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It had been heat and light, havoc and passion, sensation, and sensual overload. But in the end, it hadn’t been enough. Obviously. Marriages couldn’t survive on sex alone.
‘We’re here.’
Omar’s voice was soft, but she still jumped about a mile. Glancing out of the cockpit, she felt the hairs on the nape of her neck rise slowly.
Where was ‘here’?
Panic exploding inside her like popcorn, she squinted through the glass. When Omar had told her they were going to a place in the hills, she had assumed he was talking about another of the exclusive suburbs that edged the glittering high-rise city centre, but there was nothing suburban about the view through her window.
There were lights, and the moon was huge and dazzlingly white, so it wasn’t dark. But aside from the castellated outline of a pale stone building there was nothing to see but a seemingly never-ending range of stark, jagged peaks.
‘You said we were going to a place in the hills,’ she said slowly.
‘I may have misled you.’ There was a faint glitter of moonlight in his eyes. ‘But I didn’t think it would be a big deal. It’s not as if the truth matters to you.’
A tiny shiver rippled through the helicopter. They had landed. Beside her, Omar flicked a switch and silence filled the cabin. Then he was out of his seat and, almost before she had undone her belt, opening her door and half pulling, half lifting her out of the cockpit.
‘I can manage.’ She pushed his hand away, watching his face harden as her stiletto heels slipped sideways on the smooth flagstones.
‘Of course you can. Perish the thought that you might actually need me for anything.’
She had needed him. He had made it his mission for her to need and trust him. But she wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
Biting back the comment she wanted to make, she adjusted her feet. Regaining her balance, she let her eyes skate past him. They were standing in a vast courtyard surrounded by high walls. ‘Who owns this place?’
‘I do. It used to be a fortress.’ He left a pause. ‘But for now, it’s going to be your home.’
She shook her head. ‘My home is in Idaho.’
His face stayed blank, but his eyes narrowed just a fraction. ‘If you say so. But we didn’t talk in Idaho any more than we talked in New York. Perhaps we’ll have more luck here.’
Without waiting for her to reply, he turned, and she watched him walk away, her heart suddenly going at ninety miles an hour. And then she hurried after him, almost tripping in her haste to keep up with him as he strode through a doorway.
‘This is insane, Omar. This is not how people behave.’
Couldn’t he see that rehashing the past wasn’t going to change anything? It would just scrape against a wound that was barely healed.
They were walking upstairs now, and she had to pick up her skirts to keep up with him.
‘Firstly, I’m not “people”. I’m your husband. And talking to your partner is not generally considered a sign of insanity.’
She followed him into a room, and he stopped so abruptly she almost cannoned into him as he spun round, fatigue and frustration etched into his handsome features.
‘Maybe if you accepted that...maybe if you hadn’t turned every conversation into a masterclass of deflection and dissimulation... I wouldn’t have found out by chance what I should have been told by right.’
She stared at him. His words froze in the air between them like bullets in those Gun Fu films her brothers loved so much.
‘And that’s what this is really about, isn’t it? Not me. Not our marriage. Not the truth. This is about you not being in control, not having the last word. So, actually, it’s all about you.’
The look of fury in his eyes almost slammed her against the wall.
‘No, that’s one thing our marriage has never been about, Delphi. You have only ever let me into your life grudgingly.’
The word felt like a serrated blade, scraping against her skin.
‘And you bumped me down your agenda for work.’
‘Don’t blame my work for your deceit.’
