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CHAPTER FOUR
SHEWASIMPOSSIBLE. Utterly impossible.
Walking into his bedroom—the master bedroom, the bedroom he should be sharing with his wife—Omar let loose a torrent of expletives. With an effort of superhuman willpower, he just managed to resist the temptation to slam the door. Although, frankly, he’d had more than enough provocation to tear down the apartment with his bare hands. In fact, he was feeling so thwarted, so infuriated with Delphi, he could probably raze the entire city back to the sand it had come from.
He took a breath, tried to steady his heart rate.
Outside a moon hung in the darkening sky and drawn perhaps by its uncomplicated serenity, he snatched up the remote control by his bed and watched it, his mouth taut, his shoulders straining against his T-shirt as the door to the balcony slid open silently.
Taking a deep, calming breath, he stalked into the darkness. The air was still hot, much hotter than the apartment, but he didn’t care. He needed distance from Delphi.
He had bought this apartment off-plan nearly three years ago and stayed here maybe seven or eight times. He had never once taken time to stand and stare at the view. Now, though, he was grateful for it. The endless merging darkness of the sea and sky was serene, tranquil, calming, and with Delphi throwing obstacles in the way of each and every suggestion he made he was going to need all the help he could get to stay calm.
His mouth twisted. Easier to say than do.
Six weeks ago, when he’d returned home from work to find Delphi gone, he had been blinded, speechless, numb with shock, and then furious that she had given up on their marriage. Stealing away as if he was some one-night stand instead of the husband she had promised to love until death parted them.
His shoulders were suddenly rigid with tension.
Her leaving had done more than break his heart. The shock of walking into the empty, echoing apartment had raised memories he’d worked hard to forget. Literally. Until he’d met Delphi, his homes had simply been assets, accruing value. All his energies, all his time, had been spent working. He’d lost count of how many all-nighters he’d pulled. But what did a little physical exhaustion matter if it helped achieve his goal of having something of his own that would finally catch the eye of his father?
And if Delphi had been the wife she’d promised to be then his dreams would have been her dreams too. But instead of supporting him unconditionally she had acted like a sulky child. Retreating into silence whenever he had to work late or take a phone call over supper.
In the days and nights that had followed her leaving, his hurt pride had stoked his anger and he’d feverishly and repeatedly imagined the moment when he finally caught up with her and could angrily demand an explanation.
But then he’d remembered his father’s party and ensuring that Delphi was by his side had become his new priority. He knew he could track her down. All he’d needed was time or luck.
He’d got lucky.
Hanging up on the cowboy who’d called to tell him Delphi was in hospital, he’d promised himself that he would stay cool and detached. Unfortunately that resolution had been broken the moment he’d stepped between those curtains. Delphi had looked up at him and he’d seen the same old wariness and intransigence in her brown eyes.
But her stubbornness had simply made him determined to win.
And he had won.
She was here in Dubai.
Only now it was starting to feel less like a victory and more like an act of unparalleled foolishness on his part to have brought her here. His mouth twisted. The same foolishness that had driven him to arrogantly pursue her when even her own family had warned him of the challenge of doing so.
‘I like you, Omar,’ her adoptive father, Dan, had said to him. ‘You’re smart, and hard-working, and I’m guessing you don’t usually have too much trouble attracting women.’
No, he didn’t. Of course he hadn’t gone so far as to actually agree out loud with Dan, but nor had he denied it. Why would he? Ever since he was a teenager women had thrown themselves at him.
Until Delphi.
‘I’m not interested in other women, Dan,’ he’d said, with the complacent arrogance of a man who took it for granted that he could win any woman he wanted. ‘I’m interested in your daughter.’
‘And I know my daughter.’ Dan had smiled wryly. ‘She doesn’t trust easily. You won’t get reins on her unless she feels safe.’
An understatement, he thought, his fingers curling around the rail, tightening against the still-warm metal. Delphi was ice-cool and aloof with outsiders. An expert at keeping people at arm’s length and her emotions in check. Never before in his life had he worked so hard, committed so much time and energy and effort into trying to understand anyone.
It had taken three months to break through the barriers she had built against the world, and when finally she had stopped running, stopped deflecting, and opened up a little to him, it had been easy to see why she found it so hard to trust. Her parents’ lives and deaths had marked her out as a target for all kinds of unscrupulous people. If Dan hadn’t stepped in, who knew what would have happened to her?
Only the trouble was nobody was more aware of that fact than Delphi. It was why she was so hard to pin down. Why persuading her to trust him had been a Herculean task.
But he had done it.
Watching her with her horses, he’d seen how she let them make choices, let them set the pace. He’d seen her patience as she’d waited for them to come to her. And he had done the same. He had watched, waited, held his breath...
