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‘It’s nothing. I just had a dream.’
His face was in shadow, but she could sense his uncertainty—and something else. Something that felt horribly like concern. Only she couldn’t let herself think like that. Couldn’t let herself believe that Omar cared about her.
She thought back to the moment in the garden when he had reached out and touched her hand, and she had weakened, leaning into him, and just like that she had got used to the feel of his body against hers, to his solidity and his gentleness. She could have stayed there in his arms for ever, letting his heat and strength envelop her.
But it was dangerous to think like that. Or rather it was dangerous to stop thinking and let her body make the decisions.
She felt his gaze on her face. ‘It sounded more like a nightmare to me,’ he said quietly.
Remembering the mist and the gravestone, she felt her hands start to shake, and she flattened them against the mattress to steady herself. It had been so long since she’d had that nightmare and she’d forgotten the horror of it, the horror of the aftermath too.
‘It’s nothing,’ she said again, trying to sound normal...casual, even. Only it didn’t feel like nothing, and suddenly she wanted him to hold her more than she had ever wanted anything in life.
And so, of course, she had to make him leave.
‘Really, it’s nothing. You don’t need to worry about me. Honestly. Just go and get some sleep.’
He stared at her in silence, his face unreadable, and then without a word, he turned and walked out of the room. She let out a shuddering breath. Without Omar there she didn’t have to hold back anymore, and her body started to shiver uncontrollably.
She had opened the window earlier and now she thought about shutting it—only that would mean moving and she wasn’t sure her legs were working. Instead, she drew her knees to her chest and hugged them, lowering her face so as not to have to look into the unfamiliar corners of the room.
She should have been relieved that he was gone, but instead she wanted to turn and weep into her pillow. She shouldn’t have let him go. She should have asked him to stay. She should have tried to talk to him—
Tears filled her eyes.
No, it was better this way.
But if that was true, then why did it hurt so much? Why had having him there made her feel so much want and need and hope?
‘Here.’
She glanced up. Omar was holding out a glass with a measure of clear golden liquid. His dark eyes rested on her face and her breath caught. He was still so much a part of her, and she wondered helplessly if that feeling would ever gentle. Would the ache of losing him ever stop?
‘It’s brandy.’ He paused. ‘I know you said you didn’t want a drink earlier, but it might help now.’
She had been about to refuse, only his face in the moonlight looked soft, younger, as he must have looked when he was little, and she felt something twist inside her as she imagined how their child might have looked had he been a boy.
Forcing her mind away from that devastating train of thought, she took the glass. ‘Thank you.’
Brandy wasn’t something she would usually drink, but it was what people drank on TV and in films when they were in shock, so maybe it would help her stop feeling so cold.
‘You’re shaking.’ Frowning, he reached down and touched her arm, then her cheek. ‘You’re freezing.’
His skin felt blissfully warm, and she had to stop herself from rubbing her face against his fingers like a cat. But it was the gentleness in his voice that made her want to take his hand and wrap it round her waist like a bandage.
Not wanting him to feel that need in her, she got to her feet. ‘I should probably get changed.’
She just about managed to totter into the bathroom. But once she had closed the door, the energy that had propelled her there evaporated. Even the thought of getting undressed seemed almost unimaginably complicated, and her fingers were so numb she couldn’t even feel the buttons, much less tackle the thin leather straps of her sandals.
But finally, after a few false starts, she managed to undress herself.
It was only then, standing naked apart from a pair of flesh-coloured panties, that she remembered she didn’t have anything to change into.
There was a knock at the door.
‘Would these be of any use?’
She opened it a crack. Omar was holding out a pile of clothes. Men’s clothes—presumably his.
