12 Gifts for Christmas. Джулия Кеннер

in him ache. “And I saw it as a perfect opportunity to get to know your world. To transform myself into the kind of wife you wouldn’t have to hide away or be ashamed of.”

      He remembered, suddenly, what she’d been wearing when he’d arrived—how elegant he’d thought her. How much of a change it had been from the louder, trendier clothes she’d worn before.

      “But then I lost the baby,” she said, her voice shaking. “And I had to live through that, Rafi. Alone. And still you left me here, as if I was something undeserving of even the barest compassion.”

      Her face crumpled for a moment, as if she might break down into sobs, but she controlled herself.

      “Lucy,” he began again, but she shook her head, warding him off.

      “I don’t care if the Qaderis don’t do divorce,” she said then, with a quiet dignity that shook him almost more than her earlier show of emotion. “I’m leaving you. Not because I don’t love you—because I do, for my sins. But it doesn’t matter. You may be descended from a hundred centuries of greatness, Rafi, but I deserve better than this. I deserve better than you.”

      Rafi sat in silence, unmoving, for a long time after Lucy had left the room, more regal than any queen. He stared into the fire but he did not see the flames. He only saw the past, his tangled history with Lucy and all the conclusions he’d jumped to far too easily. That she’d been using him. That he had been enchanted by a beautiful woman, as any man could be. That she had set out to avail herself of his name and fortune. That the passion between them was not—could not be—real. That what he felt could not be real.

      All along, the people around him had whispered poison in his ears—and he had listened. Safir. The country elders. He had wanted to believe them, he realized now. When she had told him there was no baby he had jumped on it, had clung to the evidence that she was as false as all in his circle wanted him to believe she was.

      Because then he wouldn’t have had to admit that he was weak. That he was afraid of the power she held over him. Of what she made him feel.

      What a despicable piece of work he was, he thought then, an acid taste in his mouth.

      He remembered all the snide and nasty things he’d let Safir say about her, all the times he’d never stood up for her. What kind of man allowed such things? And then, unbidden, something else occurred to him. The repeated calls from the family doctor, which Safir had waved away, saying it could wait until Rafi returned home, all the while never encouraging him to do so. But what if it had been something else? Would Safir have told Rafi about something that would show Lucy in a better light?

      He knew the answer. But he had to confirm the suspicion that bloomed to life inside of him. He had to know the full extent of his own betrayal of Lucy, who had never done anything save love him. Far more than he deserved.

      Rafi moved across the room and picked up the sleek phone on the desk. Gruffly, not even apologizing to his housekeeper, he asked to be connected to the doctor, regardless of the late hour.

      The kindly old man had attended his own birth and had kept any number of Qaderi family secrets in his time. And he had never lied about anything.

      It was a brief, appalling conversation.

      “I’m so glad you called,” the old man said, as if he had not noticed the time. “I’ve been trying to speak with you for months about that night. I wanted to assure you that I made every attempt to convince your wife to go to the hospital but she refused. She was too concerned about your reputation.” He sighed. “So I made her as comfortable as I could and made sure there were no complications. Please, I do not want you to think that her care was substandard, or that I did not do my level best to convince her to go to the hospital. She simply would not go. I thought perhaps you could convince her, but then I could not reach you… .”

      “I don’t blame you for anything,” Rafi said through a mouth that felt made of broken glass. And it was no more than the truth. He blamed only himself.

      “Sometimes these things happen,” the doctor said, the wisdom and calm of years in his voice. “She has been healthy since, and I’m sure you will have another child, in time. This is but a hiccup. I have every faith, both medically and personally.”

      He had never hated himself more, Rafi thought as he hung up the phone in a daze. He could only stand there, alone with the shame of what he’d done to her.

      Lucy was not lying. She never had been.

      Had he known that all along, on some level? Had he wanted to believe that he’d never had a child at all so that he would not have to deal with the crushing sense of loss? Was he that small, that cowardly, that he would sacrifice Lucy to prevent himself from feeling his own pain?

      But he knew that he was. That he had.

      Rafi sank down on the side of the great bed, buried his head in his hands and gave in, finally, to the grief that he’d staved off for three long months.

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      THIS time when Lucy woke it was to find herself in Rafi’s arms.

      For a moment, she forgot. She simply breathed in the scent of him, winter and pine, and exulted in the heat of his strong arms around her. But then she exhaled and it all came rushing back.

      “Don’t do this!” she hissed at him, tilting her head away to look at him. His dark brows were drawn over his gray eyes, and his mouth was in a flat line. “Just let me go, Rafi.”

      “If that is what you want,” he said in a low, gravelly voice, “I will. But there’s something I want to show you first.”

      She couldn’t bear to meet his eyes—to let him see the effect his words had on her. It was one thing to announce she was leaving, to demand a divorce, to want those things. It was something else again to have him accept it. She felt something yawn open inside of her, black and lonely.

      Perhaps that was why it took several long moments for her to recognize the change in her surroundings after he’d settled her on the overstuffed chaise in the book-lined library. She schooled her features as best she could and when she looked up …

      It was Christmas.

      Lucy could not help herself—she gasped.

      A small, plump pine tree bristled in the corner, festooned with objects Lucy recognized—the tiny china figures from the display in the blue salon, the small ornamental picture frames that were usually scattered on the tables in the formal sitting room. It was as if someone had gone through the house and picked up whatever was small enough to be fastened to the branches and decorated the tree that way.

      Lucy’s hands crept over her mouth as she took it in. She turned to stare at the man who had moved to kneel before her, his gray eyes serious.

      “What did you do?” she breathed, enchanted despite herself.

      “It’s Christmas, isn’t it?” His voice was gruff.

      “You hate Christmas,” she pointed out, feeling lightheaded. Off balance. “You think it’s—”

      “Let me tell you a story,” he interrupted gently, running his hands over her legs, gazing up at her. “Isn’t that how this goes? Is this how your mother used to do it?”

      Lucy was overcome by the swell of an emotion she was afraid might tip her right over. She could only nod, mutely. She could not seem to tear her eyes away from his.

      “I was up most of the night,” he said in a low voice, his eyes intent on hers, though his were dark, agonized. “It was obvious to me that you were telling the truth last night. Then I spoke with the family doctor, who reiterated everything that you had said, what I should have accepted all along. That you lost our baby, and I abandoned you in your pain. I can never possibly make that up to you. I will spend my life regretting it, Lucy. I promise you.”

      She could not help the way her eyes glazed