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Noelle sank onto her bed, exhausted by her own emotional wrangling. Anger was so much easier to deal with than doubt, yet she could not even cling to it.
You loved me once.
She had. At least, she thought she had, but had she really even known him? How could the tender, gentle man she’d loved have turned into a cold, unfeeling brute as soon as their vows were said? And what of the man he was now, and surely always had been?
I’ve done too many things already I could be arrested for. One more won’t matter.
Noelle didn’t want to think what he had meant by that. She’d learned, since the annulment, that Tannous Enterprises was said to be corrupt. She had harboured vague ideas of white-collar crime, had wondered if Ammar had been involved. She’d assumed, in an effort to gain some much-needed distance, that it was just more proof she’d never really known him. More evidence that any consideration or tenderness he’d shown her in those first few weeks had been nothing but a charade.
Now she wondered. Today she’d seen in Ammar a glimmer of the man she’d once loved, and it terrified her. What if that man—the tender man she’d once loved—was the real Ammar?
It would be so much simpler if she hated him. If he made her hate him. And surely she had enough reason to … and yet. And yet.
She didn’t.
Eventually she fell into bed and a restless, troubled sleep. When dawn broke she felt no more refreshed, and had no more answers.
She showered and dressed, this time in a pair of jeans and a pale pink sweater she’d found in the wardrobe. They were too big, but not so much that she couldn’t wear them. She cinched the jeans with a wide leather belt and rolled the sleeves up on the sweater. Had Ammar himself bought the clothes for her? It felt strangely intimate to imagine him picking things out for her, knowing her size. Her old size, at least, before she’d surrendered to Arche’s ideal of feminine beauty, which was stick-thin and relentlessly plucked and manicured.
She opened the shutters on her bedroom window and blinked in the glare of the morning sun. The sky was a hard, bright blue, the desert a stark and endless stretch of sand. She could see nothing but sand and rock and sky. She swallowed hard and closed the shutters again.
I want us to be husband and wife.
His voice had invaded her dreams, and all night as she’d tossed and turned she’d endured a procession of memories she’d been trying to banish for years. Those poignant, tender days in London, when Ammar had seemed like a different man. The man she’d fallen in love with.
Well, he wasn’t that man now. And, more importantly, she wasn’t that woman, that naive girl who believed in love and wanted marriage and babies and a house in the country. She was a different person, stronger, harder and definitely more independent. She’d spent the last ten years building her career and making sure she needed no one. She sure as hell didn’t need Ammar, and some time towards dawn she’d realised the best way to convince him to let her go was to show him just how different she was.
Resolutely Noelle headed downstairs in search of Ammar. She wandered through the marble foyer and several sparely elegant reception rooms before she found him in the back, in the kitchen. He stood by a floor-to-ceiling window that framed a sweep of sand, dressed in a worn grey T-shirt and faded jeans. His feet were bare and he held a mug of coffee as he stared out at the desert, a faint frown wrinkling his forehead, his eyes narrowed against the glare of the sun. For a stunned second everything in Noelle contracted with longing and regret. This was what she had wanted so desperately. A normal life, a normal marriage. Mornings with sunshine and the scent of fresh coffee and a hello kiss.
Well, she had two of those things today. Definitely not the third. She cleared her throat. ‘Good morning.’
Ammar turned, his expression lightening a little as he took in her outfit. ‘Not so bad,’ he said, gesturing to her clothes. ‘The fit.’
Noelle nodded tersely. She did not know how to act. Fighting every statement exhausted her, but being civil felt like a surrender.
‘Coffee?’ Ammar asked, and she nodded again. It seemed easier not to speak at all. She watched him move to the kitchen counter and pour coffee from the chrome pot. ‘Do you still take cream and two sugars?’
‘No,’ Noelle said, and her voice sounded harsher than she intended. ‘I drink it black.’
He arched one eyebrow in silent question and handed her her undoctored coffee. Noelle cupped her hands around its warmth, wondering how to begin. Ammar seemed different this morning, not approachable exactly, but less autocratic. She saw his laptop was open on the table, to a world news website. The moment felt, bizarrely and unbearably, normal.
‘When did you stop taking cream and sugar?’
‘About five years ago, when I started working for Arche.’
‘Arche?’
‘The department store I work for, as a buyer.’ She glanced pointedly at the diamond-encrusted watch on her wrist, given to her by her father on her twenty-first birthday. ‘I’m twenty-three minutes late for work right now, with no explanation. You might cost me my job, Ammar.’
He frowned. ‘Working for a store, buying things? You used to work with books.’
‘I changed careers.’ Changed lives. The days spent in a dusty bookshop losing herself in someone else’s happily-ever-after were over.
‘When?’
‘Ten years ago,’ she said shortly, even though that wasn’t quite true. It had been more like eight, but all those old dreams had died a quick death the night Ammar had pushed her away.
She’d turned away from them deliberately: a home, a family. A little house outside Paris and a bookshop of her own. She’d told him all about it, how the shop would have a little café, and toys for children, and original art for sale on the walls. ‘A bit of everything,’ he’d said, smiling, and her heart had felt so full.
Now she clamped down on all those memories and fixed him with a narrowed gaze. ‘You don’t know me any more, Ammar. I’m different and—’
‘So am I.’
The breath rushed out of her lungs as she stared at him. ‘What?’
‘Different,’ he repeated. ‘At least, I am trying to be.’
She saw the corner of his mouth quirk upwards in a wry, self-deprecating smile and she felt that savage twist of longing inside her, making her remember when she didn’t want to. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said flatly, even though her heart was insisting she did.
‘No?’ He took a sip of coffee and half-turned away from her. ‘Maybe it is impossible, anyway.’
In profile, Noelle could not keep from noticing—and staring at—the hard line of his jaw, the faint shadow of stubble on his cheek, the subtle pout of his lips. All of it together made her breath shorten and an overwhelming longing clutched at her chest. Lust and love. She’d once wanted him in every way a woman wanted a man. Protector, lover, friend. And now? She still wanted him. Her body yearned for him, her heart remembered. No. She set her mug down on the table. ‘You really do need to let me go.’
He turned back to her. ‘Do you like working for this Arche?’
‘Like it? Yes. Of course. I mean—it’s my job. My career.’
‘And you enjoy this career?’
‘Why do you want to know?’
His mouth quirked upwards again, ever so slightly. Almost a smile, and she felt another wave of longing sweep desolately over her. I wanted to make you smile. Why wouldn’t you let me? ‘Because,’ he told her, ‘it’s been ten years since we last saw each other and, like you said, we are different. A few casual questions could be a start to getting to know you, Noelle.’
‘A perfectly understandable assumption, if I was here under normal circumstances, wanting to get to know you.’ Despite the coffee and the sunshine and the laptop open on the table, this was not a normal situation. Not remotely, even if for a sorrowful second she wanted it to be. ‘You are conveniently forgetting that you kidnapped me—’
‘You’re not letting me forget it.’ His voice had turned hard, reminding her just who she was dealing with.
‘Why should I?’ Her gaze clashed with his in angry challenge. He looked implacable, standing there, his stony expression giving nothing away. He didn’t answer her and she let out a long, low breath. ‘Ammar, look. I understand that you went through a very traumatic experience recently, what with the helicopter crash and losing your father. I know that it probably made you think about your life, and maybe wonder or even regret what happened before. About us.’ She faltered because, although his expression hadn’t changed, he had gone very still—not that unusual for him, really, and yet there was something predatory about that stillness. Something almost frightening. ‘And so maybe that’s made you think you want … that we should …’
‘Get back together?’ Ammar filled in softly. She nodded, biting her lip, half-regretting that she’d started down this path. She wasn’t sure she believed it, even if it would be convenient to do so. ‘Spare me the psychoanalysis, Noelle. That’s the last thing I need from you.’ He turned away, gazing out of the window at the desert. A lone rock jutted towards the sky, seeming to pierce its hard blueness. ‘You were once prepared to spend the rest of your life with me,’ he observed, his back still to her, his tone quite detached. ‘Can you honestly not spare me a few days now?’
How, Noelle wondered, had he turned the tables on her so neatly? She felt as if she were the one who was being petty and selfish, while he—
She took a deep breath. Focus. Focus on her goal, which was getting out of here. ‘Is that all you want?’
He turned around, his amber eyes seeming to blaze with predatory intent. ‘It’s a start.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘Maybe I’ll be the one who is Scheherazade in this tale.’ She shook her head slowly, not understanding. ‘Give me three days,’ Ammar explained softly. ‘It’s Friday. Stay through the weekend at least. You’ll have only missed two days of work.’
Noelle felt her heart do a funny sort of flip, a somersault in her chest. Was it from fear—or anticipation? ‘And then?’ she asked in a low voice.
‘And then you can leave me.’
Leave him. It sounded so deliberate, so cold, and yet she’d done it once before. She’d fled from him in the hotel in Rome, and gone back to her family’s chateau in Lyon. Her only contact with him after that had been through her father’s lawyer, requesting an annulment based on non-consummation of their marriage. He’d signed it and sent it back, and that had been all.
She needed to leave him again. Leave now. She should insist on being taken back to Paris right now, this very instant. If she were as strong as she’d thought she was, she would coldly threaten him with lawsuits and litigation. She’d reel off her rights and not back down for one second. But maybe she wasn’t that strong after all—as strong as she’d wanted to be—because her single day of defiance had sapped her energy, and even her will.
You loved me once.
Yes, she had, and it was the memory of that love, painful as it was, that made her slowly nod. If she stayed, perhaps she’d get the closure she’d been seeking for so long. And not just closure, but answers. This could be, she knew, her opportunity to finally understand why Ammar had changed after their wedding, what had led him to reject her so humiliatingly and utterly.
Yet did she really want to open that Pandora’s box of memories, and the dark tangle of emotions that would surely erupt with it?
Noelle swallowed. She wouldn’t answer that yet. She just needed to accept. And her acceptance would be her ticket out of here. ‘All right, Ammar, I’ll stay until Sunday. But then you’re flying me back to Paris, and I’ll be back at work by nine a.m. on Monday.’
‘I suppose that’s fair.’
‘Fair?’ Noelle heard the bitterness spiking her voice, ten years of bitterness and memories and pain. ‘There’s nothing fair about it.’
Ammar nodded slowly. ‘Perhaps not,’ he agreed. ‘Life is never very fair.’ He turned back to the kitchen counter and stirred something on the stove. ‘Come, sit down and eat. You need fattening up.’
‘I’m fine the way I am,’ Noelle said sharply. She was so prickly. Three days and Ammar probably wouldn’t even want to be with her any more. A thought which should have brought relief, and yet irritatingly didn’t.
‘I agree,’ Ammar said in his calm, measured way. ‘Perhaps I am the one who needs fattening up.’
Noelle gave a small smile in spite of her every intention to remain composed, even cold. ‘You have lost weight,’ she remarked, although to her eyes he still looked lithe and powerful, the worn T-shirt hugging the sculpted lines of his chest and shoulders, the faded jeans riding low on his hips. She sat down at the table. ‘Was it awful?’ she asked quietly. ‘The crash?’
Ammar shrugged as he served her a fried egg and several rashers of bacon. She used to love the full fry-up back when she lived in London, but she hadn’t had more than black coffee and maybe a croissant for breakfast in years. ‘I don’t remember much of the actual crash.’
‘What happened?’
He sat opposite her with his own plate of eggs and bacon. ‘The helicopter engine failed. I don’t know why. Perhaps—’ He paused, gave a slight shake of his head, and then resumed. ‘In any case, we were going down and my father insisted I take the parachute.’
‘There was only one?’
‘Yes, and I think it was for situations like that one. He wanted to make sure he would be the one to survive.’
She stared at him, horrified. ‘But that’s … that’s criminal!’ The word seemed to remain there, suspended, between them.
‘My father,’ Ammar said quietly, ‘was a criminal.’
Noelle didn’t answer. She really didn’t want to know just how criminal Balkri Tannous had been. Or his son. Swallowing, she said slowly, ‘But he did give it to you.’
‘Yes.’
‘A change of heart?’ She heard the faint note of cynicism in her voice, and knew Ammar heard it, too. He gazed at her sombrely.
‘I like to think so. He’d been diagnosed with cancer a few months before. Terminal, and it made him think. Reassess his priorities.’
‘Is that what happened to you?’ She still sounded cynical.
‘I suppose it did. When you’re faced with the very real possibility of your own death, you begin to think seriously about what is important.’
Was he actually implying, Noelle wondered, that she was important? ‘So what happened?’ she asked, wanting to keep the conversation focused on facts. ‘You parachuted into the sea?’
‘Yes, although I don’t remember that at all. I hit the water hard and the next thing I knew I was lying on a beach on a tiny deserted island, somewhere, ironically, near Alhaja.’ He frowned, his gaze sliding into remembrance. ‘My father owns—owned, I should say—all the land in that part of the Mediterranean, and boats steer clear of it. I was lucky to be found at all.’
‘And then?’
‘Then some poor fishermen took me to the coast of Tunisia, where I battled a fever—from this, I think—’ he pointed to the scar on his face ‘—for several weeks before I finally came to and realised what had happened.’
‘And then you came and found me.’
‘Yes.’
Noelle stared down at her plate. Somehow, without even realising it, she’d eaten all the bacon and eggs. And she was still hungry. Ammar pushed the toast rack towards her. ‘Here.’
Feeling a bit self-conscious, she took a piece of toast and began to butter it. ‘And what will you do now? You worked for your father before—’
‘Now I will work for myself.’ He sounded so flat, so final, and yet strangely triumphant, too.
‘As CEO of Tannous Enterprises?’
‘Yes.’
‘Will it be much different, being the boss?’ she asked hesitantly, and Ammar leaned closer to her, his eyes blazing.
‘It will be completely different.’
Noelle felt a flare of curiosity but didn’t ask any more questions. She shouldn’t have asked any questions at all; it suggested an intimacy, a desire for intimacy that she had no intention of feeling.
Or revealing … because she knew then with a rush of regret that she did feel it. She still felt something for Ammar, even if it was only an ember lost in the ashes of their former relationship.
How would she get through the next three days without it fanning into flame? For she knew she was weak and even wanting when it came to him. Already she had started to soften. She rose from the table so quickly she upset her half-drunk cup of coffee. Ammar righted it. Noelle felt her heart beating hard.
‘I’m tired. I think I’ll go back to my room.’
‘Very well.’ He rose also, gazing at her calmly.
Noelle stared at him, swallowed the impulse to say something stupid. Something she was afraid she might mean. She’d enjoyed sitting here in the sun talking to him far too much. She’d liked feeling it was possible, or even normal, to be relaxed and open with him.
Swallowing hard, she nodded a jerky farewell and left the room.
Ammar watched Noelle hurry from the kitchen with a pang of frustrated regret. For a few moments there they’d had a normal conversation, and it had felt so easy. Amazingly, wonderfully easy, for he didn’t like speaking of the crash or his father or any of his past. His life. Yet how could he win Noelle back if he didn’t share any of that? Even he knew enough about love and relationships to understand it couldn’t happen in a vacuum of ignorance. Yet sometimes, he acknowledged darkly, ignorance was, if not bliss, then certainly better.
Sighing impatiently, Ammar pushed away from the table. The day stretched emptily in front of him, for he had no doubt Noelle was going to hide in her room for as long as she could. He never should have suggested she stay only through the weekend; he needed a lot longer than three days to convince her to become his wife again. He needed a miracle.
Pushing aside such dark thoughts, he took his laptop and went to his study to work. He closed his eyes briefly at the sight of the endless emails that had landed in his inbox overnight. Everyone wanted to know which way he would turn. If he would follow his father’s lead—or his brother’s.
In the weeks after the crash, Khalis had taken over Tannous Enterprises, even though their father had disinherited him fifteen years ago, when Khalis had realised the extent of Balkri Tannous’s corruption and immorality and walked away. He’d started his own IT firm, made a life for himself in America while Ammar had stayed. Became his father’s right-hand man and flunky and carried out all his odious orders. Sold his soul.
Ammar rose from his desk, the regret and anger rushing through him once more. Even before his death, Balkri had wanted to make amends with Khalis. Just as he’d told Noelle, his father’s cancer diagnosis had made him long for reconciliation. That, Ammar supposed, had been behind his father secretly signing over the majority of the shares to Khalis just weeks before the crash. Khalis received control of Tannous Enterprises, and as for him?
He would have received nothing, which just showed you shouldn’t do deals with the devil. It was only because Khalis didn’t want to have anything to do with Tannous Enterprises that Ammar was in charge at all. Yet, now that he was, he longed to make something, not just of himself, but of his father’s—his—business. Was redemption on such a grand scale even possible?
And as for personal redemption … His gut twisted with remorse and even fear. Noelle must wonder what Tannous Enterprises was like, what he had been capable of. What he had done. How could she not, when he’d kidnapped her? Even now, when he wanted to change, to become a good and honest man, he wasn’t sure if he could. He wasn’t sure he knew how. And if Noelle found out the extent of his deeds, his shame …
There wasn’t a chance in hell—where he surely belonged—of her staying.
CHAPTER FOUR
NOELLE stayed in her room for two hours before she decided she was being ridiculous. She couldn’t hide up here for ever. Besides, it was boring. And, amazingly, she was getting hungry again. But, more than either of those, she wanted to see Ammar. It was time, she decided, for some answers.
She left the confines of her bedroom and went in search of him. The house was so very quiet and she hadn’t even heard the sound of another voice or step. Did Ammar have any staff, or were they completely alone? She peeked in the kitchen, saw their breakfast dishes had been cleared away, the room tidied. But Ammar—or anyone else—was nowhere in sight.
She tiptoed down the main hallway, looked in a living room, dining room and—surprisingly—a music room with a very good grand piano, but all were empty.
Where was he?
‘Are you looking for me?’
Noelle whirled around and saw Ammar standing in a doorway that had been made to look like part of the wall, so cleverly disguised she hadn’t even seen it. And he’d been so quiet. As quiet as a cat, or a thief.
She swallowed, nodded. ‘Yes. I wanted to talk to you.’
‘That makes for a pleasant change.’ He turned to close the door behind him. With it shut, Noelle couldn’t make it out at all.
‘Why the secret door?’ she asked.
‘I possess a great deal of highly classified information.’ She didn’t ask anything more. ‘Shall we go outside? It’s not too hot in the garden.’
‘There’s a garden? I didn’t see one from my window.’
‘It’s on the other side of the house.’ He led her through the music room, past the piano to a pair of French windows that led out to an enclosed garden with a seating area and an infinity pool shaded by palms. The trees and shrubs—as well as the high walls—provided some shelter from the desert wind and sun.
‘Do you play piano?’ Noelle asked and Ammar nodded. ‘I didn’t know that. Did you … did you play when we were … together?’
Another nod. ‘It’s not something I usually tell people.’
‘Why not?’
He shrugged. ‘A private thing, I suppose, music.’
She stared at him, standing across from her in the little flower-scented enclave, looking calm but also tense, even a little resigned. He dug his hands into the pockets of his jeans and waited, as though for a verdict. ‘I don’t really know you,’ she said quietly, ‘at all.’
‘I know.’
Strange, but she hadn’t expected that admission. It made her sad. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly. ‘I want some answers.’ Ammar nodded. Waited. Noelle made herself ask, ‘Why … why did you reject me? In the hotel?’ Now the words were out there, she wished she could unsay them. Did she really want to hear how he’d changed his mind, how he’d no longer been attracted to her, had never been attracted to her? Why else would a husband refuse to have sex with his wife?
‘I suppose,’ Ammar said carefully, ‘it felt like the only choice at the time.’
‘Why?’
He said nothing. Frustration bubbled up inside her; she might as well be staring at a stone wall. ‘Ammar, if you have any hope of a relationship with me, surely you realise I need some real answers? There can be no relationship without honesty.’
‘It’s not that simple.’
‘It is.’
Frustration flared in his eyes, lighting them with its fire. ‘You are viewing the world like a child—’
‘I am not a child!’ That stung, because she knew how naive and innocent she’d once been, believing the best of him, of them, even after all hope was gone. She wasn’t that woman—that silly girl—any more. ‘I think most people would agree that honesty is essential in any relationship.’
‘I am not denying that,’ Ammar said tightly. ‘But I am not sure how much honesty I am willing to give—or you are willing to hear.’
Suddenly she was silenced. He was right. Just how honest did she actually want him to be? And why was she arguing about the necessity of it when she had no intention of having any sort of relationship with him? Still, she needed to know. Something, no matter how small. She let out a shuddering breath.