size of a small mountain.
Beside him Anna clung to her seat, grateful for the mad recklessness of the journey that temporarily obliterated all other thoughts. Finally they skidded to a halt with a spray of sand and she peered through the speckled windscreen, seeing nothing but the grey shadowed desert. Abruptly getting out of the car, Zahir came round and opened her door for her.
‘We will need to do the last bit on foot.’ He held out his hand but Anna ignored it, jumping down unaided and focussing on nothing but this one goal as she followed Zahir up the towering peak of the dune, her thighs aching as she tried to keep up with him, her boots sinking into the shifting sand. Ahead of her Zahir had stopped to hold out his hand again and this time Anna took it, feeling herself being pulled up onto the very top of the dune. And into another world.
If it was wondrous beauty that she wanted, here it was, spread out before her. The sky was on fire with oranges, reds and yellows, the horizon a vivid slash of violet, the colours so amazingly vibrant that they looked to have been splashed from a children’s paint box. Before them the dunes rolled like waves of the sea, washed pink by the fast-rising sun that highlighted the thousands of rippled ridges with finely detailed shadows.
Anna dropped to her knees and just stared and stared, intent on blocking everything else out, storing this image so that it would be there for ever. She didn’t even notice the tears that were starting to fall.
Zahir cast his eyes down to where Annalina knelt beside him, her profile glowing amber in the light of the sun. The sight of the tears rolling unchecked down her cheeks threatened to undo him so completely that he had to look away. Whatever had he been thinking, bringing her here? What madness had made him want to prolong the torture? He scowled, channelling his agony into determination. He had to be cruel to be kind.
Minutes passed with no sound except the occasional cry of a bird, the rustle of the wind as it danced across the sand, the beat of his pulse in his ears. He had never known Annalina to be so silent, so still. The soft breeze that lifted her hair went unnoticed. It almost felt as if she had left him already. He pushed the sharp pain of that thought away and, staring out at the barren landscape, sought to find some words to end this agony.
‘This is for your own good, Annalina.’ He forced the words past the jagged blades in his throat. ‘After what happened with Rashid, it is clear that you can no longer stay here.’
He saw her twitch inside the coat that she had pulled tight around her body. But she remained infuriatingly silent.
‘And besides.’ Her refusal to agree with him only made him more coldly determined, crueller. ‘This is no place for you. You don’t belong here and you never will.’
‘Is that so?’ She spoke quietly into the cold, new day, still refusing to look at him.
‘Yes. It is.’
‘And now I will never be given the chance to prove otherwise.’ She hunched her shoulders, still staring straight ahead. ‘By banishing me, you’re simply confirming your assumptions. You’re shoring up your own prejudices.’
‘I am doing no such thing.’ He heard himself roar his reply. Raising a hand, he covered his eyes, squeezing his temples to take away the anger and the pain. Why did she persist in arguing like this, goading him? Or had he provoked the reaction—in which case, why? He was certainly regretting it now. ‘That is not true.’
‘No? Are you sure, Zahir?’ He could hear her fighting to control the tremor in her voice. ‘Because that’s what it feels like to me. There is no reason for me to leave Nabatean. We could find some help for Rashid—intensive psychiatric counselling. We could focus on making our relationship work, on building a future together.’ She turned to give him a look full of scorn but beneath the scorn was hurt, that terrible hurt. ‘But, what you really mean is, you don’t want me here.’
Zahir forced himself to watch as she turned back, roughly brushing away the tears and biting down on her lip to steady it. He wanted her to stay more than he had ever wanted anything in his life. But he could not let her see that. He could not let his lack of judgement jeopardise her safety any more than it had already. Let his own desires compromise her well-being. More than that, he could not let his selfishness crush the life out of this precious creature. Because that was what would happen if she put her happiness in his hands.
‘Very well.’ He hardened his heart until it felt like lump of stone inside him. ‘Since you put it that way, you are right. I don’t want you here.’ It crucified him to say the words, but say them he had to. ‘The sooner you leave, the better for all concerned.’
She flinched as if he had struck her, and Zahir experienced the same horror, as if he had done just that.
‘Well, thank you for the truth.’ Finally she spoke, her words floating softly into the air before the dreadful silence wrapped itself around them again.
Zahir looked over his shoulder. He couldn’t take any more of this. ‘We need to get going.’ He paced several steps across the top of the dune, glancing back to where Annalina hadn’t moved. ‘The crew will have the jet ready for take-off.’
He didn’t give a damn about the jet or the crew. He just knew he had get away from here, deliver Annalina to the airport and put an end to this agony.
‘In a minute.’ She spoke with icy clarity. ‘First I would like a little time alone. You go back to the car.’
Curbing the desire to tell her that he was the one who gave the orders around here, and that furthermore he expected her to obey them, Zahir drew in a steadying breath. Certainly there was no way he was going to leave her up here on her own. ‘Five minutes, then.’ He looked around them, pointing his finger. ‘I will wait for you over there.’
Anna watched as he strode away, the breeze billowing the loose fabric of his trousers as he climbed up onto the next dune and stood there with his hands on his hips, tall and dark against the skyline.
The shock of his rejection had hardened now, the misery solidifying inside her until it felt less like a bad dream and more like leaden reality. The way Zahir had so callously dismissed her declaration of love still threatened to flay her skin but now she saw that it had been inevitable. A man such as Zahir would never be able to graciously accept such a sentiment. He didn’t know how. His own heart was too neglected. It was buried too deep.
She was staring into the crimson wash of the sky when a sudden thought came to her, dawning like the new day. It trickled slowly at first, but soon started to warm her, to heat her from within, until she began to throb with the idea of it—whether through hope, desperation or fear she didn’t know. If Zahir’s heart was so buried, so unreachable, perhaps it was up to her to try and change that.
Perhaps it was her duty to try and find it.
Zahir watched as Annalina got to her feet, expecting to see her start the descent back to the car. But instead she was heading towards him, scrambling over the sand that was shifting beneath her feet in her hurry to reach him. He saw her stumble and instinctively started to go to her but she was up on her feet again, using her hands now to propel herself forward until she had reached the top of the dune and pulled herself up beside him.
‘I know you don’t want to hear it but I’m going to say it again anyway.’ Her words came out all of a rush as her breath rasped in her throat, her chest heaving beneath the padded coat. ‘I love you, Zahir.’ She gulped painfully. ‘And nothing you can say or do will ever alter that.’
She
