‘Hence the flare ups,’ Lucy murmured, silently adding, and the finished rugby career.
‘Yes.’ Khaled fell silent, and Lucy felt a ripple of frustration. He acted as though he’d explained everything, and she most certainly felt he had not.
‘I still don’t understand, Khaled,’ she said quietly, ‘why such a diagnosis would make you leave me in the way you did.’
Khaled averted his gaze as he spoke. ‘The doctor told me the arthritis would be degenerative, probably quickly so, because of my age and its severity. He gave me a year or two at most at my current mobility… Eventually I’d need a wheelchair.’
‘But you’re still walking,’ Lucy objected.
‘For now.’ He turned, smiling wryly, although there was a deep bleakness in his eyes reflected from his soul. ‘It’s only a matter of time, Lucy. And of course you need to know that…if you marry me. At some point I will most likely lose the ability to walk.’
‘At some point,’ Lucy repeated. ‘Have you had any X-rays since then?’
‘Yes, and the consultant admitted the damage was much less than he’d anticipated. But I still have the condition. That cannot be changed.’
Lucy was silent, trying to make sense of what he was saying. ‘You didn’t think to tell me this when you learned of it? When I was asking for you?’
‘I didn’t want to burden you with it,’ Khaled said, and a brusque note entered his voice. ‘I’ve seen what happens when someone is saddled with the long-term care of a loved one. I know it’s an impossible choice, and I didn’t want you to have to make it.’
‘But you should have let me,’ Lucy insisted quietly. ‘It was my right.’
‘And I considered it my right to keep the information to myself,’ Khaled returned, his voice sharpening.
Lucy shook her head, sorrow flooding through her. Her heart ached for Khaled four years ago—learning of such a devastating diagnosis—and for herself, longing to be with him. ‘I wanted to be with you,’ she said quietly. ‘Then. I would have stood by you, Khaled.’
‘I didn’t want your pity.’ Khaled jerked a shoulder. ‘I still don’t. I’ve learned to live with it, Lucy, but four years ago I couldn’t stand the thought of everyone I knew treating me with kid gloves, damning me with their mercy. Of you being that way. And if I’d told you, there would be no way to prevent it.’
Lucy drew her knees up to her chest. ‘I’m sorry you went through that,’ she said quietly, choosing her words with care. ‘And I can understand why you left, but…’ She felt Khaled tense—felt herself tense, and forced herself to continue. She knew it had to be said. Confronted. ‘If you really cared about me, Khaled, you would have been in touch. A letter, a phone call.’ Her voice trembled and she strove to control it. ‘Something.’
‘I thought about it,’ Khaled told her, and from the low intensity of his voice she believed it. ‘Many times. I wanted to.’
She shook her head. Even now the doubt was strong, the evidence overwhelming. ‘Did you really?’
‘Yes. But I didn’t in the end, Lucy, because I didn’t think it would ever work. For you. I didn’t want to be a burden to you, or to anyone. I know what that’s like.’
‘Do you?’ Lucy asked. ‘How?’
‘My mother was diagnosed with MS when I was little more than a baby. By the time I was five, she was bedridden. It was why there was never any more children. I saw how my father tried to care for her, how it poisoned their marriage.’
‘Poisoned?’ Lucy repeated, revulsion creeping into her voice.
‘He began to resent her. He didn’t want to, but I could tell. She could tell. He wanted a wife by his side, healthy and strong, giving him sons. And instead…’ He shrugged, spreading his hands. ‘My mother shrivelled and withered under his disappointment, and I couldn’t stand the thought of being the same.’
Lucy was silent, her heart aching for the boy Khaled must have been, as well as the man he’d become. His mother’s illness as well as his own injury had shaped him, hardened him.
Could there be an end to his bitterness? Could she provide it? ‘And you thought I’d react the same way?’ she asked in a low voice when the silence had stretched on too long. ‘That I’d be…disappointed somehow?’
Khaled exhaled heavily. ‘You wouldn’t mean to be.’
‘I wouldn’t,’ Lucy broke in. ‘Full stop. But you never gave me that choice.’
‘It was my choice,’ Khaled returned, an edge creeping into his voice again. ‘First and foremost.’
And that was at the heart of it, Lucy thought, too sad to feel resentful. Khaled made the choices for both of them—he had four years ago, and he was doing the same now. ‘But what’s changed, Khaled?’ she asked. ‘Your medical diagnosis hasn’t, so why are you willing to risk marriage with me when you weren’t before?’
‘Because of Sam,’ Khaled replied. ‘And because I want to. I want you.’ His face hardened with determination. ‘I’m willing to risk it. I have to.’
Want, Lucy thought. Not love. Not even close. But what had she been expecting?
‘I know…’ He stopped, his expression hooded, distant, yet with the shadow of vulnerability in his eyes. ‘I wasn’t—I’m still not—the man I once was. The man you fell in love with. I’ll never be that man again.’ This last statement was delivered with an achingly bleak honesty that made Lucy stare at him with speechless revelation, sorrow swamping her once more. They’d both changed. They were different people now, reshaped by heartache and disappointed dreams. ‘Although,’ he continued, ‘you say you weren’t in love with me at all.’
There was an honesty in his eyes that reached right down to her soul, and she was compelled to be honest as well. ‘Maybe I was,’ she admitted in a raw whisper, and gently Khaled reached out to brush a tendril of hair away from her cheek.
‘And now?’ he asked, his voice just as soft as hers. Her heart began to beat so fiercely, she felt as if it would burst through her chest.
She wanted to tell him she loved him. She wanted to believe she loved him, this man who had shown her his weakness, who had given her his vulnerability. She wanted to trust in this moment. But as she stared at him speechlessly she knew she couldn’t. In the end all this was was an evening, a moment in time, an orchestrated intimacy, and she had no idea if it was real.
If Khaled was real.
Even now her heart rebelled, her mind whispered, you can’t trust him, what if he leaves again? What if he decides what’s best for you again?
And then a far more alarming whisper: what about Sam?
Could she marry Khaled for Sam’s sake, to give him the family neither of them had ever had? Could she keep herself from loving Khaled, from being hurt by him? And was that the kind of life she wanted for herself, for them all?
The other option was to trust him, give herself and her heart to him. Even now every instinct rebelled against that final, frightening step.
‘Lucy?’ Khaled stared at her, his jaw clenched tensely, realizing what her silence meant.
‘I…I’m sorry.’ She swallowed, feeling tears rise in her throat and crowd her eyes.
Khaled turned away, his gaze resolutely fastened on the horizon. ‘Then we must have a marriage of convenience,’ he said flatly. ‘For Sam’s sake. For your own too, perhaps. You would not enjoy living half a life with him, would you?’
‘No…’ A tear slipped coldly down her cheek and she