Hannah was taking a last deep breath of fresh air and painting on a smile just as a figure emerged, his eyes scanning as if he was searching for something or someone. Her bodyguard stood out like a sore thumb, albeit one in black tie.
Hannah found herself moving backwards into the shadow of a tree. She realised she was holding her breath and closing her eyes like a child who wanted to disappear. She looked down at her hands clenched into tight fists and slowly unfurled them. The sight of the deep grooves her nails had cut into the flesh of her palm drew a fleeting frown of acknowledgement but didn’t lessen her defiance.
The buzz lasted a few moments, but as the exhilaration of her small rebellion faded away she stared at her shoes sinking into the damp ground. Was this going to be her life in future? Ignoring ‘don’t walk on the grass’ signs just to feel alive?
As rebellions went it was pathetic.
She was pathetic.
She took a deep breath and, taking her shoes off and holding them in one hand, she used the other to lift her skirt free of the damp grass as she straightened her slender shoulder. ‘Man up, Hannah,’ she muttered to herself as she moved towards the lights that filtered through the bank of trees.
‘Hello, Hannah. I knew you wanted me to follow you.’
Hannah let out a soft yelp of shock and dropped both her shoes and skirt. The fabric trailed on the wet ground as she turned around.
The comment came from a man with a massive ego, a man who thought everything was about him.
The acknowledgement shocked Hannah more than the fact Rob had followed her. Even after she had discovered his infidelities there had been a small, irrational corner of her brain that had made excuses for him.
There were no excuses, not for him and not for her either for being so damned gullible—for not seeing past the perfect manners, the practised smile and the thoughtful gifts. She’d seen little flashes of the real Rob and she’d chosen to ignore them and the growing unease she had felt. If she hadn’t walked into Sal’s room and found them...
She closed her eyes to blot out the mental image, and lifted her chin. She had been dreading this moment but now that it was here...how bad could it be? She’d spent two days in a prison cell. She could definitely cope with an awkward situation.
‘Hello, Rob.’ He’d been drinking heavily. She could smell it even before he stepped into the patch of moonlight and she was able to see his high colour and glazed eyes. Seeing Rob when she had thought he was the love of her life had always made her stomach quiver, but now it quivered with distaste.
‘No, I didn’t want you to follow me. I really didn’t.’
He looked taken aback by her reaction. Clearly I’m not following the script he wrote, she thought. Drunk or not drunk, he was still a very handsome man, the premature silvered wings of hair giving him a distinguished look, along with the horn-rimmed glasses that she had been amazed to discover were plain glass, though they gave a superficial impression of intellect and sensitivity.
But then Rob always had been more about style than substance. Deep down Hannah had always known that, she had just chosen not to think about it. But for the first time now she was struck by a softness about him. Not just the thickness around the middle that regular sessions with a personal trainer could never quite eliminate, but in his features... Had he always looked that way or was it just the contrast? She had spent the last two days in the company of a man who made granite look soft.
An image of Kamel floated into her mind: his strong-boned aristocratic features, his mobile, sensual mouth.
‘Just like old times. Remember the time we brought a bottle of champagne out here and—?’
Hannah stiffened and matched his hot stare with one of cold contempt. ‘That wasn’t me.’
He stopped, his eyes falling as his lips compressed in a petulant line. ‘Oh! She never meant anything—’
Did he even remember who she was? The anger and bitterness was still there, and most of all the knowledge that she had been a total fool. But now she could see the black humour in it...in him.
He was a joke.
‘And now you mean nothing to me.’
As he sensed her shift of attitude, sensed he had lost his power, his expression darkened. ‘That’s not true and we both know it.’
‘Look, Rob, Dad wanted you to be here and that’s fine. But you and I are never going to be friends. Let’s settle for civil...?’ She gave a sigh and felt relief. This was the moment she had been dreading—coming face to face with the man she had considered the love of her life only to discover he meant nothing.
Her relieved sigh became a sharp intake of alarm as Rob lumbered drunkenly towards her, forcing Hannah to retreat until her back hit the tree trunk. She winced as the bark grazed her back through the thin fabric of her gown.
‘You were meant to be with me. We are soul mates... What went wrong, Hannah?’
A contemptuous laugh came from Hannah’s lips. She was too angry at being manhandled to be afraid. ‘Maybe all my friends—the ones you bedded after we were engaged?’ She made the sarcastic suggestion without particular rancour. Rob was pathetic.
‘I told you, they meant nothing. They were just cheap...’ His lips curled. ‘Not like you—you’re pure and perfect. I was willing to wait for you. It would have been different after we were married. I would have given you everything.’ He clasped a hand to his heart.
The dramatic gesture caused Hannah’s discomfort to tip over into amusement. He looked so ridiculous.
His eyes narrowed at her laugh, then slid to the jewels that gleamed against the skin of her throat. ‘But I wasn’t enough for you, was I?’
She swallowed; the laugh had been a bad idea. ‘I think I’d better go.’
‘A love match, is it? Or should that be an oil deal?’ He saw her look of shock and smiled. ‘People talk, and I know a lot of people.’
On the receiving end of his fixed lascivious stare, she felt sick. ‘Well, I’m not pure or perfect but I am extremely pis—’
Rob, in full florid flow, cut across her. ‘A work of art,’ he raved. ‘Sheer perfection, my perfect queen, not his—he doesn’t appreciate you like I would have. I’d have looked after you...the other women, they meant nothing to me,’ he slurred. ‘You must know that—you are the only woman I have ever loved.’
How did I ever think he was the man of my dreams? she wondered, feeling queasy as he planted a hand on the tree trunk beside her head and leaned in closer.
Struggling not to breathe in the fumes, she countered acidly, ‘Well, you know, you can’t miss what you’ve never had.’
Having followed the spiky imprints of her heels across the wet grass, Kamel took only a few minutes to locate the couple in the tree. He didn’t pause. Unable to see them, he heard their voices as with a face like thunder he charged straight through a shrub.
This wasn’t a moment to stop and consider, not a moment for subtlety. He’d bent over backwards to be reasonable but she wasn’t a woman who responded to reasonable. Was she pushing boundaries, checking just how far she could push him? Or maybe she simply lacked any normal sense of propriety? This wasn’t about jealousy. It was one thing to have a pragmatic approach to marriage, but she had not just crossed the line, she had obliterated it!
The couple came into his line of vision about the same moment that he mentally processed the interchange he had just heard. It was astonishing enough to stop him in his tracks.
‘Well, he’s welcome to you!’
Hannah