Love and Pride

bu kez gercek part 1

*Happy Thanksgiving USA readers*

Can

I was settling in for a long siege. I was trying to map out a route up to her window when Emre called. I grudgingly went home to celebrate with my newly engaged brother but planning to go back as soon as possible. The night wore on and the celebratory drinks kept being poured by my ecstatic father, he was so happy by the news one would think he was the one getting married.

My father's umpteenth toast to Leyla and Emre's happiness was interrupted by a loud and insistent knocking at the front door. I got up to answer and all the alcohol I had consumed evaporated in astonishment at seeing Sanem's mother standing on my doorstep.

She swept into the house in a cloud of expensive perfume. My father was all amazement and flattery but she ignored him, gave the room a disdainful glance, and then faced me.

"May I have a moment of your time?

I nodded in assent, all my senses on high alert. Once the room was vacated and the door closed she began speaking, "you can't be wondering at the reason for my presence here."

I towered over her and yet she still managed to look down her nose at me. I crossed my arms and leaned against the wall.

"I'm sure you're about to enlighten me."

"I'm not going to put up with your impertinence," she said angrily, abandoning all pretense of politeness. "Today's appalling spectacle aside, a rumor of a most alarming nature has reached my ears. I've been told that you are engaged to be married to my daughter. My daughter! Unthinkable, absurd, ridiculous. I know it's a scandalous falsehood."

"If you think it's unbelievable then why are you here?"

"To insist that you deny it immediately."

"I will not. And if it's true then you'd be the last person I'd admit it to." It went against everything in me to be disrespectful to an elder and a woman but I reminded myself that this was the woman that had hurt and manipulated Sanem over and over again.

"If! Do you pretend to be ignorant of it? Have you and your family not been the ones circulating such a rumor."

"This is the first I've heard of it," I said in a bored tone.

"Can you assure me that there's no basis behind this?

"You can ask the questions but I don't have to answer." This was about Emre and Leyla but she seemed not to know. I'd be damned if I was going to be the one to tell her.

"This is an outrage! I insist you tell me the truth. Are you engaged to my daughter?"

"You said it was an impossibility."

"It should be. But she's young and naive and she has been seduced by an expert. Oh, I know your type. Devious and cunning. Using your looks and experience to make her forget what she owes to herself and her family."

"She's a grown woman who knows her own mind."

"No, she's an inexperienced girl in the grips on an infatuation. Let me be clear: this marriage can never take place. My daughter is engaged to be married to someone else."

"Did she say yes? I'm pretty confident she didn't and she never will." And now without the haze of jealousy clouding my judgment, I saw that for the truth it was. "She's free to make her own choices and if she chooses me then I don't see how that's anyone business but ours."

"She will be shunned by everyone in her sphere. We will be the object of gossip and innuendos," she nearly screamed.

"That would be tragic," I said sarcastically. "But she'd be well rid of anyone who would judge her that way and I would make it my life's purpose to make her happy. She would never regret choosing me."

"Obstinate, headstrong, foolish man! Sanem and Yigit have been meant for each other since childhood. He is descended from a noble line on his mother's side. Both our families are respected, honorable, and possess immense fortunes. It would be a marriage of equals. Do you pretend to come between them? A grasping, pretentious, globe-trotting vagrant with no money, family name, or connections? This can't be endured. I will not accept this!"

I kept my silence. I was wondering how Sanem grew up with this woman and still turned out to have the capacity to be loving and compassionate.

"Tell me once and for all. Are you engaged to my daughter?"

"I am not," I said quietly.

She smiled very gratified.

"And will you promise never to propose marriage to her."

"I will make no promise of the kind."

She rummaged through her purse. "I can make it worth your while." She brought out a checkbook and I had enough.

"Leave now," I said walking to the door and opening it.

She looked up at me, annoyed. "I expected you to be a more reasonable man but don't think I have given up. I won't go away until you give me what I require."

"I will never promise you a damn thing. I will never take a cent from you and I'm not intimidated by your threats. You have insulted me in every possible way. You need to leave."

"Don't you have a care for her future and how badly it will be affected when she marries beneath herself? Are you considering how you will be disgracing her in the eyes of society?"

"I'm done with this conversation."

"Not so fast. I'm not finished. I know all about that horrible scandal. How you've been accused of stealing and how it was all quietly patched up."

"Get out."

"I have never been treated so poorly in my entire life," she exclaimed in outrage on the way out of the door.

"I will make you sorry! I will not stand for this," she went on and I slammed the door in her face.

I was pouring another drink, drowning in hostility when Emre came back in.

"Your future mother-in-law." I grimaced.

"Why is she coming after you? She should be coming after me. Is there something you're not telling me?" He grinned.

"Nope. She walked away again."

"She's mad about your caveman routine?"

"I never know where I stand with her. Sometimes I don't think she feels about me the way I feel about her."

"Why would she have turned the city upside down to clear your name if she wasn't in love with you."

"What?"

Emre squirmed a little. "I wasn't supposed to say anything. I don't think she wants you to know."

"Spit it out, man."

"I don't know all the details but Leyla told me Sanem hired an investigator, found the person who stole the photos, got the site taken down, and your license reinstated in record time. She did it all."

I hadn't thought about it since my conversation with Metin. My head too full of her. But now it all made sense.

I wanted us to fight this together

My heart fell. I ran out of the door before Emre finished his sentence and hoped I wasn't too late.

****

She didn't make it easy for me to find her. I got to my cabin and knew immediately that my search was over. She was sleeping soundly on the bed but as soon as I stepped inside, her eyes blinked open. I thought that no matter how many times I laid eyes on her I'd never get used to that punch to the heart. It was more than just physical attraction. She was the part of me I'd searched the world for before I knew what I was missing. It was her. It had always been her. She was my beginning and my end.

I approached warily not knowing where to begin.

I stopped a few inches from her "Sanem, " I began. She sat up and went up on her knees, encircled her arms around my neck and pulled me to her. "I don't want to talk," she murmured and pressed her lips to mine.