Page 163 of Tarek

“So, one day, my mom took me to this pretty house.” I chuckle to myself. “I can still remember the way the vines climbed the side of the wall with white flowers.”

“How did your dad react?”

“Ha, he tried to pay my mom off. Neither of them wanted me. Then the door opened.” I wipe my eyes as a tear leaked out.

“The door opened, and Miranda Holt put an end to everything. She took me in, and she never looked back at my mom.”

“What happened to your mom?”

I look down at the dark liquid in the cup and I thought of my birth mother. “She died in a car accident. Her boyfriend was driving, he lived.”

“I’m sorry,” Tarek replies.

“I’m not.” I whisper. I didn’t tell him how mean she was or how I would bathe early in the morning to avoid her then boyfriend. She never protected me, she never showed me any concern, she never loved me.

“It’s just… I never really felt like I belonged anywhere. My dad didn’t want me, and with my mom, Miranda, I don’t know, I never felt like I was truly hers.” It was the first time I allowed those words to spill out of me and it hurts.

“You didn’t belong to them.” Tarek pauses. “But you are completely mine.”

I bend my head and smile feeling a twinge of happiness that I belong somewhere with someone.

“So, you are not my cousin or sister wife or whatever,” Tarek says.

I sip on the tea and chortle “I am not your wife at all.”

“I intend to rectify that,”

My skips a beat. Does he want to make me his wife?

I need to change the conversation quickly. The black mother-of-pearl cabinet stands out in the room.

“Um I always loved that cabinet. Every time I come here, I look at it.”

Tarek looks to the side and says, “It was my mothers. It holds jewelry, nothing more. Are you feeling better now? Do you like your clothes?”

I can’t help but smile. “Yes, these pjs are so comfortable.”

“Good. How are our babies?”

Our babies? I have to get accustomed to that term. Dropping my guard I reply, “They are fine.”

“Let me make you dinner.” Tarek gets up.

I follow him, placing the tea down on the table.

“Well, when I think about it. Your grandmother did teach me to cook,” Tarek says.

“I wish I knew her. But I can cook. Lead me to the kitchen and I will fix us a meal.”

Tarek watches me march by him.

“Fine, you can cook tonight.”

ChapterTwenty

Ilyana

“Iwant a divorce,” Dereck says sliding a leather folder across the table toward me. His voice is so calm, too calm. My stomach turns as I stare at the folder. He wants to leave me…again. Like clockwork, every six month we end up here. I guess it’s that time of the year. I set the folder to the side, gently trying not to show my trembling hands.

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