Sighing, she pushed any recriminations, as well as that irritating pang of loneliness, to the back of her mind. She just wanted to go home. In bed with a book and a hot drink she’d feel better. And at least she’d be able to shed these ridiculous shoes.
It took her a quarter of an hour to work her way through the crowd, knowing she needed to stop to smile or chat with various guests. She’d just reached the deserted foyer of the hotel when she heard a voice behind her.
‘I almost didn’t recognise you.’
Noelle froze. She didn’t have to turn around to know who was speaking to her. She hadn’t heard that low, rumbling growl of a voice in ten years. He still, she acknowledged distantly, spoke with the cautious reserve of a man who chose his words with care and didn’t say many of them.
Slowly she turned around and faced her former husband. The first sight of him in the shadowy foyer jolted her to the core. His hair was cut close, almost a buzz-cut. A long, livid scar of puckered reddened flesh bisected his right cheek, starting in his hairline and snaking all the way down to his jaw. He was, she knew then, the ferocious admirer Amelie had told her about. Ammar. She should have considered such a thing, she supposed, although in truth she’d never have expected Ammar to be looking for her. He’d never looked for her before.
‘And I almost didn’t recognise you,’ she said, keeping her voice crisp even though her knees were near to buckling just at the sight of him. He seemed taller and darker and bigger than before, although that was surely an illusion. She’d just forgotten the effect his presence had on her, the way he held himself so still and yet with such authority. The way his mouth thinned and his eyes narrowed—so different from the man she’d thought she knew. The man she’d fallen in love with. She gave him as level a look as she could. ‘What do you want, Ammar?’
‘You.’
Her heart thudded hard in reaction to that simple statement. She’d asked him once before what he’d wanted, if he wanted her. Then the answer had been a resounding and devastating no. Even now, ten years later, the memory made her burn with painful humiliation, the remnants of the utter heartbreak she’d felt at the time. ‘How interesting,’ she said coolly, ‘considering we haven’t even spoken in a decade.’
‘I must talk with you, Noelle.’
She shook her head, hating how autocratic he sounded. Still. ‘We have nothing to say to each other.’
He kept his gaze steady on hers, solemn and fierce. ‘I have something to say to you.’
She felt a sudden, hot clutch of emotion in her chest, a burning behind her lids. Ammar. She’d loved him so much, so long ago. She hated that she felt even a remnant of it now. And whatever he wanted to say to her … well, she didn’t want to hear it. She’d opened herself up to him once before. She would not do so again.
He stepped closer, and she saw how gaunt he looked. He was powerfully built, every limb corded with muscle, yet clearly he’d lost a significant amount of weight.
‘You heard about my accident,’ he said, and she realised she’d been staring at him quite openly.
‘Yes. My father told me. And about your miraculous rescue.’
‘You don’t sound particularly pleased that I survived.’
‘On the contrary, Ammar, I was glad. No matter what happened between us, I’ve never wished you ill.’ For too long she’d wanted him back. But she wasn’t about to succumb to that ridiculous temptation now, not even for a moment. ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ she said stiffly. ‘Your father.’ Ammar just shrugged.
Noelle stared at him, wondering just how he had come to this moment. She knew the bare facts: two months ago her father had rung to say Ammar had been killed in a helicopter crash, along with his father. He hadn’t wanted her to find out through the media, and while Noelle had been grateful for that she hadn’t even known how to react. Anger? Sorrow? It had been ten years since their marriage had been annulled, and even longer since she’d seen him, yet the pain of their failed relationship had hurt her for years.
Mostly she’d just felt numb, and then as the weeks had passed she’d probed the dark tangle of emotions underneath that comforting numbness and found the main feeling in that confusing welter was regret, a sense of loss for what she’d once believed they could have had together, the happiness that had been stolen away with such sudden cruelty.
Then a few weeks ago her father had rung again, told her Ammar was alive. He’d been rescued from a deserted island by a few men in a fishing boat and was returning to lead his father’s business, Tannous Enterprises. The regret Noelle was just coming to terms with suddenly solidified into the still-raw anger she’d been nursing all along. Damn Ammar. Damn him for breaking her heart, for rejecting her all those years ago and, most of all, for coming back now to stir up the painful emotions she thought she’d buried.
Now she pushed it all down and gave him a steely glare. ‘Like I said, we have nothing to say to each other.’ With her head held high she pushed past him.
Ammar reached for her arm. His fingers circled around her wrist, the heat of him seeming to sear her skin. Noelle stiffened, knowing he was too strong for her to attempt to pull away.
‘Wait.’
‘It appears I have no choice.’
Ammar let out a rush of breath. ‘I just want to talk.’
‘Then start speaking, because you have thirty seconds before I make a serious scene.’ She glanced pointedly at the lean brown fingers still encircling her wrist. ‘And I’d rather not have a bruise.’
Ammar dropped her wrist so suddenly her arm fell back against her side. She felt as if she should bear a mark from where he’d touched her, a painful red weal, but there was nothing. ‘It will take more than thirty seconds,’ he said tersely. ‘And I have no intention of conducting a conversation in the foyer of a hotel.’
‘And I have no intention of going anywhere with you.’
Ammar said nothing, just studied her, his head cocked, his narrowed amber gaze surveying her from top to toe. ‘You’re angry,’ he finally said, an observation, and she let out a quick, humourless laugh. The last time she’d seen him she’d been crouching on the bed in his hotel room, holding back sobs, wearing only her underwear. He’d told her, very coldly, to leave. Yet even as that memory made her insides writhe, she quickly dismissed it. Ancient history. She wasn’t angry; at least, she shouldn’t be. She definitely shouldn’t still feel this hot rush of bitterness and hurt.
What she should have done tonight, she saw now, was acted coolly, politely indifferent. Maybe even reservedly friendly. She should have treated Ammar as an acquaintance, not the man who had broken her heart and crushed it under his heel. She never should have shown how much she still cared.
Because she didn’t.
‘I’m not angry,’ she lied. ‘But neither do I see any point in conversing with you.’
‘You don’t,’ Ammar asked, the words seeming to scrape his throat, ‘have any interest at all in what I might want to say?’
She stared at him, saw his mouth was twisted with bitterness, or maybe even sorrow. He looked different, and it wasn’t just the scar or near-shaven head. It was something that emanated from his very self, from the hard set of his shoulders to the deep shadows under his amber eyes to the twisted curve of his mouth. He looked like a man who had endured far too much, who was near to breaking from it all.
For a breathless moment she felt that old savage twist of longing lying latent beneath the knee-jerk reaction of anger. She had the bizarre and yet achingly familiar urge to comfort him, to make him smile. To listen, and to understand—
No. Ammar Tannous had appealed to her curiosity and compassion before. She’d fallen in love with him, or what she thought she knew of him, and then he’d gone and hadn’t just broken her heart but shattered her whole existence. It had taken years—years—to build up this new life, this new Noelle. She wasn’t always sure if she liked what she’d made, who she’d become, but at least she owned it. She owned herself; she was strong, focused, needing no one. And a few minutes’ conversation would never change that. She wouldn’t let it.
