The Husband She Never Knew

Yet once she’d immersed herself in steaming, fragrant bubbles, Noelle felt her resolve—and her anger—start to slip away. She kept seeing that look of yearning on Ammar’s face when he’d woken up, when she’d caught him off guard. She felt the same yearning in herself, a longing for the way he’d been. The way she’d been, with him, so long ago.

That was not going to happen.

She couldn’t start thinking that way, wanting that way. Not after he’d hurt her, not after he’d revealed what kind of man he was—

Do you really know what kind of man he is?

Refusing to answer that question, or even think it, Noelle dunked her head under the water and started to scrub. Too bad she couldn’t scrub away her thoughts. Or that flicker of yearning that threatened to fan into something far more dangerous.

Ammar paced the dining room just as he’d paced the cabin of the plane. He came to his desert retreat for solitude and safety, a place where the rest of his life never intruded, yet he was finding neither tonight.

Should he let her go? The thought had been flitting around in his mind like an insistent insect since Noelle had suggested the very thing. If he let her go, Ammar knew, she would never come back to him. She would never love him again.

And the same thing might happen if you make her stay.

He closed his eyes. He’d felt hopelessness before, God only knew; he’d felt hopelessness for most of his life. Yet it hurt so much more when you felt hope first.

‘Hello.’

He whirled around to see Noelle standing in the doorway.

‘Come in.’ He cleared his throat, took a step forward. He felt tension twang through his body so he felt like a marionette, all awkward, jerky movements. He no longer knew how to be natural with her, but then had he ever? Being natural, he thought with a sudden bitterness, was not natural to a man like him. Yet there had been moments, miraculous, tender moments, where he’d felt himself lighten with the sheer joy of being in her presence. Smiling, even laughing, at her enthusiasm for life, her silly jokes, her sudden laughter. He missed that. He missed the man he’d felt he could be with her by his side.

She walked into the room and he saw she was wearing a caftan he’d ordered for her, along with all the other clothes. It was a pale spring green shot through with silver threads and, though it was basically a shapeless garment, it still somehow managed to emphasise her slender form, her graceful posture. Her hair was still damp from the shower and twisted up in a careless knot, her face flushed from heat—or anger. At that moment it didn’t matter. All Ammar knew was that she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

‘I’m glad—’ he began, wanting somehow to articulate how lovely she looked, but she cut him off, her voice flat.

‘I want my clothes back.’

He’d had his housekeeper take them while she was in the bath. He realised now how that might have made her feel even more vulnerable, and cursed himself for not thinking of that before. ‘They’re being laundered. You can have them back as soon as they’re dry.’ He’d regarded her stark grey dress and black tights with a sorrowful bemusement; the woman he remembered from ten years ago had worn bright clothes, cheerful colours. ‘There is a wide selection of clothes at your disposal, in your room.’ In addition to the caftan, he’d bought sweaters, shirts, jeans, even a few dresses, all in the bright colours he liked—and thought she did.

Noelle shrugged, the thin cotton of the caftan sliding off one shoulder. Ammar’s gaze was drawn instinctively to the movement and he felt his insides tighten with long-suppressed desire. Desire he’d never acted on, yet longed to—had always longed to, even now. Her skin was the colour of almonds, creamy and golden with a slight spattering of freckles. ‘None of them fit,’ she said. ‘They’re two sizes too big.’

‘I thought I remembered your size.’ He saw a flicker of surprise in her eyes, like sunlight on water, that he would have ever known such a thing.

‘I’ve dropped a few sizes.’

‘You’ve lost weight—’

‘I’m thinner,’ she corrected, and he frowned, because Noelle had always been slender. Now that he was looking at her properly, he saw how skinny she looked, the bony angles of her elbows and collarbone jutting out even under the voluminous folds of her clothing.

‘Come eat,’ he said and, with her mouth pressed into a hard line, she followed him to the table laid intimately for two.

This wasn’t, Ammar acknowledged, going to be easy. Yet he didn’t want to let her go. He couldn’t. Hope, he knew, was too heady a possibility. Yet what would it take to unbend her? Make her not just listen, but want to listen?

Grimly, he realised he had no idea.

Noelle stepped further into the room, deep with shadows and flickering with candlelight, suppressing the sudden hot flare of awareness she felt at the sight of Ammar’s admiring glance, quickly veiled. If he hadn’t wanted her when she’d been wearing a silk teddy and stilettos, he could hardly want her now, in this tent-like caftan.

In any case, it didn’t matter what he did or didn’t want. She was only here because she was hungry. And she needed to convince Ammar to return her to Paris.

‘Please sit.’ He pulled out a chair and, deciding there was no point in being ungracious, Noelle accepted and sat down. Ammar laid a napkin in her lap, his fingers barely brushing her thighs, yet even so she felt another flare of desire low in her belly. Never mind what he felt, she still had the same instinctive response to him. Lust and longing. Hopeless. How could she feel it now, after ten years, when he’d brought her here by force?

Resolutely, she pushed such thoughts away. Absolutely no point in dwelling on anything but a determination to get out of here.

‘May I serve you?’ he asked, so scrupulously polite, and it reminded Noelle of when they’d been dating in London. They’d got caught in a downpour and she’d brought him back to her flat in Mayfair, hoping he’d stay the night. She’d had a shower while he waited; she’d been far too shy to ask him to join her.

When she’d emerged, swathed in a dressing gown, her hair still damp, he’d asked, in that same serious, polite way, May I brush your hair? She’d nodded, and he’d so carefully, so gently, brushed her hair with long, sensual strokes. She’d had to keep herself from trembling throughout the whole exquisite ordeal, longing to lean back against him, for him to turn her around and take her in his arms. They’d kissed twice so far, that was all. Sweet, aching kisses that had made her want so much more. And for a moment she thought it would finally happen. Her hair finished, he’d laid the brush aside and his hands had slid slowly, deliberately along her shoulders, down her arms, as if he were learning her body. Noelle had remained completely still, mesmerised by his touch, but she could not keep from gasping aloud when Ammar pressed a tender, lingering kiss to the bared nape of her neck. She’d never experienced anything so romantic, so erotic, and so very sweet. They’d remained there for an endless, aching moment, his head bowed, his lips against her skin, and then he’d let out a shudder and stood up. Before Noelle could even say anything he was, in his solemn, restrained way, bidding her goodnight.

Now she glanced up at him, waiting patiently for her response while she lost herself in all these aching memories. She was tired of them, exhausted by the emotions they made her feel. Regret. Sorrow. Longing.

‘Yes, thank you.’

He ladled couscous and stewed lamb on her plate, and Noelle glanced around the room, spare and spacious, with an understated elegance in its few pieces of mahogany furniture. A pair of French windows were shuttered against the night, and she wondered where they led. She’d opened the shutter on her bedroom window after her shower, but the only thing the moon had illuminated was the endless, undulating desert and a long drop down to the sand.

For a short while she said nothing while she ate hungrily. ‘So,’ she said finally, stabbing another piece of meat with her fork, ‘why won’t you return me to Paris?’

Ammar didn’t answer for a moment. In the candlelight he looked so serious, his eyes dark, his movements controlled and restrained as always. Noelle glanced at the scar snaking down his cheek. Amelie had been right; it did look sexy. He looked sexy, but then he’d always been sexy to her, sexy and gorgeous and infinitely desirable. Even now, when he had lost weight—like she had—and still bore the scars of his accident, she could not deny the pulse of longing she felt for him. Her body remembered how he felt, the solid strength of him, corded muscle and callused skin. Even now, with all that had—and hadn’t—happened between them, her body remembered and wanted more.

‘I would like,’ Ammar said, thankfully breaking into the torment of her thoughts, ‘for you to stay here for a little while.’

Noelle jerked her gaze from its revealingly leisurely perusal of his body back up to his face with its implacable expression. ‘Stay here? For what, a little holiday?’ Her voice was sharp with sarcasm but Ammar simply nodded.

‘Something like that.’

‘Ammar, you abducted me—’

He clenched one hand on the table. ‘So you keep reminding me.’

‘You think I can just forget it? I told you I had nothing to say to you, and I still don’t. I want to go home.’ To her shame, her voice trembled and she felt tears crowd under her lids. She wasn’t even sure why she was near to crying: because she wanted to go home or because a tiny, treacherous part of her wanted to stay? How shaming. How pathetic. She bit her lip and looked away, not wanting him to see how close to tears she was, but she could not keep a shudder from ripping through her.

‘Noelle—’ His voice caught on a note of near-anguish and he reached one hand out to her, as if he would comfort her. How ridiculous was that, to be comforted by her captor? And yet she still longed for him to touch her, could almost imagine the warmth of his hand on her skin. She averted her head and he dropped his hand.

‘Please, Ammar.’

‘I cannot.’

‘You can,’ she insisted, angry now. Anger felt stronger, simpler. ‘You brought me here; you can let me go. You just don’t want to, and I have absolutely no idea why.’ She glared at him, and Ammar gazed steadily back.

‘I brought you here because I want to be with you,’ he said, choosing each word with care.

Noelle blinked. Stared. Her mind seemed to have slowed down, snagged on his meaning. He wanted to be with her? ‘What—’

‘I want us,’ Ammar said, ‘to be husband and wife.’

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