With or Without Him (39 page)

Haris shrugged. “What difference would it have made? I’d still have been put on trial, whipped, exiled. You’d have lost two sons perhaps, not just one.”

His father’s fingers tightened on the chair arms. “Malik was always jealous of you. You were brighter, happier, better at everything.”

“Of course you say that. You loved him more.” Malik spat out the words.

“No, I did not.”

“You still talk about him. I wonder how Haris is. I wonder what Haris is doing. I wonder if Haris is happy. You care more about a son who is missing than the two you have with you.”

“You betrayed your brother when you were only a boy,” his father said. “You couldn’t have understood the consequences. You’ve lived with the guilt…”

Yes, he fucking did understand. He’s a bloody cuckoo.

His father put his head in his hands.

Why did I tell him? What has it gained me?
Haris’s momentary pleasure that he’d finally told his father the secret he’d kept in his heart
and
that he’d been believed faded to regret. He glanced at Tyler. Some things were best left unspoken. He’d forced Tyler’s hand by having him investigated. Haris wasn’t sure whether or not he was glad he knew about the movies, about the parties. How could you ever know if you’d done the right thing? But he kept a further suspicion locked away, that his mother had discovered Malik had betrayed him and taken her own life.

His father rose from the chair and walked to stand in front of Malik. “Think before you answer my next question, because Haris and Tyler must speak to the police tomorrow and you will be arrested. Did you try and kill your brother and his friend by pushing them under a bus?”

Malik scowled. “They can’t prove anything.”

His father sighed. “Those few words tell me everything.”

“I’ve done nothing,” Malik said.

“Well, then you won’t worry if the police want to question you.” Haris gave him a grim smile.

“Fuck you,” Malik whispered. “Fuck you and fuck your whore.” He glared at Tyler.

“Don’t speak of him like that.” Haris clenched his fists. “He’s more of a man than you could ever be. If you had a problem with me, all you had to do was talk to me. Instead, you hid behind Rashid. It’s your fault he’s dead.”

His father groaned and Malik fled to his side. “Are you in pain?”

Haris took in the way Malik held his father’s hand and the look that passed between father and son and sucked in a deep breath. He couldn’t put things right but he could avoid making them worse. “Pack your bags and leave now. Go to Heathrow, catch a flight out of the country tonight.”

Malik hesitated. His father pinned his gaze on Haris, and then Malik moved across the room to haul a suitcase from the closet.

“I’ll take you back to your hotel,” Haris told his father.

“Leave us a moment,” his father said.

Haris nodded to Tyler and they slipped out of the room. He leaned on the wall next to the part-open door.

Haris sighed. “Now you know my secrets too.”

“Except you were a victim,” Tyler muttered.

“Weren’t you a victim too?” he asked in a quiet voice.

“I chose to do what I did.”

“You were still a victim.”

“Malik,” he heard his father say. “Was life so bad?”

“He’s the reason my mother is dead,” Malik barked.

“No, he’s not.”

“I wanted her to love me as she loved him.” Malik’s voice cracked.

“She did. And I love you. Come home. Be with me at the end.”

Haris had heard enough. He strode down the corridor to the elevator. Tyler followed. By the time his father came to them, Haris had his emotions back under control.

“I’ll remain here and leave with Malik.” His father gave him a sad smile.

“I thought you might stay longer,” Haris said.

“He needs me. You never did. Be happy, my eldest son.”

Haris stepped into his father’s arms and they hugged each other.

“I could come. I could—”

“No. The risk is too great. We all have enemies. Better not to give them the means to destroy us.”

The elevator doors opened.

His father let him go and held out his hand to Tyler. Tyler shook it.

“Is Haris happy?”

“Sometimes,” Tyler said and glanced at him.

“Make him happy all the time. The past is done. You should never look behind. Only look forward.”

Tyler nodded and stepped into the elevator. Haris hesitated then followed. As the doors closed, he was hit by the realization that he’d never see his father again and slammed his hand on the open button.

“Baba,” he called as he stepped forward.

His father turned.

Haris took a deep breath and found the words he’d not spoken since he’d been a child. “I love you.”

A smile lit his father’s face. “And I love you.”

Haris pressed the button again and the doors closed. He let out a shuddering breath.

“Is that it?” Tyler asked.

“What would you have done?”

“After I kicked your brother in the nuts?”

He laughed. “Yeah.”

“Kicked him again. Harder. He wrecked your life.”

Haris shook his head. “No, he didn’t. If it hadn’t happened, I’d have probably gone back to Saudi after I graduated. Malik and I would have bickered about the business for years. I’d never have met you.” He smiled. “You’re my light, my path, my future.”

Tyler stared at him with his black eyes and Haris knew he didn’t believe him.

“Give me the chance to prove it to you.”

“You think you can?” Tyler asked.

Haris leaned forward, pressed his finger against the close door button, and brushed his lips over Tyler’s. When he licked the seam of his mouth, Tyler shuddered. He couldn’t see Tyler’s eyes anymore but he could feel the wash of his hot breath over his mouth. Haris gave him the softest, sweetest kiss he could. A kiss that told him what he meant to him.

Fear of losing Tyler swirled like a tornado in his head. Need pulsed through him, around him and over him until he thought he was going to drown. He laid his hand against Tyler’s face and fed him open-mouthed kisses until Tyler groaned and finally began to respond. Haris’s desperation grew in leaps and bounds. His erection strained behind his zipper, and each brush of his swollen cock against Tyler’s pants sent flashes of fire shooting into his belly.

What the hell’s that noise?

They broke apart, panting and stared at each other.

“It’s the alarm on the elevator,” Tyler said.

“I thought it was my heart.”

Tyler grinned. “Take your finger off the button and stick your hands in your pockets.”

When they walked into the lobby, Wilson stood holding Alcide.

“Do you need my help?” Wilson asked. “I studied jujitsu. Well, only for two weeks but I’m sure it will all come flooding back, and the chances of putting my back out in the same way resulting in four months of traction would surely not happen a second time. Alcide has sharp teeth though and I know he’d leap to your defense.”

“Everything’s fine,” Haris said. “We can go home now.”

It wasn’t fine, not yet but he wasn’t going to stop trying to make it right until it was.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Tyler opened the pizza box, inhaled the scent of melted cheese and crispy bacon and groaned. He couldn’t remember when he’d last eaten. Wilson had retired to his room with Alcide, and Haris sat beside him on the couch, his pizza smothered in pepperoni.

They needed to talk, but Tyler wasn’t sure he could, not yet. He kept going back to the fact that Haris had paid someone to follow him. He hadn’t forgotten Haris’s reaction when he’d told him Jeremy had dyed his hair—that deep groan. At the time, it had made Tyler wonder and now he thought he’d figured out why Haris had reacted like that. Whoever had been following him had told Haris they’d seen him outside his flat with a dark-haired guy. Haris thought he’d been cheating on him and said nothing. What hope did they have if they couldn’t talk to each other?

But if he didn’t give Haris another chance, what sort of fool was he? He wanted things to be right between them, but there was so much crap in the way. How many more months were left of this stupid contract? How long before Haris told him he loved him? He’d said it to his father so it wasn’t that he couldn’t get the words out.
Will he ever tell me? How long do I wait?

“What a day,” Haris said and bit into a slice of pizza.

What a fucking awful day.
“One really good thing did happen.”

Haris raised his eyebrows. “What?”

“I passed my term-end piano assessment despite cocking up on the instructions.”

“Hey, congratulations.”

Tyler grinned. “Last day today at college until mid-January, though I’ve a ton of work to do, plus a dissertation to write. A critical analysis of extreme metal, youth disaffection and post-industrial society, and how the music changed British pop.”

Haris’s eyes widened. “I didn’t even understand that.”

“Neither do I. Can I use your computer? Save me going to the library.”

“I’ll buy you a laptop.”

Tyler stiffened. He couldn’t help it. But he just about kept the snap out of his voice. “I don’t need you to buy me one. I just wanted to borrow yours.”

“Sorry. Course you can.”

“I promise not to look at too much porn.”

Haris dropped the slice of pizza he was holding and Tyler laughed.

“How come you’re so…up?” Haris asked, licking his fingers.

How come you don’t see beyond my smile?
“Because I’m not dead.”

Haris shuddered. “You might have been. It’s all my fault.”

Fuck it, not again.
“Don’t talk rubbish.”

“But it is. Your beautiful back.”

Tyler put the pizza box down and turned to face him. “Look, my back will be fine and if it isn’t, and it upsets me, then I’ll have it tattooed. It’s happened. I have to get over it. If I can, so can you. Christ, I have enough baggage without adding to it. So do you.”

Haris groaned. “If I hadn’t—”

“Just stop right there. Let it go. I know it’s easy to say but you have to at least try. I should have had more sense than to get in Rashid’s car. I should have called the police not Prescott. There’s a lot of things I could have done differently but there’s no point beating myself up about it. It’s taken me long enough to get there, but I finally see there’s no point looking back, your father was right. Only the future matters.”

“But—”

“No buts. Christ, I’ll have to get you one of those rubber bands to snap.”

“What?”

“A distraction technique. After my family died, the local council paid for a therapist. By the time he saw me, I was angry at everyone and everything. A ball of fury. I had no friends. I didn’t want them, didn’t think I needed them. I sulked, broke things, didn’t cooperate, didn’t care. All I had was my anger and I fed it like a fire. The therapist said if I hung onto it, it would wreck my life because I’d never manage to sustain a relationship. I’d go off on one, hit out. He told me the first thing someone did to upset me would set me off and I thought—right, and I tipped a cup of tea in his lap.”

“Ouch.”

“It was lukewarm, but he looked like he’d wet his pants. I assumed I’d get someone else assigned to me, but he was there again the next week and I thought, maybe this is someone who isn’t pretending to care, that he really
does
give a shit. He gave me a red rubber band to wear around my wrist and if I got angry, I was supposed to snap it. That first week, I snapped it so much my wrist bled, which made me throw up.” He chuckled. “I kept the rubber band for a long time. It worked but not in the way he’d anticipated. I just had to think about it making me bleed and I was too scared to be angry, or upset or whatever else I needed not to be.”

“I’ve seen you flicking your wrist a few times.”

“When I’m stressed. I forget there’s nothing there.”

Haris ruffled his fingers in his hair. “You’re a mixed up kid.”

“So are you.” He gave a heavy sigh. “What do we tell the police tomorrow?”

“Whatever you like.”

“About your brother?”

Haris pushed the remains of his pizza aside. “There’s no proof Malik manipulated Rashid into doing anything. Nor that Malik pushed us into the path of that bus, though I’m sure he did. Even if the police want to interview him, there’s no extradition treaty with Saudi. He won’t voluntarily come back.”

“So he’ll just get away with it and he isn’t even sorry. Because of him, Rashid stabbed Jeremy. He might have killed him.”

“I thought earlier that you wanted me to let him go.”

“I don’t know what I want.”

“How can we prove Malik had anything to do with the attack on Jeremy? My father’s dying. Whatever else Malik has done, he’s been a good son.”

“But a bad brother.”