boarding school. I used to sneak into the music room after hours.’ His mouth twisted in a grimace that Noelle thought he meant to seem wry but wasn’t. ‘Breaking the law.’
‘It was certainly justified,’ she said as lightly as she could, ‘if you play like that.’
He played a minor chord, the mournful notes echoing in the stillness of the room. ‘Is it ever justified?’
She knew he was talking about more than just breaking into a music room. I’ve done too many things already I could be arrested for. She wasn’t ready to think about that, much less hear it from him. Coward, she berated herself. She remained silent, half in the room, her hesitation obvious. Ammar glanced up at her, his narrowed, knowing eyes taking in everything about her. She wasn’t fooling him. She wasn’t fooling him at all.
Swallowing, she took a step closer. ‘Why did you have to sneak into the music room at school?’ she asked. ‘Couldn’t you have had proper lessons?’
‘My father forbade it.’
‘Why?’
A shrug. ‘Music was useless, I suppose, to him.’ He took a breath, let it out slowly. ‘My father had very definite ideas about what a man should be like. What he should do, or even think.’
‘Your father,’ she said, taking a step closer to him, ‘has a lot to answer for.’
‘You have no idea.’
Ammar’s voice was so low and grim that Noelle flinched from it. ‘I know I don’t,’ she said softly, and for several moments neither of them said anything more. ‘So how did you decide you wanted to play the piano anyway?’ she finally asked. ‘If you’d never played before?’
‘My mother played. She was a professional and she might have had a great career, but she gave it all up when she married my father.’
‘I suppose she thought it was worth it,’ Noelle said uncertainly.
Ammar gave a little shake of his head. ‘She had no choice.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘My father insisted upon it. No wife of his would ever work, or be seen needing to work.’
‘And your mother accepted it?’
‘She was in love with him, or at least she thought she was.’ He played another minor chord. ‘Perhaps she didn’t really know him.’
Noelle felt a shiver of unease. Was Ammar talking about his parents, or about them? And surely, surely he was different from Balkri Tannous. She had to believe that. Deliberately she moved forward and sat next to him on the piano bench. Surprised, he shifted over to give her more room, but even so their thighs brushed against one another and Noelle felt a bolt of awareness at the contact.
‘Did you ever play the piano?’ he asked.
‘I took lessons for a few months when I was about eight. My parents made me.’ She lifted her shoulders in a shrug, the gesture an apology. ‘I didn’t like it and so I didn’t practise and eventually they let me stop.’ She was uncomfortably and even painfully aware of the differences in their situations, in their very selves: Ammar had had to sneak into a music room to learn an instrument he loved, while she’d been given it freely and scorned it.
‘You could learn now,’ he said and, to her surprise, he took her hands and placed them on the piano keys, his own hands large and warm over hers. She stared at their twined hands, his skin callused and brown, her fingers slender and soft, the colour of cream. They were so different, she thought, in so many ways.
Carefully, Ammar pressed her hands down on certain keys. ‘C, C, A, A, G,’ he recited quietly, pressing each of her fingers down in turn.
Mesmerised by the simple touch of his hands on hers, Noelle could not recognise the tune for a moment. She felt as if a fist had plunged into the centre of her chest and grabbed hold of her heart. Squeezed. She was breathless with both longing and loss, and even a faint, frail joy.
‘F, F, E, E,’ Ammar continued, and she finally turned to him with a small smile.
‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.’
‘You know it.’ He smiled back at her faintly, his lips barely curving but, even so, Noelle felt her already squeezed heart give a painful little lurch. He looked so beautiful and so sad, and she felt so much in that moment she couldn’t speak. He reached up and gently touched her cheek with the tips of his fingers. She closed her eyes. ‘You’re so beautiful,’ he said, his voice so low that, even seated next to him, she had to strain to hear it. ‘So very lovely. I’ve always thought that.’
She drew in a shuddering breath. ‘I think I’ve always known you did.’
‘Have you?’ He sounded more sad than surprised.
‘Yes.’ She knew she was speaking the truth. She still didn’t understand why Ammar had rejected her during their brief marriage, but she knew he’d felt something for her, both then and now. He cared. He’d always cared.
Gently she placed her hand over his, pressing it against her cheek. She opened her eyes. ‘Ammar—’ Her throat was so tight it hurt to get the words out. ‘Won’t you tell me why … why you turned away from me? You said you didn’t come to me on our wedding night because you meant to let me go, but …’ She trailed off, not wanting to put it into words. Still Ammar said nothing. She drew in another breath. ‘I still don’t understand. I still feel like you’re hiding something from me, like … like you don’t want me.’
Still no words. He’d gone completely still, his face utterly expressionless. Noelle searched his face, longing for just one clue to what he was feeling. What he was hiding. ‘Ammar?’ she prompted, and now her voice wobbled.
He looked away, dropping his hand from her cheek. Sitting next to him, she could feel the tension steal through his body, the hand that had touched her so tenderly now clenched into a fist. ‘I want you to know,’ he said in a low voice, so low she felt it reverberate right through her chest, ‘that I have always wanted you. Desired you. I still do.’ He paused, his whole body angled away from her now, even though they were only inches apart. ‘Desperately.’
Desperately. The knowledge might have thrilled her once, but now she felt only a weary—and wary—confusion. ‘Why then have you never …?’ She broke off as in one abrupt movement Ammar rose from the piano bench and crossed the room, his back to her.
Away from the lamp that provided the only light in the room, he was swathed in shadow. In the half-darkness Noelle could still see the sinuous muscles of his back, the faded bruises from the crash.
‘Can’t that be enough?’ he asked, his voice raw. ‘Can’t you be satisfied with that?’
He sounded so tired, so tormented that Noelle almost wanted to agree. But what kind of future could they possibly have with so many secrets between them? ‘No,’ she said quietly, ‘I can’t.’
Ammar let out a shuddering breath. ‘What I told you was true. I didn’t come to you on our wedding night because I knew I had to let you go. But you’re right. There was more to it than that.’
Noelle
