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Something within him was intensely moved by her innate dignity, compounded when she hitched her chin and looked him straight in the eye, unflinchingly. ‘More than you, it would appear. I lost the two people I loved most in the world before I was thirteen and my world fell apart. I know about feeling so responsible for the people you love most that you can’t sleep at night. I know about struggling so hard to make ends meet that it consumes you to the point where you forget you have choices in your life—but you don’t care because you’re doing it for someone you love.’
Nadim opened his mouth, but Iseult unwrapped her arms from her middle and cut him off with a slashing gesture of her hand. She moved a bit closer. Fire was returning to her eyes, faint colour to her cheeks. But Nadim didn’t feel comforted. He felt as if he was watching something very precious break in front of his eyes.
The fierce look on her face forbade Nadim from speaking.
‘I’ve fallen in love with you and I wish to God that I hadn’t—believe me.’ She smiled, but it was tight. ‘Don’t worry, you were perfectly clear all along the way, so I have no one to blame but myself. But I know it’ll destroy me to continue to indulge in this dream world only to have it ripped away when you’ve had enough of this affair… I’ve lost too much already, Nadim. I can’t wait passively by just to lose you too…’
The words died away into a heavy tense silence. Iseult felt numb. She couldn’t believe she’d just said all she had, but his obvious horror at her declaration and the shameful surge of hope he’d dampened had sent a white-hot surge of anger through her: anger at herself for being so stupid. At no point had she intended this outpouring of her innermost feelings, and yet she knew now, facing him across this room, that she couldn’t have contained it.
‘That’s why I want to go home, Nadim,’ she said. ‘To keep me here would be the worst form of cruelty, and I know you won’t do that.’
She challenged him across the room with her eyes. Nadim looked as if a lorry had just run into him. His face had leached of colour, his eyes were like two stark pools of black in his face.
In a harsh voice she’d never heard before he said, ‘I don’t want you to leave, Iseult. I want you to stay and be my mistress. I can’t promise how long our liaison will last, but I can promise that you will be looked after—no matter what.’ He continued, ‘But if you insist that you cannot divorce your feelings from our physical relationship, then I will have to let you go.’
Iseult wasn’t sure how she was still standing. She couldn’t feel her legs any more, and her heart felt as if it was tearing in two. Somehow she managed to find her voice. ‘Then I have to go.’
She turned to leave. As she put her hand on the door handle she heard from behind her, ‘You won’t even stay for Devil’s Kiss?’
Iseult’s torn heart clenched hard, and she closed her eyes for a moment. Her deluded brain could almost believe for a second that she’d heard something desperate in Nadim’s voice, but it had to be her imagination. She couldn’t bear to turn around and see the coldly arrogant look that would be on his face.
Realisation struck home hard: Nadim had somehow managed to eclipse even Devil’s Kiss. And, no, she couldn’t even stay for him.
Not able to say another word, Iseult just let her silence speak her answer and left the room, closing the door softly behind her.
Nadim stood looking at the door, speechless and motionless for a long moment. In a blinding flash he realised that no matter what he’d just said Iseult had got to him on an emotional level he’d never experienced before. He turned around and, seeing something, went over to the small table where the photo of his wife sat in a frame. Her sweetly smiling face cut him straight to the quick and mocked him for the revelation—almost as if she was saying, Now you know what it feels like.
In a quick flash of anger so intense that it made his vision blur Nadim took the picture and threw it violently against a wall, where it shattered and fell to the ground.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ISEULT’S alarm went off and she stretched out a hand to turn it off, snuggling back under her warm duvet for another minute. The contrast between where she was now and where she’d been up until just a few days ago couldn’t be more pronounced. It was winter in Ireland and it was dark outside—and freezing. With sickening inevitability she couldn’t help her thoughts gravitating to the tall, dark, hard man who had turned her life around and upside down.
Missing Nadim was a physical ache—especially at night in bed. After their last conversation things had happened with scary swiftness; Nadim had obviously been eager to see the back of her and get on with his life. Jamilah had come to Iseult, and the two women had shared a look that spoke volumes. It had been Jamilah who had escorted Iseult to the plane in Al-Omar, driving her herself, after Iseult had said an emotional farewell to Devil’s Kiss. Both women had been tearful saying goodbye, and Iseult had extracted a promise from Jamilah that she’d visit Ireland soon.
Iseult had left a note for Nadim in her room with a simple message:
Nadim, thank you for making me feel beautiful. It means more than you could ever know… With my love, always, Iseult.
Chagrin burned her now to think of it. Even then she hadn’t been able to drum up the necessary self-defence to protect herself. She’d gushed again. She might as well have ripped her own heart out and handed it to him on a platter along with a knife and fork.
And then, guiltily, she’d seen the exquisite small golden bottle of perfume that Nadim had gifted her, and hadn’t been able to leave it behind, so now she tortured herself every day with the scent that reminded her of him indelibly.
Resolutely she threw back the warm cover and sat up to put her feet on the cold wooden floor. It was over. The fairytale had come to an end. She’d been greeted at home by Mrs O’Brien’s joyful tears, her father’s bone-crushing hug, Murphy’s slobbering tongue, and a farm and stud that had been comprehensively turned around in the short time she’d been gone. But they still needed her here. She was being kept busy from six a.m. until ten p.m., and that was the way she would get through this dark tunnel.
That evening, with darkness falling rapidly under a threatening sky, Iseult stood looking at the gallops, wrapped up against the cold in jeans and a polo neck and a thick parka jacket, with her favourite flat cap on her head. The last colt had just been returned to the stables for the evening by one of the new stablehands.
She was just realising that she was standing in exactly the same spot where Nadim had stood when she’d first laid eyes on him when she heard the low rumble of a powerful engine behind her.
Not expecting any visitors that evening, Iseult turned to see who it was—and her blood stopped in her veins when she saw a silver Jeep with tinted windows. And then the door opened and a familiar tall, dark figure got out. It was only the sound of the door shutting that made Iseult move jerkily away from the fence.
She thought she might be hallucinating, and spoke as much to convince herself that she wasn’t as to acknowledge him. ‘Nadim.’
He was dressed in dark jeans and a jumper, a worn black leather jacket. And he looked so exotic against the grey leaden skies that Iseult couldn’t take another step in case she fell down.
For a wild and exhilarating second she thought that he might have actually come for her—and then stomach-churning realisation hit her like a punch in the gut when she remembered how cold he’d been, how quickly he’d got her out of Merkazad. How he hadn’t even said goodbye.
