Читать книгу Postcards From… Collection - Maisey Yates - Страница 24

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

ZAHIR FELT THE words drive through him like a knife in his guts. She was in love with him? How was that even possible?

He stared back in numbed silence at the flushed cheeks, the glazed eyes, the tousled blonde hair that fell down over her heaving breasts.

He longed to go to her, to break the spell, to pin her down, literally there on the floor where she stood blinking up at him. He wanted to make her say the words again, to feel them against his lips as he devoured her, made love to her again. But instead he hardened his heart. If it was true that she loved him, then that was all the more reason for him to do the right thing, the only thing, and set her free. Before he dragged her down, weakened her, destroyed her, the way he did anyone who was unfortunate enough to care for him. He simply couldn’t bear that to happen to Anna.

‘Well?’ Finally she spoke, her voice sounding hollow, empty. ‘Do you have nothing to say?’

Zahir wrestled with his conscience, with his heart, with every damned part of his body that yearned to go to her.

‘It makes no difference to my decision, if that’s what you mean.’ His damning words were delivered with a cruel coldness born of bitter, desperate frustration. He watched as Annalina’s lovely face twitched, then crumpled, her lip trembling, her eyes glittering with the sheen of tears. He deliberately made himself watch the torture, because that was what it was. He had to feel the punishment in order to keep strong.

‘So...’ She pushed her hair away from her face with a shaky hand. ‘This is it, then?’ She spoke quietly, almost as if she was asking the question of herself. But her eyes held his, the pupils dilated, like twin portals to her soul.

Zahir looked away. He couldn’t witness this, not even in the name of punishment.

He sensed Annalina hesitate for a second, then heard a rustle and turned to see her slinging her bag over her shoulder and marching towards the door. A roar of frustration rang in his ears and he closed his eyes, digging his nails into the palms of his clenched fists. He would allow himself the indulgence of a couple of minutes of the agony before setting off after her.

She was at the main entrance when he caught up with her, tugging furiously at the handle of the door that was securely locked, becoming ever more desperate as she heard him approach.

‘You are not leaving like this, Annalina.’ He stood behind her, solid, implacable.

‘No? Just try and stop me.’

‘And where exactly do you think you’re going, and how are you going to get there?’

‘I don’t know and I don’t care.’ She was banging her fists against the panelled door now. ‘And don’t pretend you care either. This is what you want, isn’t it? To be rid of me as soon as possible? I’ll find someone to take me to the airport and then you need never see me again.’

Reaching over her shoulder, Zahir covered her flailing fists with one hand, but Annalina pulled them away from under him.

‘I mean it, Zahir. I can’t stay here a minute longer. I’m leaving now.’

‘Very well.’ Pulling his phone from his pocket, he made a call, punching in the code of the wall safe to retrieve the keys to both the front door and his SUV as he waited for the reply. He opened a wall cupboard, taking out a coat and passing it to Anna without meeting her eye.

She was right. This was what he had told her he wanted: her gone, out of his life. The fact that it was tearing him apart only proved his point. Proved what a lethally dangerous combination they were. ‘I will drive you to the airport myself.’

Anna listened as he ordered the jet to be put on standby, silently taking the coat from him before he unlocked the door and ushered her out into the cold night air. So it was really happening. She was to be banished. Cast aside like the worthless acquisition that he obviously thought she was.

Once inside the powerful SUV, she was grateful for the feeling of paralysis that had come over her, as if her body was protecting her the best it could by rendering her almost comatose. She couldn’t look at Zahir, in the same way that he couldn’t look at her. Instead he focussed with leaden concentration on manoeuvring the vehicle out of the electric gates that swung open for them.

They drove in total silence, Anna fighting to hold on to the merciful state of the numbness, frightened it could so easily thaw into a tidal wave of grief if she let it. She felt weighted down by the sense of him all around her, the invisible pressure bearing down on her shoulders, ringing in her ears. She stared through the windscreen, at the world that was still there, seemingly impervious to her heartbreak. Dawn was starting to break, a thread of orange lining the horizon in front of them.

The car sped silently towards it, the orange glow spreading rapidly as the peep of the sun appeared, tingeing the wispy clouds pink against the baby-blue of the sky, blackening the desert below it.

The headlights picked up the sign for the airport as they flashed past. Soon they would be there. Soon she would be leaving this country, presumably never to return. For some reason, that realisation felt like another body blow, as if someone had kicked her in the guts when she was already writhing on the ground.

She bit down on her lip, twisted her hands in her lap and fought madly to stop the tears from falling as she stared fixedly ahead at the unfolding drama of the dawn. Sunrise over the desert—one of nature’s most spectacular displays.

Suddenly Anna wanted to experience it, to be a part of it. Not from here, from the agonising confines of the car, but out in the open with the cold air against her skin and the freedom to breathe it in, to be able look all around her, lean back and let the majesty unfold above her head. She needed to prove to herself that there was wonder and beauty to be had in this world, no matter how it might feel right now. If she was leaving this remarkable land for ever, she wanted one lasting memory that wasn’t all about sorrow and heartbreak.

She turned her head, steeling herself to break the brittle silence, the sight of Zahir’s harsh profile spawning a fresh onslaught of pain. His Adam’s apple moved as he swallowed, the only visible sign that he was aware of her gaze.

‘Stop the car.’

Zahir’s hands tightened on the steering wheel as he shot her a wild-eyed glance.

‘What?’

‘I want you to stop the car. Please.’

‘Why?’ Alarm sounded in his voice as his eyes flashed from the road to her face and back again. ‘Are you ill?’

‘No, not ill.’ Anna shifted in her seat. ‘I want to watch the sunrise.’ She tipped her chin, fighting to hold it steady, swallowing down the catch in her voice. ‘Before I leave Nabatean for good, I would like to see the sunrise over the desert.’

She saw Zahir’s flicker of surprise before the brows drew together, lowering to a scowl. There was a second’s silence as the car continued to speed onward.

‘Very well.’ His jaw tightened. ‘But not here. I will find a more advantageous view.’

Anna sat back, releasing a breath she didn’t even know she’d been holding in. She had no doubt that Zahir would know exactly where to take them. It seemed to her that he knew every grain of sand of this desert, that it was a part of him, of who he was, wild and bleak.

Sure enough, a short while later he swung the vehicle off the main road, bumping it over the rough terrain, and almost immediately they appeared to have left civilisation completely and become part of the barren wilderness of the desert. Zahir pushed the SUV hard, bouncing it over the hard ridges of compacted sand at great speed, navigating along a dried-up riverbed before swinging off to the right and powering up the side of a dune the size of a small mountain.

Beside him Anna clung to her seat, grateful for the mad recklessness of the journey that temporarily obliterated all other thoughts. Finally they skidded to a halt with a spray of sand and she peered through the speckled windscreen, seeing nothing but the grey shadowed desert. Abruptly getting out of the car, Zahir came round and opened her door for her.

‘We will need to do the last bit on foot.’ He held out his hand but Anna ignored it, jumping down unaided and focussing on nothing but this one goal as she followed Zahir up the towering peak of the dune, her thighs aching as she tried to keep up with him, her boots sinking into the shifting sand. Ahead of her Zahir had stopped to hold out his hand again and this time Anna took it, feeling herself being pulled up onto the very top of the dune. And into another world.

If it was wondrous beauty that she wanted, here it was, spread out before her. The sky was on fire with oranges, reds and yellows, the horizon a vivid slash of violet, the colours so amazingly vibrant that they looked to have been splashed from a children’s paint box. Before them the dunes rolled like waves of the sea, washed pink by the fast-rising sun that highlighted the thousands of rippled ridges with finely detailed shadows.

Anna dropped to her knees and just stared and stared, intent on blocking everything else out, storing this image so that it would be there for ever. She didn’t even notice the tears that were starting to fall.

Zahir cast his eyes down to where Annalina knelt beside him, her profile glowing amber in the light of the sun. The sight of the tears rolling unchecked down her cheeks threatened to undo him so completely that he had to look away. Whatever had he been thinking, bringing her here? What madness had made him want to prolong the torture? He scowled, channelling his agony into determination. He had to be cruel to be kind.

Minutes passed with no sound except the occasional cry of a bird, the rustle of the wind as it danced across the sand, the beat of his pulse in his ears. He had never known Annalina to be so silent, so still. The soft breeze that lifted her hair went unnoticed. It almost felt as if she had left him already. He pushed the sharp pain of that thought away and, staring out at the barren landscape, sought to find some words to end this agony.

‘This is for your own good, Annalina.’ He forced the words past the jagged blades in his throat. ‘After what happened with Rashid, it is clear that you can no longer stay here.’

He saw her twitch inside the coat that she had pulled tight around her body. But she remained infuriatingly silent.

‘And besides.’ Her refusal to agree with him only made him more coldly determined, crueller. ‘This is no place for you. You don’t belong here and you never will.’

‘Is that so?’ She spoke quietly into the cold, new day, still refusing to look at him.

‘Yes. It is.’

‘And now I will never be given the chance to prove otherwise.’ She hunched her shoulders, still staring straight ahead. ‘By banishing me, you’re simply confirming your assumptions. You’re shoring up your own prejudices.’

‘I am doing no such thing.’ He heard himself roar his reply. Raising a hand, he covered his eyes, squeezing his temples to take away the anger and the pain. Why did she persist in arguing like this, goading him? Or had he provoked the reaction—in which case, why? He was certainly regretting it now. ‘That is not true.’

‘No? Are you sure, Zahir?’ He could hear her fighting to control the tremor in her voice. ‘Because that’s what it feels like to me. There is no reason for me to leave Nabatean. We could find some help for Rashid—intensive psychiatric counselling. We could focus on making our relationship work, on building a future together.’ She turned to give him a look full of scorn but beneath the scorn was hurt, that terrible hurt. ‘But, what you really mean is, you don’t want me here.’

Zahir forced himself to watch as she turned back, roughly brushing away the tears and biting down on her lip to steady it. He wanted her to stay more than he had ever wanted anything in his life. But he could not let her see that. He could not let his lack of judgement jeopardise her safety any more than it had already. Let his own desires compromise her well-being. More than that, he could not let his selfishness crush the life out of this precious creature. Because that was what would happen if she put her happiness in his hands.

‘Very well.’ He hardened his heart until it felt like lump of stone inside him. ‘Since you put it that way, you are right. I don’t want you here.’ It crucified him to say the words, but say them he had to. ‘The sooner you leave, the better for all concerned.’

She flinched as if he had struck her, and Zahir experienced the same horror, as if he had done just that.

‘Well, thank you for the truth.’ Finally she spoke, her words floating softly into the air before the dreadful silence wrapped itself around them again.

Zahir looked over his shoulder. He couldn’t take any more of this. ‘We need to get going.’ He paced several steps across the top of the dune, glancing back to where Annalina hadn’t moved. ‘The crew will have the jet ready for take-off.’

He didn’t give a damn about the jet or the crew. He just knew he had get away from here, deliver Annalina to the airport and put an end to this agony.

‘In a minute.’ She spoke with icy clarity. ‘First I would like a little time alone. You go back to the car.’

Curbing the desire to tell her that he was the one who gave the orders around here, and that furthermore he expected her to obey them, Zahir drew in a steadying breath. Certainly there was no way he was going to leave her up here on her own. ‘Five minutes, then.’ He looked around them, pointing his finger. ‘I will wait for you over there.’

Anna watched as he strode away, the breeze billowing the loose fabric of his trousers as he climbed up onto the next dune and stood there with his hands on his hips, tall and dark against the skyline.

The shock of his rejection had hardened now, the misery solidifying inside her until it felt less like a bad dream and more like leaden reality. The way Zahir had so callously dismissed her declaration of love still threatened to flay her skin but now she saw that it had been inevitable. A man such as Zahir would never be able to graciously accept such a sentiment. He didn’t know how. His own heart was too neglected. It was buried too deep.

She was staring into the crimson wash of the sky when a sudden thought came to her, dawning like the new day. It trickled slowly at first, but soon started to warm her, to heat her from within, until she began to throb with the idea of it—whether through hope, desperation or fear she didn’t know. If Zahir’s heart was so buried, so unreachable, perhaps it was up to her to try and change that.

Perhaps it was her duty to try and find it.

Zahir watched as Annalina got to her feet, expecting to see her start the descent back to the car. But instead she was heading towards him, scrambling over the sand that was shifting beneath her feet in her hurry to reach him. He saw her stumble and instinctively started to go to her but she was up on her feet again, using her hands now to propel herself forward until she had reached the top of the dune and pulled herself up beside him.

‘I know you don’t want to hear it but I’m going to say it again anyway.’ Her words came out all of a rush as her breath rasped in her throat, her chest heaving beneath the padded coat. ‘I love you, Zahir.’ She gulped painfully. ‘And nothing you can say or do will ever alter that.’

She was staring at him now, her hair blowing around her flushed cheeks, those beautiful blue eyes searching his face, beseeching him. Why? For what reason? He didn’t even know.

‘Love has no place here.’ He struggled wildly to release himself from her gaze, from the grip of her declaration. But when that bleak statement didn’t work, when she still refused to look away, he tried again, desperately searching for some sort of logic to make her see sense.

‘Besides, I suspect it is no more than an aberration.’ He tried to soften his voice, to sound reasonable, even though he had never felt less reasonable, more cut loose from sanity, in his life. ‘When you return to your country, you will see that.’

‘This is no aberration, Zahir.’ Stubbornly she refused to back down. ‘I will do as you say. I will get on that plane and fly back to Dorrada. But I guarantee it will change nothing, no matter how much you want it to. Neither time nor distance nor death itself will change how I feel. I love you, Zahir. And I always will.’

Zahir closed his eyes against the astonishingly punishing power of her words. He couldn’t accept them. He refused to accept them. A beautiful creature such as Annalina could never truly love a brute like him. He struggled to try and find the words to explain that to her, cursing when they refused to come to him, as if his vocabulary was deliberately defying him.

‘And what’s more...’ She held the moment in her hand, poised for the final thrust. ‘I think that you love me too.’