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