Dreaming Of... France: The Husband She Never Knew / The Parisian Playboy / Reunited...in Paris!

‘There’s a garden? I didn’t see one from my window.’

‘It’s on the other side of the house.’ He led her through the music room, past the piano to a pair of French windows that led out to an enclosed garden with a seating area and an infinity pool shaded by palms. The trees and shrubs—as well as the high walls—provided some shelter from the desert wind and sun.

‘Do you play piano?’ Noelle asked and Ammar nodded. ‘I didn’t know that. Did you … did you play when we were … together?’

Another nod. ‘It’s not something I usually tell people.’

‘Why not?’

He shrugged. ‘A private thing, I suppose, music.’

She stared at him, standing across from her in the little flower-scented enclave, looking calm but also tense, even a little resigned. He dug his hands into the pockets of his jeans and waited, as though for a verdict. ‘I don’t really know you,’ she said quietly, ‘at all.’

‘I know.’

Strange, but she hadn’t expected that admission. It made her sad. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly. ‘I want some answers.’ Ammar nodded. Waited. Noelle made herself ask, ‘Why … why did you reject me? In the hotel?’ Now the words were out there, she wished she could unsay them. Did she really want to hear how he’d changed his mind, how he’d no longer been attracted to her, had never been attracted to her? Why else would a husband refuse to have sex with his wife?

‘I suppose,’ Ammar said carefully, ‘it felt like the only choice at the time.’

‘Why?’

He said nothing. Frustration bubbled up inside her; she might as well be staring at a stone wall. ‘Ammar, if you have any hope of a relationship with me, surely you realise I need some real answers? There can be no relationship without honesty.’

‘It’s not that simple.’

‘It is.’

Frustration flared in his eyes, lighting them with its fire. ‘You are viewing the world like a child—’

‘I am not a child!’ That stung, because she knew how naive and innocent she’d once been, believing the best of him, of them, even after all hope was gone. She wasn’t that woman—that silly girl—any more. ‘I think most people would agree that honesty is essential in any relationship.’

‘I am not denying that,’ Ammar said tightly. ‘But I am not sure how much honesty I am willing to give—or you are willing to hear.’

Suddenly she was silenced. He was right. Just how honest did she actually want him to be? And why was she arguing about the necessity of it when she had no intention of having any sort of relationship with him? Still, she needed to know. Something, no matter how small. She let out a shuddering breath.

‘Our wedding night—I was lying in bed waiting for you and the doorknob turned, as if someone was about to come in. Was it you?’

A beat passed, the only sound the whisper of the wind, the gentle lap of the water in the pool. ‘Yes.’

She let out another rush of breath. ‘Were you going to come in, and then you changed your mind?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘Because …’ He stopped, lifting a hand as if to rake it through his hair before he remembered he hardly had any any more. He dropped it to his side, turning away from her with an impatient hiss of breath.

‘Ammar—’

‘This is not easy for me, Noelle.’

Again she was silenced. She had assumed, she realised, that it was easy. Or, if not exactly easy, then a matter of little consequence. Long ago, in her own hurt and humiliation, she’d decided he had never actually cared about her one way or the other. She had been, it seemed, a matter of indifference to him. Yet the man standing across from her, radiating an angry tension, his whole body taut and pulsating with it, was not indifferent to her. Not remotely.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I know.’ He turned back to her, his body now rigid with resolve. ‘I didn’t come to you that night—or any night—because I thought it would be easier for you.’

‘Easier?’

‘Not to be married to me.’

She stared at him, her mind whirling with this revelation. She had imagined many painful reasons why Ammar had rejected her. He was tired of her, he’d changed his mind, he’d never really loved her to begin with. She had never imagined this. ‘Easier,’ she repeated in disbelief, ‘for me.’

‘Yes.’

‘How?’

His mouth tightened and his jaw worked but no words came. Finally, with effort, he said, ‘I realised our marriage wouldn’t work, and so I was offering you a way out.’

She shook her head, refusing to believe so simplistic, so ridiculous an explanation. ‘But you never said anything, Ammar. You … you acted as though you couldn’t bear to be with me for a single second.’ Just the memory made her throat tighten and she blinked hard.

‘That wasn’t the case.’

‘And I’m supposed to believe that?’

‘It’s the truth.’

She shook her head so hard her vision blurred. ‘No. You’re rewriting history, Ammar, or maybe you’re lying—’

‘I am not,’ Ammar said coldly, ‘lying.’

‘How am I supposed to believe any of that?’ Noelle burst out. ‘How am I supposed to believe you were actually doing me a favour when you treated me like you hated me?’

Ammar’s mouth tightened. ‘I’ve had enough of this conversation.’

‘Well, I haven’t—’

‘All you need to know—’ he cut across her ‘—is that I realised it wasn’t going to work, and I meant to let you go.’

‘Let me go? That’s your version of events? Because it sure as hell is different from mine. You weren’t letting me go, Ammar, you were letting me down.’ Her throat ached and her eyes stung even as anger blazed through her. ‘So, just like that, you were willing to give up on our marriage, on me, without even a word of explanation, before we’d even begun?’ It hurt, even now. Especially now, because somehow the truth was worse than anything Noelle could have imagined. It made the loss and grief fresh again, and so very raw.

‘I wasn’t giving up on you,’ Ammar said quietly. ‘I was giving up on me.’

She stared at him, his words seeming to echo through her. She could find no hint in his expressionless face as to what he’d felt then—and what he felt now. ‘What do you mean?’

Another long silence. Ammar’s face looked as if it had been harshly hewn from stone. ‘I knew I couldn’t be the husband you deserved.’

She forced herself to ignore the ache his words—and the quiet, sad tone in which he said them—gave her. ‘Why not?’ Ammar’s expression closed down, if that were even possible. It wasn’t as if he’d been an open book to begin with. It wasn’t, Noelle reflected bitterly, as if he’d been open about anything at all. ‘I still feel like I don’t understand anything,’ she said, her voice caught between exasperation and something darker and far more alarming. It shouldn’t even matter now, the reasons why, and yet Noelle knew from the misery swamping her, the heartache that felt as if it were rending her right in two, that it did. It mattered far too much.