Chapter Twenty-six
The next few days flew by in a whirlwind of ecstatic contentment. Laila had never felt so alive in her life. She and Asher spent every minute they could together. He came to all of her rehearsals and her shows.
Rafe was still a little distant following their breakup. But
after he witnessed her show on Tuesday night, some of his former enthusiasm bounded to the forefront again. When he saw Asher in her dressing room after the show, he frowned at first. But when Asher just met his stare unflinchingly, a change came over Rafe. He seemed to surrender to practicality. He’d been Laila’s manager before he’d ever dated her, after all. If Asher was the reason for her extra-passionate, emotional performances, then he couldn’t be entirely bad, in Rafe’s mind. He gave a small shrug and hugged Laila.
“Even I can’t argue with results like that,” he said quietly near her ear. “You were beyond magnificent tonight.”
She and Asher couldn’t get enough of each other. They expressed their love for each other so frequently, Laila wondered if unconsciously they thought the words were like a ward against a curse, a staving off of the inevitable. Their time was running out. Asher would be flying to London in seven days, six . . . five. It was like some giant clock of doom was growing closer and closer every day, ticking louder and louder in Laila’s dreams every night that she spent in Asher’s arms. She wanted to ask him what he was thinking and feeling about their separation, but she was afraid of his answer.
She’d walked away from him once. Had she forsaken the right to beg him for a future?
On Thursday, Asher said that he couldn’t attend her rehearsal because he had some errands to run. She missed him that afternoon and was extra eager to see him when she entered his Lincoln Park condo that night. When he led her into the living room, she paused in disbelief at the threshold. There must have been twenty or thirty wrapped packages dispersed throughout the room.
“What in the world is this?” she asked him in stunned amazement.
“Happy birthday,” he said, a slow smile spreading across his sexy mouth.
“My birthday isn’t until June,” she exclaimed.
He leaned down and kissed her, making her forget her incredulity for a minute.
“I got one for every birthday I’ve missed,” he told her against her mouth a few seconds later. She saw his eyes gleaming in amused warmth. “And I picked them all out myself too. You taught me the importance of that.”
She laughed. She couldn’t believe him.
Each gift was as amazing as the last: a beautiful gold bracelet, a rare signed vinyl recording of Ella Fitzgerald, a gorgeous white silk negligee, a collection of leather-bound music notebooks . . . the treasures went on and on. Laila was overwhelmed. He gave the last one to her with a solemnness that made her wonder.
“Why do you look like that?” she whispered as she ripped open the paper on the flat, rectangular box.
“Because. I got this two years ago, on my last trip to Morocco. I don’t think I consciously got it for you. It just struck me yesterday, that maybe I had . . . even if it was only wishful thinking. At the time, I just told myself it was pretty, and wouldn’t think much beyond that . . .”
She held her breath as she opened the box. She gasped, shivers pouring down her spine and arm.
“It’s a hamsa,” she whispered, glancing up at him in disbelief. The hamsa was a popular symbol in Morocco and Northern Africa. It depicted the open right hand and was often used for jewelry. Asher’s gift was an especially rare and lovely necklace of a hamsa, made from finely wrought silver and some sort of jade or peridot stones—she couldn’t be sure—that had been carefully inlaid to make an intricate, delicate pattern.
“I’ve never seen one so beautiful,” she told him, her heart in her eyes. “I can’t believe you got me this.”
He scooted over on the living room floor, where they sat. “Here. Let me put it on you.”
She smiled widely a few seconds later as she met his stare, tears skipping down her cheeks. She touched the hamsa below her throat with her fingertips.
“Thank you. Thank you so much, Asher.”
“You’re welcome,” he murmured, his gaze roving over her face. He used his fingers to dry her few tears. “It matches your eyes. That should have been the dead giveaway why I was buying it. It’s supposed to ward off bad energies, I understand. Perfect thing for you to wear when you go over to my parents’ house.”
Laughter burst out of her throat at that. She threw her arms around him, love swelling so tight inside her, she couldn’t speak.
Moments later, they made love heatedly on the floor in the midst of a sea of torn wrapping paper. She felt like she drowned in decadence, not just from Asher’s incredible, thoughtful presents, but from the richness of the love that seemed to enfold them.
“You’re the best gift in the world,” Laila told him feelingly afterward.
A pang of fear and loss went through her. She hugged him tighter to her, but the pain didn’t ease as much as it had in the past. She suspected it was because that ticking of the clock had grown even louder and more ominous in her head.
• • •
Friday dawned sunny, cool and crisp. Laila was up at dawn, jumpy as a skittish cat about the lunch appointment at Asher’s parents’ home in Winnetka. She met Asher in the living room at eleven o’clock. He looked very handsome in a pair of jeans, a button-down shirt, and a sports coat. She smoothed her skirt nervously.