by Hana Sheik
She hurried to meet him halfway, bumping her leg painfully against the corner of the coffee table.
“Easy,” Mansur said quickly, closing the gap between them and taking her hand. He was staring at her with such open and raw concern. It wasn’t the first time either. Only this time Amal felt a change in the air. There was something more to his movements now. And she couldn’t help but worry whether it spelled doom for them.
Amal had thought that maybe they were making progress finally. She liked Mansur; she knew that. He was attractive. She was crushing on him. But now she wondered if it could be more...
He made her heart race, her mouth dry, and her body hum pleasantly with the pull to be near him. Whatever he was doing to her, it was powerful and sacred, and she had never yearned to explore anything more in her life. And yet she couldn’t stifle the fear that what he had to show her was going to end her hope.
“What do you want to show me?” she asked.
If he was going to crush her with disappointment, she couldn’t see a better reason not to rip off the bandage and get this over and done with.
Mansur held up his closed fist between them. “Before I show you, I have something to say.”
“Mansur...” She trailed off breathlessly. She couldn’t help it. His eyes held a gleaming intent and purposefulness that was single-mindedly locked on her. None of his other gazes compared to this. Whatever he had to tell her, Amal realized now that it was serious and noteworthy.
Maybe even life-changing, she thought with a skip of a heartbeat.
“I didn’t come to Hargeisa knowing that I’d be with you like this,” he began.
Amal gulped, fighting the urge to flee out of the room.
“My mother left me a cryptic voicemail and I arrived blindly, afraid that something terrible had happened.” His eyes darted to the scar he’d caressed on her temple earlier. “Only to discover something had happened, and I hadn’t been there for you.”
Amal freed the breath she’d been holding unknowingly.
Mansur opened his palm to reveal a small black box. Before she could wrap her mind around what it could be, he opened it.
Amal gasped, touching quivering fingertips to her mouth. It was a proper reaction to the ring nestled inside. Not just any ring, but a sparkly band with the biggest and most lustrous diamond she’d ever seen. And the diamond was...heart-shaped!
She didn’t think she’d seen anything so magnificent in all her life—and that was saying a lot, given all she had seen in Addis Ababa and Bishoftu.
Thanks to Mansur.
Amal looked up and found he’d concealed his emotions from her once again. He could’ve been a perfectly chiseled statue. But then he blinked, and suddenly the cracks in his facade were clear to her. He couldn’t hide the trepidation or the fear from her. Not now that they were writ plainly on his face. That face she could love forever.
Love? Am I in love with him?
It would make sense. She thought of him unendingly in his absence. And in his presence she felt complete. Whole.
Was it crazy of her to want to kiss him?
“Is it mine?” She heard her voice...how it squeaked with her nerves.
“It is,” he said, slinging her a tremulous smile. Then, taking it out of the box, he grasped the ring between his fingers and held out his free hand. “May I?” he asked.
The touch of uncharacteristic shyness in his low, husky tone was new to her. She nearly gave him her trembling hand, but there was so much to ask him. Enough to keep her from giving in to the natural instinct to have him slip that ring on her finger.
Pressing her hands flat over her racing heart, she asked, “How is it mine, though?”
And had he planned this from the start?
Mansur’s change in expression from warm hope to confusion told her that it wasn’t likely. But surely he didn’t think it was sensible of her to accept his proposal? Even if he hadn’t actually said the words and asked her to marry him. The ring spoke for him.
“Is there something you’re not telling me?” she asked.
Her question stirred him into hanging his head. “I wanted to marry you once.”
Amal’s mouth popped open. Shock made it hard to breathe. Oxygen sawed in and out of her flaring nostrils and gaping mouth.
“I came to ask you in person, after my father’s funeral,” he confessed softly, continuing as if he hadn’t rocked her world off its axis.
“You did?” she choked, part-gasp, part-exclamation. “I don’t remember.”
“I’m aware of that.”
The bitter sting to his tone wasn’t her imagining. Mansur lifted his head, his thumb absentmindedly stroking at the diamond ring she hadn’t accepted from him.
He’d wanted her? She struggled with that fact in her mind. Her heart was another matter. It throbbed from the overload of joy. Mansur desired her enough to propose not once, but twice.
She’d always believed in fate. Her grandmother used to tell her some people were destined to be together. Maybe it was like that for her and Mansur? Maybe they belonged to each other, no matter the odds?
No matter her amnesia, she hoped.
“Amal, there is something else.” Mansur stopped moving his thumb over the ring and groaned lightly. “I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Anywhere,” she breathed.
What else had she forgotten—and why did he look ready to suffer a breakdown?
When he didn’t speak, she begged, “Manny, tell me.”
Maybe it was her plea that did the trick. Or perhaps he reacted to his nickname.
“When I proposed to you...you refused.”
Mansur pulled in closer to her. Their eyes were trained on one another unblinkingly at this point. As if he commanded her to watch as he devastated her with the awful truth she suddenly and fiercely wanted to erase from his memories, too.
“You rejected my proposal, Amal.”
She’d rejected him?
“You told me you loved me, and I knew it was all I needed to hear to propose.”
Mansur bared his teeth now, his voice rough and pairing well with his tormented expression. But he was beautiful even when he was tortured by a past that clearly hadn’t been pleasant.
“I never act without knowing the end goal, but with you it was different. You were different. I thought...” he said, then stopped and shook his head. “I wanted to believe our love was ready for a future together.”
Amal staggered away from him. Mansur didn’t stop or follow her. All recognizable emotion had seeped from his features. His face was as cold and lifeless as stone by the time she’d created a sizable gap between them.
Gasping, she asked, “I rejected you?”
He jerked a nod.
“Why?” And when he didn’t answer she raised her voice, pleading, “Why would I do that?”
Tears pinched the corners of her eyes. Why had she let go of the man she loved? Because she now knew, irrefutably, that she loved this man.
She loved Mansur.
“You didn’t like the way I handled myself after I’d arrived too late to attend my father’s funeral. I told you that I didn’t care to be there. I wasn’t as polite and thankful as I should have been to those friends and family members who had visited my mother to pay their final respects. But most of all you saw that I’d hurt my mother with my attitude. You called me out for it, Amal, and it was deserved. But instead of backing away, and giving you time to cool off, I made the mistake of proposing at the wrong time.”
He paused, chest heaving, eyes narrowed, his face cruelly inscrutable.
“Maybe it was for the best, after all.”
The finality in what he’d said broke her. Amal was ready to be sick all over the floor. She hadn’t even felt this sick on his plane. The room was spinning for her and she stumbled back
.
Mansur was there when her knees gave out. He held her up and steered her to the sofa. Seating her first, he left and returned with a cool glass of water. Amal guzzled half of it down and he had to ease her up and help her drink the other half more slowly.
He waited and watched until her breathing had evened before he said, “I apologize for not telling you earlier.”
She understood why he hadn’t. It was his past, too. And, unlike her, he recalled it—and vividly, if his emotional display was anything to go by. Being who he was, Amal knew it had to be difficult for him to be that open. His stoic expression was his way of maintaining the control he’d felt he lost. But he couldn’t hide from her—not now. Not ever again.
“Do you have questions?” he asked.
Naturally she did. But first... “I need to think,” she replied.
“Okay,” he said, not sounding at all as if it were all right. He stood and helped her to her feet, saying, “I’ll walk you back to your suite. Unless you’d like to stay longer?”
“No,” she said, and was pained to see the snapping flash of relief on his face.
Seeing that he didn’t want her with him would have to be taken into consideration when she gave him her final answer. Even though she told herself that it had to be shock. They needed to process their reactions, the truth of his marriage proposal and her rejection of his love on their own.
Still, she didn’t want to leave him.
Yet she had no choice now that he was guiding her out of his suite and they were walking to hers.
At her door, Amal fumbled to find her keycard. When she did, it slipped from her nerveless fingers and dropped to the carpeted floor. Mansur got to it first, holding it out to her.
“There is one more thing...” he said.
She looked at him more closely, hopeful that it wouldn’t end like this tonight.
“Yes?”
He pulled the ring box from his pocket. “I don’t want to hold on to it anymore.” And when she didn’t budge, he rasped, “Please take the ring.”
His plea broke her. She took the small box and held it close, hoping he would see that she only needed time to think over all he’d shared with her.
He nudged his chin at the door. “Good night, Amal.”
“Good night, Mansur.”
She wished to linger, but she remembered how relieved he’d appeared to be when she’d said she was leaving his suite. It was enough to snap her mouth closed and let him leave.
Fighting tears, she opened her door and stepped over the threshold. Curiosity gained the better of her and she peeked to catch one more look at him. Too late. She was watching his back and his hasty retreat to his own sanctuary next door.
Tomorrow, she prayed.
Tomorrow they’d fix this and somehow be happy.
CHAPTER TWELVE
HE’D HAD ONLY a rough go at sleep.
Unsurprising, when all he’d been able to do was replay what had taken place in his hotel room.
By the time sunrise glowed through his suite, Manny had packed his luggage and was getting off the phone after arranging to have his jet fueled for the long flight home.
Before he left, though, he had one last stop to make—and it wasn’t to Amal’s room.
He stepped off the elevator and into Hakeem’s penthouse at the hotel. His friend was there to greet him.
“You’re leaving, then?” Hakeem asked as he led him to the living area. “And what about your woman?”
“She’s not my anything,” Manny gritted, the painful reminder of last night all too fresh in his mind.
She’d refused to give him her hand again. And even though she had said she would use their time apart to think alone, he wasn’t holding any hope that her heart had changed about him.
Amal didn’t love him. All that remained was for her to let him down gently. He had to accept that and leave before he acted more foolishly than he already had.
“Sorry,” Manny muttered when he saw Hakeem’s frown. He hadn’t meant to snap at his friend. It wasn’t Hakeem’s fault that, once more, he’d fallen short of Amal’s expectations.
The fact that she didn’t want him was all on Manny. No one else. She found him lacking. To her, he must be defective on some grounds.
Or she’d be wearing my ring now.
Manny focused on the lurking concern in Hakeem’s eyes. “She’ll be staying in Addis longer than me. I’d appreciate it if you could look out for her.”
It was the best he could muster in this state. Ready to fall apart at the seams, he certainly didn’t want to do it in front of Amal, and yet he’d promised his mother he’d watch over her.
He trusted Hakeem to do it in his place. The billionaire hotelier had his faults, true. He was a playboy and a committed bachelor who had the wealth to fly all over the world and do as he pleased, but he was also a good and loyal friend. Trustworthy.
Hakeem nodded. “I’ll do my best. Does she know about this arrangement you have planned or are you bargaining on me telling her?”
“She knows you, and I trust you. That’s enough.”
“I won’t force my company on her.”
Jealousy shafted through him at the thought of Hakeem and Amal spending time together and growing closer. With a growl, he said, “You’ll ensure her comfort and security and that her means of transportation to the hospital will be covered—that’s all.”
By no means did he want Hakeem muscling in on his territory.
But she’s not mine, and she doesn’t want me.
Still, it didn’t mean he had to deal with Hakeem and Amal becoming a couple. Hakeem was his friend, and Amal was the woman who’d always have his heart. Wasn’t it enough that he’d suffered losing her a second time? Lost out on his second chance with her?
That justification wasn’t sitting well with him, so he cooled his jealous rage and remembered the other reason he’d come up to see Hakeem.
“I’ll be heading to the airport now. I know we were to have had talks of a new hotel in Abu Dhabi...”
Ahead of him in his thinking, Hakeem nodded. “No worries. I’ll message you when you land. Anything else?”
Manny had been getting to that. “You know I’ve been dealing with an inheritance...?”
“I do,” his friend said.
“And you know that I’ve been considering selling it from the start? Well, I’ve had a change of heart. At least for now, the land will remain in my care.”
Hakeem frowned, crossing his arms. “And there’s no way to talk you into selling it to me?”
Manny knew his friend had an interest in the property. Hakeem had contacts in the agribusiness industry, and he rubbed elbows with politicians whenever he had to. But Manny couldn’t be certain that Hakeem wouldn’t go and sell to the wrong people. Amal’s praise when he’d suggested helping local farmers still echoed in his mind. It had egged him on into announcing this final decision on his father’s inheritance.
“I’ve made up my mind,” he said, with sturdy conviction.
Unruffled, Hakeem lowered his arms, sighed and smiled. “You’ve changed. Who do I have to curse or thank for that?”
Manny clenched his teeth and glared.
His friend merely laughed at him. “Relax, bro. I think I’ve got my answer anyways.” Then, more solemnly, Hakeem asked, “Are you sure you don’t want to tell her yourself?”
“No, it’s for the best.”
Besides, he had the strange sense that, despite her negative reaction last evening, Amal would somehow try to stop him leaving. Of course it wouldn’t be the first time he held such a grandiose notion that she cared for him...
Instead of deluding himself, he looked Hakeem in the eye and told him, “She won’t mind. It’s not like we’ve been in each other’s lives for very long anyways.”
Hakeem sh
rugged. “As long as you’re happy, I’m cool.”
“So you’ll do as I asked?” He didn’t want to have to beg, but he’d do it if it meant Amal would remain safe and sound in Addis Ababa.
Hakeem readily offered his hand.
Manny gripped it tightly before they pulled together into a brief hug.
“Yeah,” Hakeem drawled, grinning when they pulled back, “I’ll watch out for your girl.”
Manny didn’t even correct him a second time.
* * *
“What do you mean, he’s left?”
Amal couldn’t have heard Hakeem correctly. Surely Mansur’s billionaire friend was playing a joke on her.
But Hakeem said, “You just missed him. He’s paid for a month in advance for your room, and your meals will be catered from the hotel’s two-star Michelin restaurant—”
“He’s left?” Her interjection was fraught with her nerves. Normally, she wouldn’t be rude, but interrupting Hakeem was the least of her problems.
Hakeem smiled benevolently across the table from her. They’d met out in the massive gardens at the back of the hotel. Now they sat on the patio overlooking the manicured green lawn, gleaming flagstone paths, fountains and perfectly trimmed hedges. A priceless, once-in-a-lifetime view that meant nothing to her in that instant.
Pressing both her hands on the glass table, she cried, “He can’t have left me!”
Not when they had so much to discuss.
It had started an hour ago, when Amal had called at Mansur’s door and gotten no answer. Immediately she’d worried, and had asked after him at Reception. When they wouldn’t circumvent their privacy policy for her, she’d demanded to speak to the hotel’s owner, Mansur’s friend Hakeem Ahmet.
Now she placed her hopes on him.
“Please, if there’s a way I could speak to him...”
Hakeem had had his shades fixed in place up to that point, but now he pulled them up to his head. “I did get a call from him. Apparently, there’s been a need to check over his plane’s engine. I could put another call through to see if he’s still stalled at the airport...”
