Page 36 of Hot Nights in Morocco
“Do you have to?” My voice rings out loud and clear across the dinner table.
He puts down his fork and gazes at me steadily. “Global was my father’s whole world, Charlie. I guess I’m not ready to let go of him yet.”
It’s such a personal declaration and so unlike Jake. I have to turn away again so he can’t register my shock. Out of the corner of my eye I see Hassan’s mother whisper something to her eldest daughter, Malak.
“What’s your mother saying?” I ask her. I’ve already sussed out that Malak speaks a little English.
“She says you are beautiful,” says Malek as she fingers the ends of my hair in wonder. “Your skin is so white. So fine. How you say…like china?”
“Porcelain,” I correct her with an embarrassed smile.
“She also say you have sad eyes. I agree. We have a saying in my village: past is a cage and life is a bird. She cannot escape it, no matter how hard she beats her wings against the bars. Only when she accepts the cage will she truly be free.”
Jake pauses his conversation with Hassan to listen.
“Your mother is kind, but mistaken,” I lie quickly. “There’s nothing in my past except books and boredom.”
Hassan’s mother whispers something else to Malak, who blushes scarlet. “She asks why you are not married yet?”
Now it’s my turn to blush.
“I read somewhere that the right man is the one who seizes the moment,” murmurs Jake, filling the aching silence for me.
There’s a pause to let his words breathe before I’m flicking my gaze up to meet his. “I guess I’m still waiting to be someone’s moment, then,” I say quietly.
Chapter Nineteen
Later that evening, Jake and I find ourselves alone together outside. There are a myriad stars above our heads. Heaven and earth have collided in one big universe of flickering lights. I wish I could say it was romantic, but there’s far too much unresolved tension simmering between us. Whatever small truce we forged over dinner has long since melted into the darkness.
Hassan has tuned in to a radio station playing western pop music on his car stereo, and the children are dancing like fireflies in the glare of the headlamps. The cicadas are chirping noisily in unison but the silence between me and Jake is deafening.
We’re standing on the outskirts of the hamlet. I can’t see the edge of the mountainside and it’s making me nervous. The way Jake feels about me, I’m sure he’d try to push me off it if he could. I can feel his eyes punching my skin from the shadows.
“Why did you lie to Hassan’s mother?” he growls suddenly, taking a step in my direction. I watch the dark fall away from his face like a veil.
“So, you’re talking to me now, are you?” I say, bitter in my defiance.
“Are you denying it?”
“You bet I am.”
“And now you’re lying tome.” Jake thrusts his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. God, he looks so tall and perfect, just standing there sexing up the place, while calling me out on my bullshit.
Gritting my teeth, I turn back to the yawning blackness as a wild thought flits through my head.If I jumped, would he save me?
“Look at me, Books.”
“Don’t call me that,” I say crossly. “It was cute before, but a lot has changed since then.”
“I’ll call you whatever the hell I like, and it wasn’t a request.” He takes my arm and spins me around to face him. His expression is fierce and penetrating, but his eyes are sparking with something else entirely.
Lust. Regret.Pity?
Oh, hell, no.That’s one emotion I’m not prepared to have chucked in my direction by anyone, especially not from him.
“What happened between us this morning?” he demands.
“Do you really need me to go into specifics?”
