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