she didn’t stiffen or shrug him off. Unfamiliar tenderness—compassion, even—was filling him as he led her away from the underground and further complicated his life.
‘SHE didn’t suffer…’ Karim said to Felicity, but for the benefit of the curious onlookers as they took the lift to his suite. ‘We have to take solace in that.’
Her face was in his chest. Her tears were at the gulping stage now, and from the depths emerged the glimmer of a smile. It warmed her that he would do that for her—would soothe the sting of shame as her private misery was momentarily on public display.
She could only vaguely remember getting back to the hotel, with him holding her, leading her through the streets. She had baulked at his offer of a secluded table in the restaurant, and she might live to regret the folly of her ways, but at some very deep level she trusted him. After last night she knew that for Karim no meant no, and the fact he was a doctor helped too. But it wasn’t just that. Yesterday something had been triggered inside her, and Karim was the source—the source of a feeling that had always eluded her. And though she’d tried to walk away, now she willingly walked back.
Even in her highly emotive state there was a slight flash of wonder as they stepped into his suite—if hers was gorgeous, this was truly a palace—yet all she felt was safe. There was actually nothing sexy in it. She sat on his sofa and centred herself for a few moments as Karim rang down and ordered breakfast, then poured her a large brandy. She shook her head.
‘It’s seven a.m.!’
‘We don’t choose when these things happen!’ Karim said, and so she took a sip, and then another. She shivered as violently as she had yesterday, after the accident, despite the warmth of the room, but it was she who broke the gentle silence.
‘I shouldn’t have accepted your invitation for dinner.’
‘Are you involved with someone?’ Karim asked, because that would make sense. Their attraction had been so fierce it would have been hard to deny it—easier, perhaps, to lie a little, to give in to the forces that had propelled them from the moment he had walked into the conference room.
‘We broke up.’ Felicity took another sip of her drink, then put it down—because nothing could calm her till she admitted the truth. ‘I’m not very good at relationships.’
‘Neither am…’ Karim started, but then halted. Because even gentle humour was out of place at this time.
‘There’s no point starting something. It’s not fair to you and it’s not fair to me…’ She wasn’t making much sense. ‘Paul and I were together for a year and we weren’t able to…I mean, I wasn’t able to…’
She actually couldn’t say it, but Karim got to the painful point. ‘You were unable to have sex?’
‘Yes.’
‘You know I am a doctor?’ He watched as his words were absorbed and she nodded. She understood that at this moment he was a doctor—which was maybe why she felt safe, maybe why she had let him lead her to his suite. He was a doctor—another one who would tell her it could be sorted. ‘And I am telling you—you are not frigid.’
She shook her head. She had heard it so many times before.
‘Felicity.’ His voice was firm and so assured—so absolutely assured that she wanted to believe him. ‘You are not frigid.’
Yet no matter how she might want to believe him, how assured he sounded, she knew better.
‘I’ve seen doctors, psychologists. I had a boyfriend for a year and we tried everything. All I ever feel is scared.’
‘Did they work out why?’ He didn’t flinch as she spat out a mirthless laugh. ‘Your sister is ill?’
‘She’s anorexic,’ Felicity said. ‘Well, she’s recovering.’
‘And your mother suffers with extreme anxiety?’
‘I know all that.’ Felicity clawed at her scalp—because she was sick of it—sick of going over and over it in the hope of a different outcome. Always the result was the same. ‘My father was a controlling drunk. There was no abuse as such…’ She hated all the questions, the assumptions—because they were all wrong.
‘Abuse does not have to be sexual or physical to be abuse.’
‘No…’ Felicity breathed, glad that at least he understood that—that her father’s controlling ways had been enough to damage her in a way that wasn’t as obvious as her mother’s or Georgie’s. She had been left with an intense private fear of giving trust, of losing control, that couldn’t be logically explained.
He didn’t make her try.
‘You have never once felt aroused?’
‘No. Never.’
‘Not once in your life?’
‘No…’ Her eyes darted to his, and then back down. This was the reason she was here—because yesterday she had! Yesterday Karim had flicked a switch. She didn’t know how, but she wanted to know why.
He stood torn with rare indecision. He was moved by this beautiful selfless woman who delivered babies, who had so bravely saved a life yesterday, who put her family first and was, for whatever reason, holding a part of herself back, too nervous to trust. The clock was ticking on his last days of freedom. He could be out there enjoying himself, but he actually wanted to be here. He wanted to spend his last days with this shy, deep stranger, to bring passion and joy into her life—and of course there would be a reward for him too!
‘I’m not being a doctor now,’ he said. ‘Because as a doctor I cannot speak like this. But as a man I can fix it.’
‘Paul said the same,’ Felicity sneered—because his was a typical response, such an arrogant thing to say, and it told her he didn’t really understand.
‘I’m not Paul, though.’
She pressed her fingers into her eyelids, because he had made a vital point.
‘And I am telling you that you are not frigid. I assure you, this can be fixed.’
‘How do you know?’ She was angry at his assumption. ‘How do you know that I’m not just going to feel worse if the world’s sexiest—?’ She stopped then, watched his beautiful mouth curve into a smile, and she cringed back on the sofa but sort of smiled too.
‘Compliment accepted,’ Karim said—and then he stopped smiling, serious now, and knowledgeable too. ‘I can fix it. Because to be frigid, or whatever you choose to call it, means you are unable or unwilling. You think you are unable, but you are willing. In the lecture theatre, when we stood in the dark near each other, were you aroused then?’
‘I don’t know—I don’t know…’ She was trying to stand up, like an animal trying to escape, mortified, confused. He held her wrists.
‘Suppose
