Read His Christmas Captive for Free Online

attention. He was all too afraid that it was the ring of truth.
    "Lucy,"
he said again. "Please…"
    But she
ignored him.
    "You left
me here," she continued in that same way, as if it cost her, as if
speaking to him like this required her to be brave. The thought made something
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