‘I know,’ Ammar said, his voice so low it seemed to reverberate right through her. ‘I know.’
The silence stretched between them. Noelle didn’t know what to say. She felt too raw and vulnerable to reassure him; she was half-regretting her agreement to stay the night already. Yet when Ammar turned to look at her, she saw the longing and hunger in his eyes and everything inside her twisted in a confusing mixture of hope and regret. Without another word she turned and walked out of the garden.
She was exhausted but she couldn’t sleep. She felt an unsettling clash of hope and despair, her emotions veering from one to the other. She asked herself what on earth she was doing here, staying with a man who had broken both her heart and the law. She should leave, get out while she could.
And while the stronger, harder self she had cultivated over the last ten years insisted that she tell Ammar to release her in the morning, the quiet voice of her heart whispered that she’d never really wanted to be that person in the first place.
That quiet voice became more insistent, telling her that he was the only man who had reached her, touched her soul and her heart. Yet did he love her? He’d never said. Ten years ago she’d assumed he did, naively, trustingly, because she didn’t think he could look at her the way he did, or brush her hair, or cup her cheek, and not love her. Yet now she was different and she no longer believed in the simple boy-meets-girl fantasy. She didn’t trust happy endings, had deliberately let go of the dreams she’d once cherished. The little house, a family, a husband. She didn’t want those things any longer. So why was she here? Why had she stayed and told herself—and him—that she would try?
Because, Noelle knew with an appalling certainty, she wanted to believe. Even now, when absolutely everything seemed stacked against them, when their past history and hurt were proof positive that faith in love and happy-ever-afters was not just naïve but delusional, she wanted to believe.
How stupid, she thought with a weary bitterness, was that?
She must have slept because she awoke suddenly, blinking in the darkness. The clock read a little after two in the morning. In the distance she heard the sound of someone playing the piano; after a moment she recognised the haunting melody as Pathétique, Beethoven’s melancholy Eighth Sonata. Silently she slipped from the bed and, dressed only in a silky nightie that fell to her knees, she headed downstairs.
The whole house was quiet and still, except for the sound of the piano. Noelle paused on the threshold of the music room, the door only a little ajar, the sorrowful sound of the music sweeping through her. She was no expert, but she could recognise when someone played with both talent and passion. Ammar was such a man.
Quietly she stepped into the room. He was so absorbed in his playing that he didn’t notice her and she watched him for a moment. He wore only a pair of loose drawstring trousers; his chest was bare and glorious, all taut, sleek muscle, although she could see some faded bruises from the crash on his back. His long, lean fingers moved elegantly over the keys, evoking a sound filled with such loss and longing that Noelle fought the urge to cross the room and put her arms around him.
Perhaps she made some sound, for Ammar suddenly looked over at her and his hands stilled on the keys, plunging the room into silence.
‘You play so beautifully,’ Noelle said after a moment. ‘Why didn’t you ever tell me you played piano?’ Inwardly, she flinched. It sounded like an accusation.
Ammar played a few single discordant notes. ‘I didn’t tell anyone,’ he said after a moment. ‘It’s always been a very private thing.’
She took a step into the room. The only light came from a single lamp on top of the piano; it cast its warm yellow glow over Ammar’s lowered head. ‘You must have had lessons, though.’ He shook his head. ‘You mean you taught yourself?’
‘At boarding school. I used to sneak into the music room after hours.’ His mouth twisted in a grimace that Noelle thought he meant to seem wry but wasn’t. ‘Breaking the law.’
‘It was certainly justified,’ she said as lightly as she could, ‘if you play like that.’
He played a minor chord, the mournful notes echoing in the stillness of the room. ‘Is it ever justified?’
She knew he was talking about more than just breaking into a music room. I’ve done too many things already I could be arrested for. She wasn’t ready to think about that, much less hear it from him. Coward, she berated herself. She remained silent, half in the room, her hesitation obvious. Ammar glanced up at her, his narrowed, knowing eyes taking in everything about her. She wasn’t fooling him. She wasn’t fooling him at all.
Swallowing, she took a step closer. ‘Why did you have to sneak into the music room at school?’ she asked. ‘Couldn’t you have had proper lessons?’
‘My father forbade it.’
‘Why?’
A shrug. ‘Music was useless, I suppose, to him.’ He took a breath, let it out slowly. ‘My father had very definite ideas about what a man should be like. What he should do, or even think.’
‘Your father,’ she said, taking a step closer to him, ‘has a lot to answer for.’
‘You have no idea.’
Ammar’s voice was so low and grim that Noelle flinched from it. ‘I know I don’t,’ she said softly, and for several moments neither of them said anything more. ‘So how did you decide you wanted to play the piano anyway?’ she finally asked. ‘If you’d never played before?’
‘My mother played. She was a professional and she might have had a great career, but she gave it all up when she married my father.’
‘I suppose she thought it was worth it,’ Noelle said uncertainly.
Ammar gave a little shake of his head. ‘She had no choice.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘My father insisted upon it. No wife of his would ever work, or be seen needing to work.’
‘And your mother accepted it?’
‘She was in love with him, or at least she thought she was.’ He played another minor chord. ‘Perhaps she didn’t really know him.’
Noelle felt a shiver of unease. Was Ammar talking about his parents, or about them? And surely, surely he was different from Balkri Tannous. She had to believe that. Deliberately she moved forward and sat next to him on the piano bench. Surprised, he shifted over to give her more room, but even so their thighs brushed against one another and Noelle felt a bolt of awareness at the contact.
‘Did you ever play the piano?’ he asked.
‘I took lessons for a few months when I was about eight. My parents made me.’ She lifted her shoulders in a shrug, the gesture an apology. ‘I didn’t like it and so I didn’t practise and eventually they let me stop.’ She was uncomfortably and even painfully aware of the differences in their situations, in their very selves: Ammar had had to sneak into a music room to learn an instrument he loved, while she’d been given it freely and scorned it.
‘You could learn now,’ he said and, to her surprise, he took her hands and placed them on the piano keys, his own hands large and warm over hers. She stared at their twined hands, his skin callused and brown, her fingers slender and soft, the colour of cream. They were so different, she thought, in so many ways.
Carefully, Ammar pressed her hands down on certain keys. ‘C, C, A, A, G,’ he recited quietly, pressing each of her fingers down in turn.
Mesmerised by the simple touch of his hands on hers, Noelle could not recognise the tune for a moment. She felt as if a fist had plunged into the centre of her chest and grabbed hold of her heart. Squeezed. She was breathless with both longing and loss, and even a faint, frail joy.
‘F,