Harlequin Romance September 2021 Box Set

by Andrea Bolter

  She touched a hand to her chest, felt her heart taking longer to relax. She wanted to bask in the relief of having him here, but she knew that it was one battle won and the war was still being waged.

  Looking over her head, Mansur regarded the five people awaiting them with an icy stare. “Did they say anything to you?” His tone was accusatory as he leaped to the erroneous conclusion that his sister and her family had injured her.

  “No, they’ve been good to me,” she said.

  His head snapped down to her, his scowl focused on her now.

  Amal smiled meekly. “You weren’t behind me, and it’s been nearly half an hour. I thought...”

  “You thought I’d left?” he deadpanned.

  She dipped her head slowly, apologetically. It had been wrong of her to assume the worst in him. That he’d break a promise. That he would leave her all alone. She’d acted on her emotions first, and that wasn’t right.

  “I should have known something was keeping you...”

  Like scouting for a rare parking space in an over-populated marketplace.

  He gazed intensely at her and she blushed harder for it.

  “I’m sorry...” she whispered.

  * * *

  She was sorry. She looked it, too. Her lips trembled with her apology and her eyes were dewy with unshed tears.

  How many times had she looked ready to cry near him? Damn. He was doing a terrible job of making her feel comfortable, making her feel happy, he thought with gritted teeth.

  Amal’s eyes widened, and he realized belatedly that he might look like he was too angry to accept her apology.

  Unclenching his jaw, he said, “I can see why you thought that. It took much longer than I hoped. It was a mission to find parking.”

  And it had been—but he’d also hoped that he might not be lucky and therefore not have to attend the dinner. It would’ve been the perfect excuse. No parking. No family gathering.

  Careful to keep his disappointment from his face, he looked toward where Zoya and her family waited on them. “Is it too late to order?”

  Amal’s smile, so sunny and full of hope, twisted his heart and sharpened his guilt. She really wanted him to get along with his extended family. When it felt so utterly impossible to him.

  She led the way to the table in the back. Half the table was wrapped by booth seating. Zoya and her fiancé made room. It left a spot for him beside Amal.

  He studied Amal while she relayed why he’d arrived so late to the party. Zoya brightened at the explanation. He didn’t miss the relieved way she gripped her fiancé’s hand over the table.

  “I’m so happy you’re here,” Zoya told him once Amal had finished.

  She smiled so wide and sunnily he had to fidget under the pressing weight of guilt. Manny wondered whether she’d be smiling anymore if she learned that he hadn’t wanted to be here. And that Zoya owed Amal her gratitude for having dragged him along. It was Amal he wanted to make happy. Amal he continued to love hopelessly and unrelentingly.

  Zoya introduced her family. “My sisters,” she said, and he nodded as she named them.

  Their names went over his head. His whole world was narrowing in tunnel vision on the older woman seated across from him. Surrounded by her daughters, she bobbed her head and smiled when Zoya said something in Amharic. But it was the maternal sheen of joy in her eyes that froze him.

  He breathed harshly, felt Amal’s oud perfume filling his lungs and calming him somewhat. Still, most of that peace of mind slipped out of him when the older woman who looked so much like Zoya moved her mouth rapidly. She stood then, stretching her hands and reaching for him.

  His stepmother was waiting on him to return the gesture. Manny eyed her warily. He knew what she wanted, and he didn’t require Zoya to translate.

  His half-sister did it anyways. “My mother, Mansur. She says that seeing you is something she’s wanted for a long time.”

  Amal prodded him under the table with her leg.

  “It’s a pleasure,” Manny greeted her.

  Another discreet nudge from Amal had him lifting his hands.

  Zoya’s mother seized them, her hands stronger than they appeared. She was small, but stout. Softly rounded from her childbearing years. In a way, she reminded him of his mom. And that thought made him pull his hands away faster than Zoya’s mother was expecting.

  Under the table, he curled his fists, felt a needling sense of betrayal eclipsing his guilt.

  Zoya’s mother said something in Amharic.

  “My mother thinks you look like our father.”

  Zoya’s translation sucker-punched him in the gut. Manny gripped his knees, his fingers digging into his flesh. The pain was good, though. It kept him from hurtling off the emotional cliff he was staring down.

  “You do,” Zoya commented.

  He felt her stare, his face burning hot.

  Zoya’s mother spoke again.

  A dutiful daughter, Zoya translated. “She says that it’s like looking at a younger version of our father.”

  The hot and cold sensation battering him was a frightening experience. Black and red dots muddied his vision, and he noticed that he wasn’t breathing evenly. A lack of oxygen was to blame. Panic would come naturally after that. He had to calm down. Cool it. But it was a strain on his overworked senses. He felt like he was shutting down. All because Zoya and her mother believed he resembled his father.

  Amal’s hand came out of the blue. She touched his arm and compelled him to snap his head toward her. Over the ringing in his ears, he heard her say, “My father tells me I look like my mother. It’s a strange feeling, isn’t it?” She rounded her eyes at the table, her smile serene. “For everyone, that is. Looking at someone but seeing someone else.”

  She gave his arm a squeeze and then retracted her comforting touch.

  Manny stopped himself from grabbing at her hand. Instead, staring resolutely from Amal to the table laden with food, he said, “We should eat before the meal grows cold.”

  “Yes, let’s eat,” Amal piped up.

  Her cheerful tone dispelled the oppressive silence that rose up after what he’d said.

  Manny concentrated harder than necessary on tearing a piece of injera and scooping chicken stew from the communal bowl. He ate fast, filling his mouth, worrying that at any moment he’d be fielding questions and wrestling the dark emotions this meeting with Zoya and her family had brought out in him.

  By the time the food was finished, he was ready to call it a night.

  “Would you like dessert and coffee, Amal?” Zoya flicked a look at him, too, her eyes inviting and kind.

  Manny frowned. He nudged Amal. She closed her open mouth, her smile vanishing as she shared a meaningful look with him. He didn’t want her making this dinner longer than it had to be. Satisfied that she wouldn’t go against him, he turned his attention back to his doting half-sister to refuse her offer.

  “We can’t, I’m afraid. I have business to attend to early tomorrow.”

  “Next time, then,” Zoya said readily, her smile polite but tense.

  Amal flashed her a weak smile. “Yes, I’m hoping we can meet again.”

  Manny ground his teeth, annoyance surging up in him. “Let’s go,” he said to Amal.

  Then he surprised them both as he took her hand and pulled her up with him. She went willingly, matching his quick strides to the restaurant’s exit.

  Outside, he let go of her hand and flexed his fingers, missing her touch already.

  “The car’s this way.”

  He guided her across the street from the restaurant. Eager to grow the distance between him and Zoya and her mother and her sisters, Manny walked fast. Every so often he looked back to ensure he hadn’t lost Amal. She shadowed him, not once offering any complaint that he moved too quickly. Finally, feeling freer of
the heavy weight on his chest, he slowed his pace and fell into step with her.

  “You parked far away,” she remarked.

  “The price of driving to the market and not taking a bus or a cab.” He looked down at her when her silence bothered him. “Are you angry?” he asked finally.

  No point in beating around the bush. He supposed she wasn’t pleased with how he’d left so abruptly, and with not so much as a decent farewell. But what could he have said when he was planning never to meet with Zoya and her family ever again?

  Nice meeting you, and enjoy your lives?

  It sounded awful enough in his thoughts.

  “You’re mad,” he said, the observation coming out more forceful than he wanted.

  Amal peered up at him. “I’m sad.”

  That brought his steps to a dead halt. She stopped, too. He faced her and stared and stared. At last, he asked, “Why?”

  “I forced you into that dinner. I shouldn’t have.” She lowered her head, sighing. “I had hoped it would be easy for you, once you met them, but I can see I was wrong. And it’s not your fault.” She raised her eyes to him, imploring. “You were in a tough position, and you handled it a lot better than I could’ve wished for.”

  She didn’t need to say it. He heard it clearly: she had anticipated an angry outburst from him in the middle of the dinner.

  Was he really so transparent about his discomfort?

  Manny scoffed lightly. Who am I kidding? He’d been ready to leap out of his skin all through dinner. He’d breathed easier with each step that had carried him further from the restaurant and the memory of the dinner he hadn’t wanted to be at.

  Amal started forward and Manny mirrored her.

  “What you said in there, about your father saying you look like your mother...” He trailed off and gave her the opportunity to decide whether she wanted to share anymore or leave it there.

  Amal being better than him, though, smiled—albeit with a sad tinge—and nodded. “It’s true. He used to say it a lot when I was younger.” Her throat rippled with emotion and her voice was softened by it. “When my mother was alive.”

  “You remember?”

  He’d asked her something similar when she had revealed her personal motivation to build a hospital in Hargeisa. Amal had told him that her childhood memories were returning at a hopeful pace. It was many of her adult memories that remained a blur.

  All the better for him, he’d thought at first. Now, though, after spending five days with her, and realizing that he still held a torch for this fierce-spirited and gorgeous woman, Manny acknowledged that her memory loss of his failed marriage proposal wasn’t as comforting to him any longer.

  “My memories are patchy, of course,” Amal was saying.

  She mesmerized him, and so his mind blanked as he listened to her.

  She sighed again, softly, her voice catching. “It was hard to endure the comparison later.”

  After her mother had died, she meant.

  “Naturally,” he rumbled.

  “And then he said it again when he visited me after I came home from the hospital.”

  Manny’s body and thoughts were at a disconnect, because he reached for her and stopped them both.

  “Mansur...?”

  His name fluttered from her mouth, her eyes round and the streetlight not masking her curiosity. At least the sadness was gone in her surprise. But he wanted to ensure it stayed gone. She’d been downcast for longer than he should’ve permitted. He loved her easy smiles and her contagious joy for the simplest things.

  He loved her.

  “He shouldn’t have said it.”

  She shrugged. “It was difficult to hear it, but I don’t remember her clearly. I have pictures, but he knew her. He loved my mother. And maybe at some point he even cared for me and my brothers, because he didn’t have to worry about the heartache that comes with losing a loved one.” Amal grasped his hand over her wrist and squeezed. “We can’t help who we look like.”

  “Still, he shouldn’t have said it,” Manny growled, and Amal dropped her hand, letting him hold her.

  Before he knew it she was stepping into him, her free arm wrapping around his shoulder as she sprang up onto her tiptoes. He leaned down into her hug. Clutching Amal felt so good. She made the world come to a standstill for his sake. With a groan, he sank his nose into her headscarf, the hijab smelling of the sweet musk of her favored oud.

  She melted into him. He felt her go almost boneless and meld their bodies into the perfect fit. The happy mewl she made so close to his ear was not of his imagining.

  It took Herculean strength to draw back from her initiated embrace. Staring down into her dark eyes, Manny was at a loss for words. All that blared through his mind was the urge to confess his love to her.

  I love you. I love you. I love you, Amal.

  She looked at him with intent, too. Could she possibly be feeling the same way? Could they somehow make this work like they hadn’t a year ago? Did she care for him, too? Did she love him?

  Amal blinked and her smile returned. “Could we talk more at the hotel? I don’t want this to end.”

  No, he didn’t either.

  She slipped her hand into his when he loosened his grasp on her wrist and got them walking again.

  Manny followed her with a lighter heart and a hope for their love that came rushing back to him.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  AMAL STARED AT her hand, playing over how it had felt holding Mansur’s—how right everything had been—as they’d walked hand in hand back to his car and driven to their hotel. Now they were in his suite together, and he was in the kitchen preparing tea.

  They weren’t ending the night quite yet. She was more than happy to spend longer with him. To salvage what she’d ruined for him tonight.

  The dinner had been disastrous.

  She hadn’t walked away from it feeling good about orchestrating the whole thing. All she’d done was make Mansur feel worse, and his feeling bad made her hurt awfully.

  But as he strode out of the kitchen, carrying a tray with a tea set, he looked less like he had the world crushing his shoulders.

  Amal sat up and smiled. “You should have called me to help you.”

  “You’re in my suite. That makes you the guest.”

  Mansur settled the tray atop the coffee table and sat beside her on the two-seater sofa.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to order dessert? I can’t help but feel I’ve deprived you of it tonight.”

  Her heart felt extraordinarily full at his words. After messing up as she had tonight, how could he still be so nice to her?

  “I’m sorry,” she blurted, watching him pour tea and creamer and add sugar to their cups.

  Amal accepted the cup and saucer he offered her, but she stared at him, waiting for his response.

  After he’d sipped at his tea, he lowered his cup and looked at her with guarded eyes. “I chose to go. I’m an adult, Amal. Perfectly capable of making my own decisions. I could’ve easily refused.”

  But he hadn’t, and that meant a lot to her. The fact that he hadn’t slammed the door on his half-sisters and stepmother gave her an inkling of hope that one day he would be willing to embrace them as family. In her eyes, tonight had spoken for his character. He wasn’t holding a grudge; he was wounded by his lack of a relationship with his father.

  She understood where he was coming from.

  Her father hadn’t cared to be in her life or her brothers’. His father had taken on a second family and, somewhere along the way, lost that irreplaceable parental bond with the son from his first marriage.

  Amal drank her tea, slipping deeper into her thoughts. They would’ve mired her in sinking sand if Mansur hadn’t spoken up.

  “I should be the one apologizing,” he said. His voice was deep and eve
n. Though not cool and devoid of emotion entirely. Something heated flashed through his surprising statement.

  Snapping her head up, Amal stammered, “Wh-Why would you have to apologize?”

  Her cheeks warmed the longer he watched her quietly. She shook her head, countering the blush that crept from her face to her neck. He had nothing to be sorry for. The blame was entirely her own.

  “My manners weren’t exactly something to write home about,” he said.

  She closed her mouth, finding no comforting words. It was true. He had been abrupt near the end of their dinner. Probably at his wits’ end, though, so she’d excused and forgiven him.

  As he looked like he had more to say, Amal turned to face him, their legs closer, their bodies less than an arm’s length apart. All she had to do to touch him was have the courage to reach out.

  Her hands clenched tighter around her fragile and prettily painted teacup. Now wasn’t the time to ogle him. With a great measure of control, she concentrated on his words and not his wonderfully handsome face. It was the hardest thing she had to do tonight.

  “It was difficult, I have to admit. Restraining myself from walking out the minute I set foot in the restaurant. The second I sat down.” He drained his teacup and placed it on the tray, his eyes fixed there as he continued. “Obviously, I didn’t want to be there. Even less so after Zoya’s mother said I looked like him.”

  Zoya’s mother had made the comment harmlessly. She hadn’t considered that her stepson might not have had the best of relationships with his father. It was tragic, really, on both sides. For Mansur to have to hear it, and for Zoya and her family to be blamed for it.

  Amal sucked in her lips, afraid that if she spoke now she’d stifle his candor. She hadn’t witnessed this side of Mansur when he spoke of his father. Every other time there had been a shield up. A distant look in his eyes and a resentful aura around him. Now his shoulders sagged, and he appeared overburdened with emotions and by his past.

  “Do you know, when I became CEO I called my father? The call didn’t go through, though. Wrong number. He must have changed it.”