Harlequin Romance September 2021 Box Set

by Andrea Bolter

  Mansur’s intense stare had stretched on throughout Amal’s silent communication with her office manager. Now he said, “We need to talk.”

  Those four words had her even more on edge than when she had lived through his discovery of her amnesia.

  Amal gulped softly, and stammered, “D-Do we?”

  She hated it that her wariness was so apparent to him. She wanted the advantage of at least appearing unaffected by his sudden arrival at her office. She’d come here figuring she was safe from the hurt and dismay that had chased her once she’d learned he planned to leave Hargeisa immediately—when he’d all but stated she was a hopeless cause.

  “I think we do,” he told her. His eyes tracked over her features. “I’d also like to apologize if I’ve offended you.”

  She looked from him to her computer screen, and the schematics for the hospital that were still throwing her a bit. She had thought to add some alterations to the technical drawings, but she’d require all her focus for that. And she wouldn’t be able to concentrate much on her work now her thoughts were preoccupied with Mansur.

  “If you’re all right with it, I’d like to have breakfast with you,” he said.

  “Now?” she asked, staring up at him.

  He nodded. “I’ll understand if you’re too busy, though.”

  She knew that he would, given his own high-powered job.

  “Amal, don’t feel pressured to come with me.”

  Hearing her name from his mouth did it for her. He spoke with a kindness that had been absent in his tone when he and his mother had been discussing her amnesia.

  “All right,” she said. “But it’ll have to be a quick breakfast.”

  “I can do that,” he agreed.

  * * *

  Manny needed this breakfast to be his closure with Amal. She’d already surprised him by agreeing to join him. The relief he’d felt had been eroded quickly when he’d realized how affected he still was by her, emotionally and physically. Case in point: Amal moved ahead of him, her steps short but fast, her thick hips swishing from side to side, whipping up more of that unwelcome desire in him.

  Concentrating on the dusty beige world around them, instead of Amal’s sensual curves, Manny marveled at how the only pops of color came from the garbage bags that were like tumbleweed in the downtown marketplace. The concept of trash bins didn’t exist here. Sure, there was some waste management, but not nearly enough effort to keep the streets free of pollution.

  A pale, thin goat snacked on a piece of cardboard. The animal lifted its head on their passing, its black, glassy eyes tracking them. More livestock wandered aimlessly alongside the beggars on the street. Young and old, male and female, sick and healthy. They all had reasons to be asking for loose change.

  Amal paused for a thin, sickly woman and her trio of small, wide-eyed children, and then again for an elderly man rolling his wheelchair.

  She doled out more donations, her heart as generous as he remembered it being. When she paused for a shirtless, sad-looking boy, Manny rooted out an American twenty-dollar bill. The boy grinned wide before he sprang off with the money, as if his benefactor might change his mind.

  “You’re still stopping for them?” he wondered aloud, not expecting a response.

  Her frostiness had suggested there would be no conversation until they reached a restaurant. So, he was taken aback when she said, “I try. There’s only so much I can do, though.”

  She looked both ways and crossed the street, marching ahead. Manny shadowed her, his hand bumping her arm when a minibus stopped inches from collision, the driver honking wildly and shouting for them to clear his path.

  “That was dangerous,” he observed, his fingers itching to grasp her wrist. He was worried she’d hurt herself, navigating directionless traffic. It was one of the many things he hadn’t missed about Somaliland.

  Amal didn’t respond until she paused before a fenced construction site. “The hospital,” she said.

  He studied the leveled ground and the deep hole. The foundation was still in progress. Only it appeared the construction site was abandoned. Glancing around, he imagined it should be filled with workers at this early hour on a weekday.

  “A project of yours?” Manny asked, not questioning how she’d remembered the hospital. It was becoming clear her amnesia was fickle about what she recalled and what she didn’t. And that didn’t set him at ease at all.

  Amal nodded once, her attention dead ahead and her voice soft and disconnected. “It was supposed to be a new hospital, but the development of the infrastructure was stopped after my accident.” A frown furled her eyebrows. “It happened here. I hit my head somewhere on site. I don’t recall it, but that’s what everyone’s been telling me.” She touched her temple. “The government has since pulled their funding. As I understand from my employees, it wasn’t too supportive of this project to start with.” She dropped her hand and balled it into a fist. “They’re all greedy politicians who want to line their pockets rather than care for their constituents.”

  Manny regarded her profile. Could she be thinking of her mother when she looked at the abandoned grounds and the would-be hospital? He had been eleven and Amal only eight when she’d lost her mom to childbirth complications from eclampsia—the baby had died, too. But he recalled how his mother had said the hospital had been ill-equipped to cope with the medical issue.

  Grief-stricken, Amal’s father had admitted that he couldn’t care for his surviving children, and without any other relatives willing to feed three extra mouths he’d dumped them on his mother-in-law—Amal’s maternal grandmother.

  That was when Amal and her brothers had moved in next door. And that was how Mansur had gained three childhood friends.

  But Amal’s amnesia must have robbed her of those few memories of her mother, too. Mustn’t it?

  “My mom...” Amal trailed off, as if she’d taken a peek into his mind and now answered his doubt. Her throat fluttered, undulating with quiet but powerful emotions. “A new hospital could help someone like her.”

  “You remember?”

  Manny frowned, his mind whirling. Did she or did she not have amnesia? He knew it was a complicated, loaded query. And this wasn’t some daytime melodrama. It had to be more complex than whether she’d lost all her memories or not and would regain them in a plot twist.

  Shoving off the selfish unease building in him, he stumbled on the tail end of her soft explanation.

  “I’m recalling more of my childhood, if anything. My adult memories—they’re the ones I can’t fully access yet.” She sighed, forlorn. “Sometimes I wake up not knowing who I should be. And wondering if it was that way before the amnesia.”

  “You aren’t having problems at work, though,” Manny said, suddenly driven to wipe the despondency from her pretty face. She’d looked confident and at home in her office.

  “Not with my skills, no. They did need a bit of brushing up, but my procedural memory’s been good to me. Thankfully. I wouldn’t have known what to do if I’d had to cancel all my clients’ projects and close the firm.”

  “Small blessing,” he murmured.

  Sympathetic was what he was. Being CEO of an in-demand, top-earning company meant there was added pressure on every delivery to a client. He imagined it was the same for Amal, running her own company.

  The fact that they had both succeeded in their respective and similar careers hadn’t gone over his head. It reminded him of the dreams they’d once shared as children. How they had both wanted to rebuild Hargeisa, usher the lively city into new infrastructural heights and brighten the futures of its citizens.

  He’d ended up leaving for the States, but she’d stayed. She’d continued living their dream.

  “Do you love what you do?” he asked out of the blue.

  “It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”

  “
I know,” he said, nodding and looking at the excavation site and beyond it, to what it could be if Amal’s vision came to life. “We’ve both studied in similar fields, and now we’re building our dreams into reality. Despite being in the industry for nearly a decade, the feeling of being at a ribbon-cutting ceremony and seeing the final product can’t be beat.”

  She smiled. “The faces are what I remember most. What I love most. Seeing how happy clients are with the reveal.”

  Manny chuckled. “How could I forget?”

  She laughed lightly then, her eyes sparkling, the hint of gloominess from earlier gone. He wished he didn’t have to ruin the peaceful moment. But time was pressing, and they couldn’t stand around reminiscing all day. Soon she’d want to return to her office, and he still had his piece to say.

  “Amal, what was your doctor’s prognosis for the amnesia?” he asked. Saying her name was tripping him up. It sounded too familiar on his tongue. Like coming home. But he was undeserving of the happy relief that welled up in him.

  As for this amnesia business—he couldn’t shake the absurdity of it.

  Her memory loss was perfect for him, and yet terribly painful, too. Perfect in that it saved him from explanations and reliving heartbreak, and painful because he was going through it alone.

  She had no recollection of their long-distance conversations about building a future together, let alone his marriage proposal and her hasty rejection.

  In her mind, it seemed their long-distance romance had never existed. While he recalled—and replayed, clip by clip—how their friendship had blossomed into...more. Something he’d had no name for until she herself had shyly confessed to liking him romantically.

  No, she said she loved me.

  And he had asked for time to process it.

  Process it he had—and that was when he’d come to her, closing the seven-thousand-mile gap between them with a diamond in one hand and his heart in the other. He’d planned to offer her both—and he had. But she had shocked him with her refusal.

  How could she not remember?

  Did it matter, though? He knew it didn’t alter the situation they were in now, standing and facing off like strangers. He’d do better to focus his energy on what he could change. Like having her consider the options of medical treatment elsewhere.

  “The doctor said I could regain my full memory.”

  She folded her arms over her chest. Her new posture wasn’t offensive so much as it was defensive. Protective, even. Like that alone was enough to hold at bay the everyday problems of the world and her extraordinary problem of amnesia.

  “There’s also a possibility that I could stay like this forever.”

  She shrugged and lowered her arms. She shifted so that her body faced the fencing of the empty worksite. It looked more like a war zone than the start of what could be Hargeisa’s premier hospital, for rich and poor alike.

  “The timeline for my recovery is uncertain,” she said softly, defeat beating at her words.

  “And yet you could seek better medical care and technology elsewhere,” he said.

  She snapped her bemused gaze to him.

  “I know you heard my mother and I speaking,” he said.

  Amal opened her mouth, closed it, and frowned. Smart of her. No point in wasting time and breath arguing about her eavesdropping. Actually, right then he appreciated it. It saved him from explaining what he’d already told his mother. That he had business in Ethiopia.

  “Why not join me? You could visit with a doctor in Addis Ababa, and we could try for a second opinion.”

  “‘We’?” she echoed, lifting her brows. First one, and then the other. Speculation and disbelief collided and mingled in her arresting features.

  Manny understood why she might not trust him. To her, he was a stranger now. But even if she possessed full command of her memory she likely wouldn’t give him the time of day, given how they’d parted ways. A year was a long time for him to expect her to wait for an apology—and he wasn’t even certain why he should apologize.

  An old, earthy grudge swelled in him. Stuffing it down, knowing that now wasn’t the time to pick and unseal scabbed wounds, he tackled her question.

  Of course he’d heard it, too. He had hoped she’d missed his slip of the tongue, but he wasn’t that lucky.

  “What I meant is that we would be going together,” he said lamely. “And I would be happy to show you Addis, as well. It’d be your first trip out of Somaliland, wouldn’t it?”

  He knew it for a fact, and yet he waited for her answer.

  “Yes, it would be—but I can’t just leave. I have work piling up.”

  She hugged her arms around her middle again. Back to being defensive.

  Avoiding his eyes, she murmured, “I can’t go with you, Mansur.”

  “Manny,” he amended instinctually. “Can’t or won’t?”

  In her surprise, she looked at him again. She tucked her bottom lip between her teeth and, worrying at the soft flesh, appeared distraught. Lost. Cornered.

  He hoped not by him and his offer. Though he did want her to strongly consider it.

  Again Manny regarded the would-be hospital, the construction site frozen and forgotten...but not by her. Never by her, given the strong, unspoken feelings he’d sensed in her when she had been talking about her accident and how it had come to stall the construction of the hospital.

  Her dedication demanded admiration from him, and he gave it to her readily. Which was why he said, “Do it for the hospital, then.”

  “Pardon?”

  “I said do it for your hospital. For Hargeisa, even. For the tens of thousands—no, hundreds of thousands of patients who might be saved because of your choice right now.”

  Dramatic, yes. The over-the-top, boardroom-worthy pitch would have roused even his most dour-faced directors, and his board had plenty of that type. Old fogeys who clashed too often with Manny, their new, young CEO and president.

  The hyperbole worked, though. Amal’s bemusement melted and a clarity brightened her eyes. She, too, stared at the site of what would be her hospital someday soon, and she smiled.

  Manny’s heart thudded at the radiance of her smile and the sharpness of each heartbeat alarmed him. Clearly he’d underestimated the mystical power she continued, unknowingly, to wield over him.

  Mouth dry, he said, “I know my mother orchestrated my arrival, and I know you played no part in her good-intentioned deception.”

  Amal didn’t seem to notice the break in his even, confident voice. She waited silently for him to finish. Riveted was what she was. Beautiful and still and curious.

  And very disrupting, he surmised.

  “Word of advice: if you choose to join me in Addis, make the choice for yourself. Not for my mother’s sake, or because of what others think of you.”

  “For myself?” she repeated.

  “Yes, for yourself,” he emphasized. “Ultimately, you know what course of action is best for you.”

  She was quiet...thoughtfully so. “It’s a tough decision.”

  “It’s your decision either way.” And he promised himself he wouldn’t interfere in her choice.

  Instead of choosing, though, she asked, gazing almost shyly at him, “What would you do, in my place?”

  “If I thought it’d make a difference, I’d go.”

  “And if I strongly believe it might not?” she whispered.

  Manny didn’t know what to tell her. He suspected that no matter what he said she’d march to her own drum. So he said, “I had a choice not to be a CEO. I could’ve easily stepped aside and allowed another candidate to sweep the title.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  He palmed his beard. “Because I felt I was the best for the position. I still feel that way.” He lowered his hand from his jaw and recalled how hard he’d worked to b
e where he was professionally. “I make sacrifices. I work day and night. And my social calendar suffers even more these days.”

  He’d lost a few friends when it had become obvious to them that he couldn’t be bothered to maintain friendships. But he’d also done the same to his family.

  “I haven’t seen my mom in a year,” he confessed. Not since he’d had to travel home to see how she was doing after his father’s wake and funeral.

  “But you talk to her on the phone.”

  Amal spoke matter-of-factly. It was amazing she couldn’t see the worst in him. He hadn’t been a good son to his mother. And when he’d heard his mother say “Hooyo” he had felt an earthshattering guilt for not calling her as often as he should have.

  “I call her when I can,” he replied.

  Amal smiled and nodded. “You had to make a tough decision, too.”

  It was a tough call. She gets it.

  Manny stuffed down the balmy calm that her empathy brought him.

  He understood that he might not get an answer right then. She had a lot to consider. Even though he’d advised her to think of herself alone when making a decision, he knew how improbable that was. Amal didn’t live in a bubble or a vacuum. Besides, she’d always been more considerate than he. Sensitive to others and generous to a fault. If she had a flaw, it was that she was too good. Too kind. Too thoughtful.

  Too spellbinding, he mused, finding some humor in his startling weakness for her.

  He didn’t expect her to make her choice right then, and he certainly wasn’t waiting for her to pack her bags and come with him. Manny was prepared to stake his net worth on her refusing his offer. The only upside being that this time he wouldn’t be blindsided when it came—unlike when he’d asked her to be his wife.

  So Amal surprised him when she nodded. Firmly. Decidedly.

  “All right. I’d like to go,” she said.

  Like a candle wick, resolution flickered to life in her eyes, the flame gleaming more brilliantly with every passing second. Some switch had been flipped on inside her, and she was transformed by incandescent light and beauty.