Marriage Behind the Fa?ade by Lynn Raye Harris Read Free Book Online

never believed for a moment, that an entire year would pass without any communication from him. She’d been impulsive, reckless.
    But she’d had to go. What choice was there?
    “A note that said nothing. Less than nothing.”
    “Then why didn’t you call me and ask for more?”
    He took a step closer, his arms rigid at his sides. “Why would I do so, Sydney? You left me. You left. You chose to flee. You did not do me the courtesy of speaking to me first.”
    Sydney was trembling, but not from fear. A hard knot formed in her gut, her throat. The words wouldn’t stay inside her. The bitterness she’d held in for a year came spilling out. “I heard you, Malik. I heard you tell your brother that you regretted marrying me. You were on speakerphone, in your office—”
    The words died, simply died. She couldn’t continue. His face said it all.
    “This is why you ran away like a child? Because of something you heard me say in a private conversation that you had no right to listen to?”
    She swallowed. Her throat felt as if it were lined with razor blades. How dare he try to make her feel guilty! “You can’t turn this around, Malik. You can’t make it about me listening in on your private call when you plainly said you’d made a mistake. I wasn’t trying to listen. I came to remind you that we were due at the opera at seven.”
    He looked so cold, so remote in that moment. She felt as if she’d violated his privacy when in fact she was the one who had every right to be upset. Damn it, he’d said he’d made a mistake! She’d been so desperately in love with him that she’d given up everything to go with him. Like some giddy schoolgirl with her first crush, she’d left her friends, her job and her home and followed him halfway around the world.
    Because he’d asked her to. Because she’d believed he was the right man.
    And then, when he’d suggested they marry, she’d been the happiest woman in the world. A little niggling voice had whispered doubts, but she’d ignored them. She’d been blind, thrilled, happy—and it had all come crashing down, just as she’d known deep inside that it must.
    Girls like her didn’t get the fairy tale prince, not really. She was pretty, she supposed, but she wasn’t elegant. She wasn’t sophisticated enough for a man like Malik. She’d ridden the wave as far as it would take her, and then she’d had to go before it crushed her.
    “You did not leave that night,” he said. “I remember the opera. It was Aida. You did not go for another week at least.”
    “Because I kept hoping it was a mistake! I kept waiting—”
    His gaze sharpened when she didn’t finish the sentence. “Waiting for what?”
    She couldn’t answer. Because she’d been waiting for him to say he loved her. A foolish hope in light of everything that happened.
    They’d gone to the opera that night, her heart feeling as if it were being ripped in two, and then they’d returned home. He’d had business to attend to, he’d said, and she’d gone to bed alone. She’d lain awake, waiting for him, but he never came. She’d finally fallen asleep as the sun was creeping into the sky, her heart still breaking.
    She’d learned in the week that followed that a heart did not break cleanly or quickly. It happened slowly, agonizingly, by degrees.
    And it wasn’t a sharp feeling, but a dull throbbing one that refused to go away. It was the kind of pain that permeated your entire body, your soul, and left you wanting to fall asleep and not wake up until it was in the distant past and you didn’t feel anymore.
    Malik grew cold, detached. He spent his days closeted in his office, or traveling on business. He became darker, quieter, harder to read. But at night, he would slip into their bed and take her again and again, the pleasure so hot and intense that it took her breath away.
    Soon, she’d started to think she’d misunderstood his conversation. And one night, when she was boneless and spent, her