fact annoyed him almost as much as her daring to come here. It argued a weakness in him, and he would not be weak where she was concerned. He was no longer a boy, to be at the mercy of his own needs, and hers. He would not be manipulated by her sexuality, practised as it was. He was a man, as she would discover.
Her right eyebrow flared up in the nervous way he remembered. Her eyes seemed slate grey now, as if her anxiety had drained them of colour. She had chameleon eyes, a fact he remembered well. He had never met a woman whose eyes changed colour in such a way. In his memory they were mostly turquoise, deep and rich, like the jewel. Green sometimes when they made love in daylight…and sometimes this green-tinged, slate grey…
‘I was not expecting you, either,’ he said grimly.
‘Then I wonder who you’re here to meet.’
‘I hoped that you would change your mind. You should have.’
‘Excellency,’ the passport officer murmured, and His Excellency Salahuddin Nadim al Khouri surfaced to take her passport from the outstretched hand. A muscle in his jaw moved.
‘Come, Desi,’ he said, turning to lead the way. He pronounced it, as he always had, Deezee. The memories it summoned up skated on her nerves. Desi, I love you. I will love you longer than the stars burn.
Now that the gaze was broken, she could move. She fell into step beside but a little behind him. Like a good Muslim wife, she told herself, and with an irritated little skip that was totally unlike her, she caught up with him.
Her heart was in turmoil, not least because of the way he had changed. Was this what the desert did? Was this the kind of man it grew? Fierce, hard…dangerous to cross?
But she had to cross him. She had come here to cross him.
I’m sure he never got over you. He’d probably give his right arm for the chance to kiss you.
She had even believed that she would enjoy settling scores with him. What a fool she was. If anyone was going to suffer from their encounter, it would not be this closed, proud man.
He led her through a door marked with an elegant sweep of Arabic letters above Private in English. They passed along an empty corridor in charged silence. She tried to think of something ordinary to say. If only he would ask her about the flight! Couldn’t he feel how the silence built tension? Or didn’t he care?
‘We flew in over the Barakati desert,’ she offered, stupidly, because how else would a plane get to the capital of Central Barakat? ‘It’s the first time I’ve seen desert like that! It’s so…well, beautiful is the wrong word. It has a haunting…’
He turned his head and her little speech died as the black gaze collided with her own.
‘People have strong reactions to the desert,’ he said. ‘But whatever your feelings for it, the desert does not change. It is dangerous whether you love it or hate it.’
The clear attempt at intimidation irritated her. He might as well have said, I am dangerous whether you love me or hate me.
And I’ve done both, Desi told him silently. But no more. I got through having any feeling for you a long time ago.
‘Funny, so is the Arctic,’ she said aloud, because two could play at the innuendo game. ‘Would it be better to freeze to death, or fry, do you think?’
His mouth tightened. ‘It is better to survive.’
For a moment the scar showed white against the skin drawn tight over his cheekbone. It traced a path to above his ear and was lost in the thick black hair under his keffiyeh.
‘And I guess you’d know,’ she said.
Salah’s been wounded. For one unguarded moment she relived the overwhelming anguish that had hit her with those words. She was astonished to discover how shaken she was by the evidence of how close he had come to death. Her hand ached suddenly, as if with the need to touch. But she wasn’t here to soothe any hurt of Salah’s.
‘Yes,’ he agreed.
As they reached the end of the corridor a uniformed guard, clasping a fist to his chest in salute, opened the door for them. Salah paused to issue instructions to him as Desi passed through into blinding sunlight.
She stopped. ‘My bags!’
Salah continued without pausing. ‘Come,’ was all he said, and his burnous streamed out behind him like a king’s cloak as he stepped out into the hot desert wind.
The heat smacked her, a living thing. Desi stopped to take her first breath of the dry, orange-scented air with its tang of plane diesel.
And suddenly here she was. The place he had promised to bring her, ten long years ago. The place she had dreamt of, yearned for—believed would be her home. The desert, he had assured her, where men were men, where life was lived and love was loved with the deepest intensity. Where passion was a part of nature and human nature.
Where his passion for her would never die.
How many times, under his urgent, loving guidance, had she visualized herself in the desert, and how often, long after it was hopeless, had she wished and pleaded for life to have worked out differently! Begged fate to allow her to retrace the steps that had taken her away from that life with him. Ten long years on, she was here.
And she would give a year of her life to be anywhere else.
‘So hot!’ she cried, trying to shake the feeling. ‘It’s only ten o’clock!’
‘This is not a good time for foreigners in Central Barakat,’ Salah said.
‘By foreigners do you mean any foreigner? Or just me?’
‘Are you so different from ordinary people, Desi? Has fame made you weak?’ he asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Not many foreigners come at this time of year, unless to work in the oil fields. Next month will be cooler.’
Next month would be too late. It’ll be hell on earth, Desi, but if you don’t go now, I’m lost. She would never forget the mixture of rage, grief and exhaustion in Sami’s voice, the voice of a woman driven to the edge, fighting not to go over.
She glanced at Salah, wondering again how a boy of such passion as she remembered in him could have turned into a man ready to contemplate what he was now contemplating. But his face was closed, impossible to read.
Ten years ago she had understood every expression as it crossed his face. Now he was unreadable. As well read stone. What had done this to him? His injury? War itself?
A white limousine hummed in quiet readiness at the bottom of the steps. A chauffeur in black trousers, white polo shirt and a headscarf like Salah’s leapt out to open the passenger door. As she slipped inside with Salah, an airport official arrived, carrying the two battered leather satchels that had accompanied her around the world over the past ten years. They were stowed in the trunk, doors banged, and the limo moved off.
And suddenly she was the last place in the world she would ever have chosen to be again: alone in a small space with Salah.
Chapter
