The Husband She Never Knew(6)
Author: Kate Hewitt

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.