‘And then you’ll let me go?’

He stared at her, saw the hungry longing in her eyes, and felt a deep sorrow sweep through him. Once she’d looked at him like that, with such desire and even love that it had both humbled and amazed him. And he’d driven her away from him on purpose. At the time it had felt like his only recourse; perhaps it was once again. Perhaps he sought the impossible. To change. To be loved once more, and truly. ‘We’ll talk tomorrow,’ he said again, and to his shame his voice choked a little. He turned away from her and after a long tense moment he heard the gentle patter of her feet, and then the creak and click of the door opening and shutting.

He was alone.

Noelle slept terribly. Anger kept her awake at first, pacing the confines of her elegant bedroom. Ammar’s house was deathly still, the only sound the whisper of wind on sand outside. She felt as if she’d landed on the moon.

And surely the evening’s events belonged on a different planet—she still could not credit that Ammar wanted to restore their marriage. I want us to be husband and wife.

Why did that single statement send an icy thrill of terror and even excitement through her? Or was it simply shock? They’d never been husband and wife, not truly.

Even now Noelle remembered the ache of confusion and misery she’d felt, waiting for Ammar to come to her on their wedding night. They’d married at her family’s chateau and planned to spend their wedding night in a private wing all to themselves. She’d gone to the bedroom, changed into a lacy and virginal peignoir she’d bought at a very exclusive boutique in Paris and, trembling with anticipation, had waited. And waited. And waited some more.

Once the doorknob had turned and Noelle had jolted upright from where she’d lain on the bed, desperate for him to come to her, only to hear someone’s—surely Ammar’s— quiet footsteps pad back down the hall. The rest of the night had been spent in a lonely misery of confusion.

The next day they’d travelled to his father’s home and base, Alhaja Island. Ammar had been horribly remote, barely speaking to her. Hesitantly, Noelle had asked him what had happened and he had said something about a business call, which had made her feel small and unimportant. A business call was more important than his own wedding night?

There had been no time for a proper conversation, and she’d been too young, too inexperienced and confused for a confrontation. She’d kept waiting for Ammar to change back into the man she knew and loved, but he never did.

That evening he’d flown to Lisbon for yet another business engagement. She’d remained on Alhaja, waiting for his return. Before their marriage they’d talked about setting up a house outside Paris, near enough the city for work but a good place for children, for family. She’d had it all planned out, the bookshop she would open in the Latin Quarter, the house they would buy, a cottage really, with wrought iron rails and a blue-painted door. She’d pictured it all, her work, her home, her life, all with Ammar. Dreams, she thought now, the old bitterness corroding her soul. Stupid, foolish dreams. She’d waited for two long, lonely months on Alhaja before she realised Ammar had no plans to return. And in a desperate last-ditch attempt to win her husband back, she’d flown to Rome to meet him.

It hadn’t been easy; she’d had to call her father, coax him into letting her use his private jet. Balkri Tannous did not keep any means of transport on Alhaja, and so she’d been a virtual prisoner with the household staff, a silent, sullen crew. Her father had agreed, surprised yet able to deny her nothing—which Noelle had known—and through several begging phone calls to Ammar’s staff, as well as a helpless-female act with the concierge, she’d contrived to find the name of his hotel and wait in his room dressed only in a silk teddy and stiletto heels.

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