boyfriend regrets

Ras Al Khaimah in Dubai What do you mean, you’re pregnant? What about your studies? We were going to wait, Adiya, remember? Just tell me you’re joking?” Adiya felt her husband’s furious words strike her like boulders. She stared up into his livid face and didn’t recognize the man standing in front of her. He was shocked, that was all. He was thrown by her news. Her words would sink in soon enough and he’d go back to being the man she adored, the wonderful man to whom she had entrusted her heart. She just needed to give him time to get over his shock. The more she tried to rationalize his inexplicable reaction to what should have been joyous news, the more the insidious little voice in the back of her mind kept telling her that she was lying to herself. This was a side of Hassan that she had never seen before—one that he had never allowed her to see—and she was terrified of what that said about their six-month relationship. “I know that it’s sooner than we’d planned,” she said softly, trying to maintain an even tone of voice. “But this is the reality of our situation now, and it can’t be changed. We’re having a baby . . . a baby, hassan. Don’t you get how wonderful that is?” “I can’t believe you did this. I can’t believe you would stoop to this,” he gritted out bitterly. “This was supposed to be a joint decision. I’m not ready for this, Adiya . I don’t want a kid, damn it!” “But it’s our baby. We made it together,” she protested, trying and failing to keep the pain and confusion from her voice. She tried to find a glimmer of her kind and loving hassan beneath the mask of anger and frustration that he was displaying, but he wasn’t there. She wondered if he had ever been there. “You mean you made it, without my consent.” He could barely meet her eyes, and she was grateful for that because the tears that she had been struggling to keep at bay were finally winning the battle. “I don’t know why you’re being like this,” she cried. “I didn’t plan this; it just happened. Our birth control failed. I asked the doctor and he said that if I’d had a stomach virus or anything like that it could have provided a window of opportunity. And remember? I was sick a couple of days before your company party three months ago.” He strode out of the conservatory without a word and she followed him as he made his way downstairs to their en suite. She watched in sick disbelief as he opened the medicine chest and yanked out her birth-control pills. “What are you doing?” She tried to maintain her composure as he counted the pills left in the box and felt the hope that she had been clinging to shrivel up into a tiny ball inside her chest and die. She felt nauseated as she watched the man she had relationship turn into a monster right in front of her. Slowly the confused mortification turned to fury. How could he do this to her? How could he humiliate her like this? “God, have you been chucking pills down the drain every night?” he wondered out loud, and she found herself almost hating him for asking the question “You know I wouldn’t do that.” “Do I? Well I obviously don’t know you as well as I thought I did, do I?” “Of course you know me, hassan.” She tried to appeal to the reasonable man who had to be in there somewhere and laid a tentative hand on his rigid forearm, but he yanked his arm away and turned away from her. “Get out of here,” he whispered harshly, and Adiya felt something give way and break at those four words. “What?” She must have misheard him. Still she tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. “Get the hell out,” he said before turning to face her. Adiya tried not to flinch when she saw his face. There was nothing there—no anger, no regret, just a blank mask. She didn’t know this man at all. “Go now.” She sobbed, whirled from the room, and did as he had commanded. She fled. CHAPTER ONE TWO YEARS LATER She had been working for less than two hours and already she knew that it had been a mistake to come in. But not showing up for work meant not getting paid, and that would be disastrous. She needed her job desperately and couldn’t risk losing it. A bout of flu had wiped her out for nearly a week, leaving her without an income and dangerously low on resources. Though she still felt a bit shaky, she had dragged herself in to work that morning. But no sooner had she walked through the front door of the busiest, trendiest beachfront restaurant in Plettenberg Bay, than she comprehended what a grave error in judgment she had made. She was muddling up her orders, breaking dishes, and walking blindly into her fellow servers. She knew that the manager—who already felt that her personal circumstances were incompatible with her working environment—was just itching to fire her. Now she was basically handing him an excuse to get rid of her. She valiantly soldiered on, hoping against hope that Gerhard would, by some miracle, take pity on her and keep her on his books. A young couple with a baby cart made their way into her section and she shuffled over to them, her lack of enthusiasm obvious with every reluctant step. The couple were leaning into one another, whispering and laughing intimately, while the baby slept peacefully in its stroller. The pair looked very much in love and pretty much oblivious to the rest of the world. “Good afternoon,” she murmured, so focused on keeping her nausea at bay that she barely glanced at them. “Would you like anything to drink?” The woman looked up and started to say something, but she was interrupted by her companion, who swore viciously before jumping to his feet like a scalded cat. “Oh my God! Adiya?” Adiya gasped and raised one shaking hand to her mouth to stifle a shocked cry when she recognized the handsome man standing in front of her. Her vision blurred and she blinked rapidly to clear it. The baby, clearly startled by the man’s harsh voice, started crying. “So this is where you have been hiding out all this time?” The shock had disappeared from his voice to be replaced by contempt. “omar,” she moaned shakily, overwhelmed by love, fear, and relief all at the same time. “Don’t call me that!” he growled in warning, and she flinched. “God, you’re an ice-cold b***h, aren’t you? How could you stay away all this time? How could you live with yourself?” “Please,” she implored in the smallest whisper. “Please don’t . . .” “Don’t what? Call a spade a spade?” He sneered. “omar,” the woman, whom Adiya had forgotten about, spoke up. She kept her voice low, while she rocked the still-crying baby. “Take it easy, for heaven’s sake, she doesn’t look well. What’s going on here?” “Of course she doesn’t look well,” he scoffed, his harsh tone of voice totally unfamiliar. “Why would she look well when she has finally been caught, like the miserable little sneak that she is?” Adiya swayed even more. omar had never spoken to her like this before—it wasn’t in his gentle nature to be deliberately cruel—but he was firing on all cylinders today, and Adiya flinched with each terrible barb. “omar.” The woman was speaking again, but her voice sounded hollow, like it was coming from down a long tunnel. “omar, stop it . . .” She was saying something else but this time her voice had disappeared behind the angry buzzing in adiya's head. She shook her head but the sound got worse and louder until it was as deafening as a chainsaw. She groaned weakly and lifted her hands to her ears. That didn’t help, and she sobbed as her field of vision got narrower and narrower, until she could not see them at all, until there was only blackness. Voices faded in and out of her consciousness and adiay struggled to make sense of what they were saying. She was comfortable again, no longer dizzy and no longer achy. She felt like she was floating and was enveloped by an incredible sense of well-being. But this feeling was not quite right, and that awareness prevented her from being entirely at ease. She was sure that this uneasiness stemmed from the raised voices in the background, and again she attempted to filter out the garbled speech from the few words that she could understand. “. . . Don’t get . . .” it was a man’s voice, recognizable and well loved but unfamiliarly harsh. “. . . What she did . . . unforgivable . . . left him . . . b***h!” An unfamiliar female voice intervened, her gentle voice soothed adiya's overwrought nerves. “. . . Is she? What . . . she do . . . so bad?” adiya's strained to open her eyes but it felt like a colossal effort. “. . . Deserted hassan . . . needed her most . . .” adiya's managed a weak gasp at that, outraged by this blatant lie. The couple went abruptly silent. “. . . Waking up,” the woman said urgently. “. . . The doctor! Now, omar!” Doctor? Hassan frowned. Why a doctor? For the first time since regaining consciousness she wondered where she was and managed to drag her heavy lids apart with great effort. She stared up into the vaguely recognizable features of a pretty woman who seemed to be a couple of years younger than Hassan’s twenty-five. The woman’s warm smile transformed her gentle features from plain to almost pretty and had the effect of immediately calming Hassan down. “Try not to panic,” she instructed gently. “You passed out at work. At first we assumed it was shock but your fever and pallor soon made it pretty clear that you’re seriously ill.” Her sea-blue eyes were grave behind the lenses of her trendy prescription eyeglasses, and her voice took on a chastising tone. “You should never have been at work in that condition. You should take better care of yourself.” Hassan frowned wondering who the woman was, before deciding that being offended by her admonishment would require way too much of her strength. Clearly she was going to need that strength in the face of Omar's unexpected and unprecedented hostility. An alarming thought struck her, and she sat up in a blind panic, ignoring the sudden onslaught of dizziness. “Passed out at work?” Her voice sounded weak, even to her own ears. “Oh no . . . I have to call my boss!” “hassan.” The woman placed gentle hands on her shoulders to push her back onto the cot, her lovely eyes brimming with sympathy. “I’m afraid that he wasn’t very sympathetic about any of this. He said something about having had enough of your drama and that you shouldn’t bother coming back. I’m so sorry.” “Oh no,” she moaned. “No, no. I needed that job!” “Well if you wanted to keep it, you shouldn’t have gone to work in the condition you were in today, young lady.” A stern voice intruded from the doorway, where a harried-looking older man in a white coat stood framed. “Are you trying to kill yourself? You’re just barely over a very bad bout of flu, possibly even pneumonia from what I can gather, and you were so dehydrated when they brought you in that I’m amazed you didn’t pass out sooner! The mere fact that you’ve been out like a light for nearly five hours is proof of how close you are to relapsing. You’re completely run-down.” She went dramatically pale at that bit of news, and the doctor wrongly assumed that he had shocked her into taking her illness seriously. “I would like to keep you overnight to monitor your condition.” “No!” They were all taken aback by her sudden, shrill vehemence. “No, I can’t stay here. I have to go home. I should be there right now. My shift would have ended an hour ago; I should be at home.” That would be stupid and downright dangerous in your condition, Mrs. Palmer,” the doctor admonished, and Adiya's world reeled. “What did you call me?” she asked in a shocked whisper. “He called you Mrs. Palmer,” Omar taunted from where he stood in the doorway with his arms folded across his broad chest. “That is still your name, isn’t it?” She stared at Richmond Palmer' helplessly, not knowing what to say and suddenly hating him with a ferocity that shook her. “Well?” he prompted sarcastically, and she nodded mutely, not understanding this hostility from someone who had always loved and respected her “Please . . .” she whispered. “Please, omar, I have to go home.” “You’re going home all right,” omar informed her coldly. “Just as soon as it can be arranged.” “Mr. Palmer, I strongly advise against that,” the doctor interjected firmly, but omar ignored him, keeping his eyes on Adiya. “Just prescribe whatever medication she’ll need, Doctor,” he ordered in a manner that went completely against his usual easygoing nature. “We’ll make sure that she gets plenty of rest.” The doctor glared at them before shaking his head and leaving the room abruptly “omar, do you think this is a good idea?” The other woman asked worriedly, and he raised his eyes to her anxious face before smiling gently, his expression now reminiscent of the Omar that adiya's knew and loved. “It’ll be fine,” he murmured reassuringly, but the woman made an irritated sound and shook her head angrily. “I’ve had enough, omar,” she seethed, revealing claws beneath the sweet exterior. “You’d better tell me what’s going on and fast. I’ve been sitting here for hours without getting a single straight answer from you, and I’m fed up with it. Tell me what’s going on, or I’ll pack up and head off to Canada on my own!” Adiya's watched in fascination as his eyes flared in panic and he lost all semblance of his previous icy coolness. “farah,” he choked. “You wouldn’t go off on your own when we just . . .” “Don’t test me,” she warned. “Now I think that it’s past time you did some proper introductions and try to be civil, please.” He frowned sullenly, looking about as menacing as a little boy with his hand caught in the biscuit tin. “farah, meet Adiya Palmer. , my wife, farah.” adiya's eyes lit up with genuine pleasure as her eyes flew from one face to the other. His wife? Well, then, that would explain the baby. She glanced around the room, looking for the child. She smiled when she saw the pram parked close to the window on the other side of the room and marveled at how much his life had changed in the last two years. Your wife? omar, you got married?” He winced in response to her words. “jamal, don’t call me that,” he muttered uncomfortably, sounding so much like his old self that adiya’s heart swelled with love for him. She smiled and turned her attention to the slender woman who stood beside him. “I’m so glad that he married someone like you,” she managed weakly, wishing she could be more eloquent but suddenly feeling quite drained. She leaned back against the pillows and smiled up at them both. “omar deserves someone lovely . . .” Her eyes drifted shut. “I’m so tired. Take me home. Please. I need to go home . . .” “She’s my brother’s errant wife,” she heard omar telling his wife, but he sounded so far away that she frowned. Where was he going? “And, as I said before, she’s the heartless b***h who abandoned him when he needed her most!” Her eyes flew open in horror, and she was shocked to find that he was closer than his distant voice had suggested. Confused, she tried to gather her thoughts. “I didn’t,” she protested vehemently. “I wouldn’t. Why would you say something like that, omar? Why would you lie?” She heard the bewildered hurt in her voice and was ashamed to reveal how much his lies had wounded her. “I thought we were friends.” “Our friendship ended when you did what you did to my brother,” he snarled. She jumped when his voice caught up with him and the volume increased dramatically on the last word. “I didn’t do anything to hassan” she whimpered, her own voice still far away. “He didn’t want me anymore . . . so I left. I left him.” “You left him for dead! The woman, farah, laid a restraining hand on omar’s arm as he made a frustrated move toward adiya. jamal blinked at the fury on his face; she had no idea where all of this anger was coming from. “Take me home . . .” she entreated again, keeping her eyes on the other woman’s face. “Please. I have to go home . . .” Just then an intimidatingly large figure suddenly loomed in the doorway, and when Adiya’s eyes lifted, she was filled with a sense of impending doom. He stood there. Quiet, graceful, and fierce, and Adiya cowered at the sight of him. “He called me because I’m his brother and his loyalties lie with me.” The beautiful dark voice was calmer than she would have expected and drifted over her like a gentle caress. She closed her eyes at the sound of that voice. It was the first time she had heard it in over two years, and God how she had missed it. She had hungered for the sound of his voice and had often thought of calling him just to hear it but had dismissed that impulse as a dangerous and forbidden luxury. When she opened her eyes, she was shocked to find that he had moved. He was standing right beside her bed and much too close for comfort. She shifted somewhat, lowering her eyes to the bed covers, afraid to meet his glacial gaze. She was terrified of what she would see in those eyes and sneaked a peek at him from beneath her half-mast lids. He was so big. She had forgotten that about him, forgotten the sheer bulk of this man who had once been her love and her life. He stood six feet four and had the brawn to match the height, huge shoulders, trim waist, and slim hips. He resembled a Norse god of old with the darkly golden hair and the grim features that looked carved from granite. The only hints of softness in that roughly hewn face were his long, long lashes and his beautifully shaped mouth. She had always wondered what a gorgeous, successful man like him had seen in a plain nobody like her. She was an awkward and gangly woman who had long legs, a skinny body, and the gracelessness of a giraffe. There was nothing remarkable about her, save that a man like hassan Palmer had chosen her to be his wife, had seemed to love her and want her. He looked older than his thirty years. He had obviously aged since she had last seen him, but it wasn’t unflattering and it added even more character to an already strong face. Now he hovered over her like an avenging angel, beautiful and intimidating. He had all the power in the world to hurt her and—according to him—all the reason on Earth to hate her. “Look at me!” he hissed furiously. She lifted her head to meet his cold eyes head-on and quaked before the sheer, unadulterated hatred she saw there. “You took everything from me when you left. You stripped me of all dignity, left me bleeding by the roadside, and you never once looked back. I will never forgive you for that, Adiya.” never once looked back. I will never forgive you for that, Adiya.” “You told me to go,” she defended herself weakly, looking down as she spoke, and was shocked when his huge hand reached out and grasped her fragile jaw. His grip was so unexpectedly fierce that she cringed a bit. She sensed omar moving to intervene, but hassan let her go abruptly. “Look at me when you talk to me,” he gritted out savagely. “You did this to me. The least you can do is look at me when you have something to say.” “hassan,” she managed weakly, looking up at him, even though it terrified her to meet his eyes. “You told me to go. Remember?” He made an impatient sound and turned his back on her. Bewildered, she stared at the broad expanse of his back and tried again, tears spilling from her eyes and her voice thickening with despair. “You didn’t want me anymore. You said . . . I t-tricked you . . . said . . .” “Where is my baby?” He cut through her words coldly, spinning around to face her again, his eyes locked onto her tearful face with an intensity that unnerved her. She was aware of omar making a shocked sound and farah quietly taking the stroller and leaving the room. “Where is the child you so cruelly deprived me of knowing?” The tears streaming down her face did not move him at all, and his vicious gaze was unwavering “Please,” she whispered, and his eyes dropped to her mouth. “Please, hassan. . . you said you didn’t want a child . . . said I’d tricked you. I don’t understand why you’re being like this." “For God’s sake, ,” he all but shouted, suddenly and quite spectacularly losing his cool. “You knew that I was angry! You knew that I would calm down eventually. But you chose to run out of there, chose to jump into your car when you weren’t the best of drivers, and then you sped down that hill so fast that I was terrified you’d kill yourself. You knew that I’d follow . . .” He gritted his teeth and tilted his head back, and she could see the muscles in his neck and throat work as he forced himself back under control. It took him longer than she would have expected. hassan had always been quite adept at mastering his temper. Not this time, it seemed. While he managed to damp down the rage, she could still feel it simmering dangerously below the surface and it unsettled her. She didn’t quite understand where all this anger was coming from. “Where is my child?” he growled dangerously, and adiya's eyes flooded as she thought of her beautiful little girl.amani had every right to know her father and vice versa. It was just that, up until now, Adiya had no clue that hassan wanted to know his daughter. She thought of the there weeks she’d spent at their holiday home in Knysna, waiting for him to come. Yes, she had known that he would need time to calm down and she had known that once he thought things through he would come for her. There had never been a doubt in her mind that he would want her and their baby. But he hadn’t come . . . he hadn’t come to the most obvious place, the one place that she had been certain he would look, the place where they had spent so many happy hours together. And as the hours had turned into days and then into weeks, Adiya had been forced to face the reality of her situation: he had meant every cruel word. hassan did not want their child, and as a consequence, he no longer wanted her. She would never have believed it of him, would never have expected him to abandon her to care for their baby on her own. He had never once during their six-month relationship said that he loved her, but he had shown her in so many ways that she had believed that was enough. In the face of his abandonment, she had come to question that love and had been forced to acknowledge that the words would have meant more; the words would have meant everything. They would have set his love in stone. Now he was standing here telling her that he had wanted amani after all? What was she supposed to believe? Why was he treating her like the villain for leaving, when he was the one who had driven her away? In the midst of her turmoil, she heard an unmistakable sound—the familiar irrepressible chatter and giggle of a toddler . . . of a particular toddler. Bronwyn’s panicked gaze swung to the open door and she was horrified to see the babysitter leading her beautiful daughter toward the room. Her anxious gaze swung toward hassan but he seemed oblivious. He was watching her intently, still wanting an answer to his previous question. omar had heard though and his gaze was riveted on the doorway as well. Oh God how could Katerina bring her here? How had the woman even known where to find Adiya? “Answer me, damn you!” hassan was growling. How could he remain unaware of the approaching babble of an effervescent sixteen-month-old baby? He had his back to the door and so did not see when amani and the now-faltering Katerina crossed the threshold. The young woman hesitated as her gaze swept around the room, immediately picking up on the tension. The toddler had no such reservations and upon seeing her mother, her face lit up and she made a beeline for the cot. She was muttering incoherently under her breath, as was her wont, and her nappy-clad bottom waddled comically as she toddled her way toward hassan. hassan still seemed to have no idea that she was there, and as amani passed by the bemused omar, barely sparing him a glance, she was suddenly confronted by an obstacle in the form of her tall father. She frowned up at the big man who had his back to her, looking so much like him in that moment that adiya's smiled. “What do you find so funny about this Hassan?” he hissed. “Man big,” amani said, her first two clear words since entering the room, and it sounded more like criticism than compliment. When he still didn’t get out of her way, she gave him a measuring look, drew back her leg, and . . . “amani, no!” adiya shouted in horror, just as the little girl kicked her father on his calf. Bhassan staggered a little, shocked rather than hurt, and whirled around, scanning the room desperately for a few seconds before dropping his gaze to the mutinous tiny girl before him. Not even knee-high to him and still in nappies, but she refused to back down. “amani go . . .” she stated like a queen, sweeping by her enthralled father. When she reached her destination, she stopped and stared up at her next obstacle with a fulminating glare. The bed was too high for her to climb on to, so the beautiful little imp with her mop of silky brown hair and her big ice-blue eyes swept beguilingly back to the tall man she had just slighted and undid him with a charming smile before lifting her arms demandingly. “Up, peese!” she commanded with the air of one accustomed to getting her way. The “please” was just a formality, and her father was helpless to do anything but obey. He picked her up reverently, holding her close for just an instant longer than she liked and she squirmed uncomfortably until he settled her onto the cot beside her mother, before shifting his piercing scrutiny to the babysitter whom he had only just noticed “I’m sorry, Adiya” Katerina spoke uncertainly from the doorway, unnerved by hassan’s direct stare. “When you were late I called the restaurant and they told me what had happened. I spoke to the doctor before bringing her here, and he said that you weren’t contagious. I have a date . . . and I thought . . .” “You thought that you’d leave a