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She nodded jerkily, moving towards the seats herself. She gripped one from behind, digging her hands into the soft fabric.
“Actually, that is far from true. I’m not fine, habibti.”
“Oh?”
“You see, I came here wanting to ask you for one more night together.”
Disappointment seared her soul. “I see. So this is some kind of international booty call?” A bitter smile twisted her lips. “I suppose I should be flattered that you’d fly all this way just to sleep with me one last time, right?”
“No, you should be furious.”
“I am.”
His lips twisted. “I came here because I knew I needed to see you again, but it wasn’t until my jet touched down that I realised why.”
He dragged a hand over the back of his neck, watching her with his intensely dark eyes.
“With Laurie, it was so different.” He dropped his hands back to his sides and Ella bristled at the mention of the other woman’s name. How she’d come to hate it!
“I really cared for her, Ella. I felt very protective of Laurie from the first time I met her, particularly given that Afida – my friend – was determined to treat her as though she was little more than an inconvenience.” He moved to one of the armchairs opposite hers, standing behind it, mirroring her body language, his hands curving over the upholstered back. “And all this time, I’ve thought I loved her, and I have felt torn between guilt and anger at the misfortune of that.”
Heaviness pressed down on Ella and she found it hard to speak.
“I saw her last night, you know.”
Her eyes drifted shut.
“And the strangest thing happened.”
She looked at him warily, unable to understand why he was here and why he was looking at her with such intensity. “What?”
“All I could think about was you.”
Ella’s fingertips were tingly; her throat dry. “What am I meant to say to that?” She whispered. “Am I meant to be flattered? Glad? Take it as some kind of sign that you did actually care about me, on some level?”
His jaw tightened as though he were holding something back. “After Laurie, I settled more firmly on the idea of a simple arranged marriage. I had a very clear picture of what that would entail, and I tried to so hard to make you fit that box.”
“I’m not made to fit a box,” she snapped, her anger with him rising.
“I know that.”
She ignored his interjection. “And I don’t need this depressing relationship post-mortem. It was never going to work between us, Elon. We’re incompatible in the most important ways.”
“Are we?”
“Of course we are. You know that. You just said so yourself! You have a very clear idea of what you need your marriage to look like, and it’s anathema to me to enter into that kind of arrangement. If I’d been pregnant, then I would have found a way to make it work, but that’s all academic, isn’t it?” Her voice cracked a little as she spoke, turning away from him to stare out of the window, trying to blot the image that was always in her mind – a little child with his dark hair and eyes.
His voice assumed a quiet insistence. “The whole time you were in Salim I felt as though I were fighting a constant battle between what I thought our relationship should look like and what it was – and what I wanted it to be.”
Her throat hurt from unshed tears. “I thought you were just busy fighting me?”
“You represented everything I had decided I could never have.”
She was quiet, her heart skipping a beat.
“Years ago, I told myself that love is the very enemy. I almost jeopardised my friendship with my closest friend all because I believed I loved Laurie. Can you try to understand, Ella, why I fought this so hard?”
She refused to believe he was saying what she hoped he was. It wasn’t possible. “Fought what?”
