feel the first, faint stirrings of hope this last week, with Lucy in his arms every night as he’d longed for these last four years. He’d begun to believe they could have a future together, a love.
That she would love him.
And he’d convinced himself that he could handle his condition, that Lucy would never see him debilitated, that it all could be managed. Controlled.
Yet some things couldn’t be controlled, and finally Khaled understood the depth of Lucy’s mistrust of him.
When he’d left all those years ago, he’d been thinking of himself, acting on his pride and his fear. He supposed he’d wrapped it up as self-sacrifice, told himself that it was better for Lucy, better for everyone if he left. That no one wanted a burden, and that was how he’d seen himself—a burden, a cripple, a man without the identity he’d clung to for so many years.
Yet now he acknowledged fully, for the first time, how his sudden departure had been essentially a selfish act, an act which had devastated Lucy. She’d told him often enough, but he’d pushed her objections aside because his reasons had made sense to him, and really it was easier to do so. He couldn’t change the past.
And he still couldn’t. He didn’t think he could influence the future either.
Lucy didn’t love him, didn’t want to love him, and there was nothing he could say—nothing that hadn’t already been said—that would change her mind.
He thought of telling her he loved her, but instinctively recoiled from the idea, the threat of rejection, of ruining what little they had. He shouldn’t yearn for more, shouldn’t expect it, because he didn’t even deserve it.
He
