Secrets (Passion Shields) (9 page)

His body was so still apart from the tick of muscles in his jaw.

"Take it." She flicked her wrist at him again.

Quietly, he reached out and unclipped the bracelet. It dangled from his fingers.

"You can give it to her." She nodded in the direction of the dark-haired woman. "She looks like she wants it a lot more than I do."

Selina turned around to try the door again
, but a tight band of fingers gripped her upper arm.

"This is what you do best, isn't it?" Ben bit out through clenched jaws. "Running instead of facing you
r fears. But the truth is that you can never outrun them. They live inside you growing every day into giant monsters when you can choose to reduce them to the size of ants and crush them. But no, we can't hurt sensitive Selina."

"I'll have you know, you're not the only one hurting
, Selina. But do you care? No. You've just shown me that you don't."

Mouth opened
, she stood there staring at her husband livid with anger for the first time since they'd been married. He reached behind her and punched in the key code furiously. She heard the door click open.

"Go on then, run, Selina. Run, if it makes you feel better."

Chapter Nine

"Everything is going to be all right, you know," Lora said.

Selina sat on the chocolate print sofa in her old house in Finchley, a North London suburb, her head on her best friend's shoulders as she fought not to break into another bout of sobbing. Lora's magic fingers worked magic on her tense shoulders.

On arrival, Selina had
already been physically sick. Her emotions raged, a stormy sea, choppy and dangerous. She raised her head.

"How's that?
" she asked, her voice choked with sentiment. "First I find out I'm not as special as I thought I was to him. Then he tells me his uncle is a white supremacist. Come on!"

"And if all that isn't bad enough, if I could forgive him for all that.
How can I get past the knowledge that while my family and friends were being killed, Benjamin and his family were making money from all the weapons killing them?"

"It really is a hard pill to swallow, Lina."

"To think that all this while I've been living in his apartment, bought with blood money. I can't live there anymore."

S
huddering, she covered her face with both hands.

"It's a good thing you kept your room here. You can always move back in."

Selina lifted her hands and nodded.

Lora
scrunched her face up. "But what are you going to do about Kaya's visa application? You're supposed to be living with Ben. What if someone from immigration pays you a visit?"

Selina stood and paced the room.
The familiar scent of cherry blossoms from the air freshener surrounded her.

"I really don't know what I'm going to do
," Lina said.

Resigned, she sat down again and picked up one of the violet velvet scatter cushion, hugging it to her midriff.

"Why did I let another man con me? Stupid me. You would've thought that after everything I went through the first time around I wouldn’t let myself be deceived by another man."

"In this case, you weren't the only one who was deceived. I genuinely thought
Ben loved you. The adoring way he looked at you on your wedding day, I would've given anything to have a man look at me that way."

Selina snorted. "Ben doesn't love me. He is very good at putting on an act."

"I don't know, Lina. What I saw looked genuine enough. Are you sure he hasn't moved on from his past? Perhaps that's why he fell out with his uncle."

"Even if he has moved on, it doesn't mean that he doesn't have blood on his hands
."

"I know—"

A phone buzzing interrupted her. Selina reached in her bag and pulled out her phone. The caller display indicated it was her husband. She put the phone on the sofa.

"I don't want to talk to him."

Lora picked the phone up. "Do you mind if I talk to him?"

She shrugged. "Be my guest."

Her friend answered the call and put it on speaker phone.

"Hi
, Ben. It's Lora."

"Hi
, Lora. I take it that Selina is with you."

"Yes, she's here. But she doesn't want to talk to you."

"That's okay. I was expecting that. I just wanted to make sure she was okay. She left the apartment without saying where she was going. Since it's almost midnight, I needed to make sure she was safe."

"She's fine. Well
, as fine as she can be considering."

"No problem. When she wants to talk, I'll be here. There are things I need to say to her
, but I'd prefer to talk one-to-one. Anyway, whatever she decides, I will still fulfill my obligations to her."

Selina gasped, taken by surprise by his candid words.

"Selina?"

"Hold on," Lora said and put the phone on mute.

"Talk to him please, Selina."

She shook her head.

Lora sighed and un-muted the phone. "I'm sorry, Ben. She refuses to talk."

"I'm sorry
, too," he replied. "Good night, Lora."

The phone line went dead.

"You know you're going to have to talk to him soon. If he didn't care as you said, he wouldn’t be calling to make sure you're okay."

"It will have to be later because I don't want to
speak to him right now. I'm going to bed."

However,
sleep proved elusive. She got up in the middle of the night, watching movies and eating ice cream. She couldn't keep Ben out of her mind, rolling playback on their time together.

There'd been nothing erratic about him
, so perhaps it was unfair comparing him to her ex who'd been a scheming coward.

While Ben w
as determined, he was never manipulative. Even now curled up in bed she missed his warmth, his soothing words, and his safety.

That
's it!
She'd always felt safe with him. The Ben she knew could never knowingly cause harm to innocents, could he?

She needed to talk to him.

Only managing an hour's sleep, she called a taxi when she woke up just after dawn. It would be an expensive ride back to Chelsea. But, she needed to see Ben.

She showered and dressed in the same clothes she'd worn the previous evening.
After a weepy goodbye to her friend, she headed back to the apartment in the taxi.

"Good morning,
Mrs. Moss." Martin greeted her.

"Morning, Martin." She smiled at the man
before entering the lift. In the foyer outside their front door she hesitated before keying in the lock code, apprehension knotting her belly.

Ta
king a few deep breaths, she pushed the door open. Silence greeted her. Slipping her shoes off so she didn’t wake any one, she padded quietly past the empty living room, toward the master suite. Ben wasn't in there, and the bed was still made like he hadn't slept in it. She wondered where he was.

Ready to go searching for him, she noticed a packed travel bag next to the bed.
Panicked, she rushed back out toward the study the only other place she thought Ben might be in. Knocking yielded no response. She keyed in the code and opened it.

Her heart stopped.
Classical music poured through the speakers hung on the wall.

Ben sat in the leather chair facing the wall
-to-ceiling window. He didn't even bother to look at her when she entered. Though she was sure he knew it was her. With cautious steps she approached him so she could see his face.

"Ben?"

His eyes were bloodshot, his hair disheveled where he'd been running his hand through them all night. He was in the same clothes he'd been wearing from yesterday, the sky blue shirt and charcoal trousers looked rumpled.

He glanced up at her
and swiveled around.

"I guess you
came to pick your things. There's no need to. I'm travelling to South Africa. So you can stay here. When I come back we'll work out an arrangement that won't derail your brother's visa application."

"Ben, I…"

"Selina, for what it's worth I'm sorry. If I'm honest I feared the day you'd find out about my family because I knew it would be the beginning of the end for us. Even I find it difficult forgiving my uncle, and I chose to distance myself from him. I don't see any reason why you should forgive me."

"There are plenty of reasons. You are nothing like your uncle.
"

He wasn't and she hated Ben comparing himself with such a bigoted man.

"In your defense, the things you did then can be dismissed as youthful folly. And when you realized what was going on, you chose to do the right thing and walk away. A very brave move in my opinion."

He fixed his
inscrutable gaze on her and didn't speak as if expecting her to say more.

"I need to explain to you why I freaked out yesterday. Can I sit down?"

"Please." He waved to the sofa.

She sat on one end, making space for him to sit, hoping he would take her hint. She didn't want him towering over her
, unnerving her. Instead, he remained in his chair.

"Ten years ago I was an eighteen year old girl excited and getting ready to marry the man I loved. It was a huge traditional wedding ceremony with members of both families there."

She closed her eyes reliving that day.

"Half way through the ceremony, gunmen arrived causing chaos.
There was shooting and screaming, people running, falling, wounded, and dead."

"At first
I was holding on tight to Tony. He was my new husband, and he would protect me. What he didn't have in looks he made up in youthfulness and ambition. One of the militia men gave him a choice, give up your new bride or both of us would be killed."

Tears misted her eyes.

"He turned to me and said what would be the use of both of us dying. He said I should go with them, that they wouldn’t hurt me. After all I was a girl. I begged him not to, but he told them to take me. They dragged me away. From that moment I never saw my parents or brother again. I was a captive and taken to their enclave in the bush where I was kept with some other girls. I fought the men who wanted to rape me. That's how I got the marks on my body. They said if I wouldn’t cooperate, they would mutilate me and leave me for dead. No other man would ever want me."

Her tears had now been falling
so steadily that she didn't see Ben get up and walk round until she felt the gentle dip of the sofa and his arms lifting her onto his lap.

She sighed and sank into his warmth and safety, giving her the strength to carry on.

"The cuts hurt badly and without proper attention got infected. I caught a fever. Next time I woke up, I was in a hospital in the city. Apparently we'd been rescued by some soldiers. I was placed in the care of an aid worker who arranged for me to come to the UK as an asylum seeker due to the extent of my trauma."

He went very still for a moment before taking a handkerchief and wiping her face. He
pulled her in tightly, his chin against her head.

"The pain from the physical wounds I can live with
, but what still hurts me the most is the thought that someone who professed to care about me could abandon me so easily without a fight. He was supposed to protect me, but he sold me so cheaply."

"Your ex was a coward. He didn't deserve you."

She shrugged. "I never trusted anyone after him … until I met you. With you it's been a struggle to keep my guard up. And to find out so much about you and your family's role in Sierra Leone just took me back to that bad time. I kept thinking you will do the same thing Tony did to me."

"You do know that I
would rather give up my life than allow any harm to come to you," he whispered into her hair. "I love you. I think I've loved you from the moment I first saw you."

Holding her breath, she let his unexpected word
s sink in, her insecurities coming to the fore for a brief moment. She lifted her head and met his gaze. The intensity and warmth of his grey eyes was a sea of sincerity she could drown in. Why had she doubted him?

"Before I met you I didn't believe it was possible for me to let go and trust someone else again. But in the past few months, you've proven to me that there is still someone worthy of my trust with your honor and integrity. I'm so happy I met you
. There's nothing I'd like more than to stay in this apartment, but it is tainted with blood money and I can't live here knowing what I know."

"Tainted with blood money? What do you mean?" His forehead creased in a frown.

"You family makes money from the death and suffering of innocents, including my family. You must have used the money you earned to set up your business and buy this apartment. I can't stay here."

He shook his head.

"No, Selina. When I left Jo'burg, I left with nothing. The money I earned from my days as a mercenary, I gave to Siba and her family as reparation for the distress my uncle caused them."

"
Oh? I don't understand." She waved her hand to encompass everything including the apartment.

"When my mother died, she'd left an inheritance for Bea and
me in a trust fund. She was an old money English heiress. She owned a small fortune in property estates. That was where I got the money to start up the security firm with Christopher. So there's no blood money here."

"Oh, that's such a relief to hear." She hugged him tight
ly.

"Does that mean you'll stay?"

She leaned back. "Yes and no."

"I'll stay
, but first, I'm going with you to South Africa if you can wait a week so I can arrange to take the time off."

He lifted her and put her back on the sofa before standing up.

"Did you not listen to a thing I said about my uncle?"

"I did. But as you said
yesterday I've got to stop running and face my fears. Since you're going to face your fears, I need to stand by you. And how else am I going to show you that I trust you completely?"