CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
D ESMOND DIDN’T WANT to credit Malik Ali for his insomnia that night, but the evidence, unfortunately, was damning.
Desmond’s team emailed information about Val’s husband to him within two hours. It was almost laughable, how quickly they were able to locate him. The fool hadn’t even been hiding well.
On paper he seemed harmless enough: Malik Ali of the Bronx, New York, married to Valentina Montgomery in Dubai, twelve summers ago. His lawyer had included a passport photo and a wedding photo. Desmond stared at the latter until his vision grew blurry.
So this was the kind of man that could get Val Montgomery to the altar.
In the picture, Val was wearing an ivory column dress in a style and cut that he recognized as being typical for her. A demure square neckline, her curves sheathed but not concealed in the least by the tight silhouette. Her chin was lifted and half her face was covered by a fascinator and net. Malik was tall, broad-shouldered, dark with an expression that gave nothing away. He didn’t look like the type that would abandon his wife and skip town while nearly two million dirhams in debt.
Then again, Desmond didn’t look like the type of person he was at heart, either. And when it came down to brass tacks, wasn’t it about money? The fact that his motivations were somewhat noble didn’t make him better than any other capitalistic grasper. And Val…
She was another man’s wife, no matter how unworthy the husband.
“Run me through it,” Desmond said to his agent.
The scope of the story was incredible, even though he was hearing it for the second time. She’d married him after a whirlwind courtship. There were debts in his name, with Val named as guarantor, and a period of nonpayment that had lasted a year, during which his visa had expired. He’d exited on a visa change to the United States, and hadn’t returned. And when Val left months later, presumably to look for him, she was scooped up in the airport by the authorities, jailed for a month, and released when Sheikh Rashid bailed her out.
“Find out where her husband is,” he said briskly. “Is there an Interpol case against him?”
“Presumably, yes. But he isn’t high on their list. They have slightly bigger things to worry about.”
Now Desmond eased himself from the crisp white sheets, barely disturbing them, then grabbed his laptop from its place of honor beside the bed. Out on the balcony, people were still up; he could hear chattering and laughter, could smell smoky green apple shisha and barbecue. He liked the bustle below him, liked to hear people’s conversations. It distracted him from the fact that he was completely alone, alone in the midst of many. Perhaps that was why he’d felt such a strong connection to Valentina Montgomery. They had debts that had separated them from the world, although, unlike hers, he could never pay his back. Nothing could match the cost of human life, could it?
And Val was somewhere on the ground floor in her bedroom, presumably asleep. His body stirred, despite himself. He remembered the smoothness of her skin against cool sheets, the curve of her hip as she lay on her side, her long lashes resting on her cheeks.
And heaven help him, he missed her. He attempted a breathing exercise to calm himself: breathe in for four, hold for seven, exhale.
It helped a little. Not enough.
Despite the lavish dinner they’d shared only hours ago, he felt his stomach rumble. Not bothering with a shirt, he headed downstairs. He pushed open the heavy wooden door, blinking at the warm, yellow light spilling out.
Val was standing at the kitchen island, pouring a glass of suspiciously dark red liquid into a wineglass. When the door creaked she jumped, startled, liquid blooming red on her shirt.
“Oh, no. No, no, no!” She unbuttoned her white linen shirt and thrust the soft material under the faucet of the granite sink. Underneath, she was wearing a blush-colored camisole of lacy pink—no bra, he observed when she finally turned, looking flustered.
“Eyes up ,” she snapped, crossing her arms.
He was a little taken aback; then he laughed out loud, and the sound dispelled the tension in the room just a little. After all, he had been looking. “Sorry.”
“At least you didn’t deny it.” For a moment, she looked as prim as possible, then she lifted her chin and slowly dropped her arms. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“Neither could I.” He crossed over to the fridge and picked up a foil-covered tray that looked interestingly lumpy; when he lifted the corner he saw that it was indeed the lamb from earlier. “Leftovers?” He tossed the tray onto the island, pulled the first bone off and ripped into it with his teeth.
Val cleared her throat, looking much more flustered than when he’d surprised her. She self-consciously yanked up the neckline of her camisole.
He wanted to tell her not to bother. Her nipples were dark and swollen and looked as if they were trying their best to break the confines of the thin garment and, frankly, the sight was just as erotic as when he’d had her naked, spread open, touching and tasting her with lips and tongue. But he dragged his mind away from it and instead said the one thing he knew would kill the mood and kill it completely .
“I’m working hard on looking for your husband,” he said.
She startled to attention, her eyes wide as a deer’s.
“I have some updates,” he added gently. She looked at him, chewing on the soft fullness of her lower lip. “Have a seat. And don’t look so terrified, sweetheart.”
Between bites of cold lamb, garlicky toom , sweet ketchup and swigs of the bittersweet fresh pomegranate juice she’d been pouring when he’d entered the kitchen, the two talked quietly, side by side at the kitchen island, elbows and fingertips brushing occasionally. It felt incredibly domestic, even if neither allowed the conversation to veer in that direction. He kept his eyes on her face and she did not attempt to criticize any use of silverware, or lack of it. But the unspoken thing between them lingered like the woodsmoke from yesterday’s barbecue, and Desmond did not quite know how to make it go away.
She asked about Malik in soft dulcet tones, and Desmond told her what he knew. His new home, close to the Canadian border, in New York State. His return to the horse racing business. The fact that he’d be notified Monday morning by email of her intention to file for divorce.
“If he doesn’t contest it, you could be before the judge in a matter of months,” he concluded. He couldn’t read her expression; it was tight, closed. “And it would be over, finally.”
He waited for her to speak for a long moment. When she didn’t he continued.
“My wish—my offer still stands,” he said, simply. “Come with me to England, Valentina. Back to Notting Hill.” His pulse was thrumming in his ears so loud it was distorting his voice, but he ignored it. “We’ll go back and forth—together. And then we can marry—” He found he had to stop to swallow. “If it is still agreeable to you, that is—”
He couldn’t continue. Instead, he drew back, trying to will the blood back from his burning face. Valentina was looking at him steadily, and her face was guarded.
“Desmond,” she said, so quietly that he had to lean in to hear her and again, that delicious scent that was part of her skin hovered around them both.
If he touched that smooth skin the scent would linger in his nostrils well into the next day. He would not. He could not.
Her eyes were soft and warm and resting on him with an intimacy that he had to face. It had been there almost since the beginning; that had been growing , never acknowledged.
“Don’t you see?” she said, gently. She moved close to him, cupped his face in her hands. “This—marriage, Desmond. What do you anticipate it looking like? Is there a possibility that you’ll ever want more than this? And if the answer is no, is that fair to both of us?”
“Valentina—”
“I’m possibly in the most—vulnerable place I’ve been in a very long time. I can’t guarantee I won’t fall in love with you. That’s the problem,” she said. “And if you don’t want that possibility…” She hesitated.
And then he wanted to respond the only way a man who felt the way he did about her should: he wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her. And possibly even say the words that were already forming on his lips. He knew in that instant why he’d so impulsively asked her to marry him, to come to London with him. It had little to do with Sheikh Rashid.
It was because he was so very lonely, had been that way for almost ten years, and was half in love with her already.
* * *
Desmond’s face was transformed. It became tense. Unyielding. And at the sight of his changed expression, Val felt her own stomach lurch in anticipation of something she remembered all too well.
Rejection.
She knew the words, and what they would be, even before he said them. And she listened with only half an ear because something hot and loud and painful was roaring in her head. She could see his lips moving but could barely comprehend him—not that it mattered, because she understood his meaning without having to hear the specifics. Her entire being was engaged with keeping her back perfectly erect.
She was only waiting for the excuse she knew was coming.
His voice was tired. All of a sudden he looked years older, and it occurred to Val that she might be looking at the real Desmond for the first time.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said.
Did he, though?
“You’re thinking I shouldn’t have asked this of you,” he said. And then his hands were on her face, stroking with his thumbs, a little at a time, as if he were trying to commit all of her to memory. “I’m not in a place to do that. And to be honest, you aren’t either, are you?”
She shook her head. Partially because she didn’t trust herself to speak, partly because he was right. A lump was threatening to push past her throat into a sob, and she couldn’t do that. Not after he’d opened up to her, been vulnerable with her, and not after he’d rejected her so thoroughly in the same conversation.
“You have,” he said, and his voice was rough again, “captured my attention in a way no other woman ever has. You’re the first person who’s ever tempted me into thinking…”
The silence stretched between them like an abyss, and when Val spoke her voice sounded small and strained, even to her.
“Into thinking what?”
He was chewing the inside of his cheek, the way he did when he was thinking hard about something, and Val felt her stomach constrict and knot up. In the brief time she’d known him, she’d gotten to know his idiosyncrasies so well; Desmond was an open book if you knew how to read him, and that was incredibly attractive. More than the money, the looks or the incredible sex. He’d made her forget every bit of professionalism she’d cultivated and to which she’d clung stubbornly over the years. He’d made her forget the age difference between them, and throw caution to the wind.
She found herself pressing her thighs together to ease the ache; felt a pull of desire so intense it actually hurt. The ghost of a smile skidded across his face.
“You see?” he said.
Though her cheeks burned, she looked at him steadily.
“You’ve already been tied to a man who left you to repay debts he racked up,” he said gently. “You don’t need to carry my baggage too, Valentina. No one does.” His fingers crept down, laced through hers. It was a very long moment before he spoke, and she didn’t try, either.
She didn’t know what to say.
“ I am the reason my father was on that plane,” he said. “ I killed him, as surely as if I’d done it with my own hands. The least I can do is carry on the legacy he left behind. Make sure it isn’t lost the way he was.”
“Desmond—”
“I have to tell it all at once, or I won’t tell it at all,” he warned.
His voice was clipped, though not dispassionate; he was clear he was forcing out every word. “It was a budget airline. We took them over, to manage in-house. It was my first big project, right out of uni. Baba was so proud of me, his smartass son. I led advertising for that campaign. The flight was packed that day because of a promotion I ran. None of those people would have been there if it wasn’t for me.”
“Oh, Desmond,” she whispered, her hand creeping up to her mouth.
His mouth had compressed into a thin line. “At least I can talk about it without throwing up now. That’s progress, I guess. That memorial service? I go every year. No one’s made the connection between me and that flight, not yet. People pointed fingers at the owners accusing them of corporate manslaughter and they got sued into the ground. But—”
“Desmond, it was an accident. How could you possibly think—?”
“The promotion I designed was a marketing stunt.” He carried on speaking as if he hadn’t heard her. “I called it Flight Forward Live. I recruited a ton of people to film their experiences, documentary style, on different flights that year, on their phones, and put it on our social media channels as well as their own. Influencers. Couple of sports stars. Our owners, even. The flight that went down was the one I’d assigned my father to film on. He was so nervous, you know? About the technology, about getting everything just right for me—”
“Desmond, you couldn’t have known—”
Desmond gestured upward. There was a look of such desperate hopelessness on his face.
“He’s gone,” he said, as if relaying something that had happened last week and not almost a decade ago. A cry escaped Val’s throat, and before she knew what she was doing, she threw her arms round him and held him as tightly as she could.
“I miss him so damned much ,” Desmond said, his voice rough and thick. “I couldn’t live with myself. I can’t live with myself. It consumes me, Val, every single damned day I have to wake up on this earth. Sometimes I sleep, and I wake up and I’m happy for a moment, and then I remember. My uncles, they blamed me, too. They put up a front for a while, but the bickering was too much, and they all left. I haven’t talked to them since, but to hell with them. I’ve got this. I’ve managed without them for years.”
“They left you,” she whispered, and even she could feel the constriction deep inside his chest. “You were mourning, and they left you!”
“They were right to do so,” he said bitterly. “I concocted the stunt. He wouldn’t have been on that flight if it wasn’t that stupid campaign I designed—”
Val tightened her arms around him and squeezed. She buried her face into the place where his shoulder met his neck. He didn’t respond but neither did he push her away. When she finally pulled away, his face was as calm as if he’d never told the story; then, he cradled her face roughly with his palm.
“Don’t you see, Valentina? Don’t you get it? Fine, I’ll say it. I can’t love you the way I…the way I might have. Not when—Not when I’m like this.”
I can’t love you the way I might have.
Was he saying what she thought he was? She couldn’t fathom it, couldn’t breathe even, because he was looking at her with so much longing in his face that it twisted deep inside her chest.
“I hope you know how badly I want you,” he said, his voice hoarse. “But I can’t. Valentina, do you understand? It simply isn’t fair to you.”
She found her breath. “Who says you get to decide that for me?” she demanded. ‘This is exactly why I can’t say yes. You’ll never give us a chance for anything more.’
“Valentina—!”
And yet— she wanted him. And in this close proximity, she couldn’t pull back. She stood on her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck. And then, yes, oh, yes, he was pulling her against him and kissing her with slow, hot lips. He was murmuring things she could only half understand, and holding her trembling frame the way she’d been longing for. She was helpless beneath him. Well, maybe not so helpless. After all, it was she who stumbled back into her room, pulling him with her. It was she who tipped her head backward so he would have access to that soft, sensitive place on her neck that they both loved. And it was she who yanked down the neck of her camisole, freeing her aching breasts. She who whimpered “please” against his mouth. She who placed his hands on her burning skin.
Val didn’t know how to comfort him, or what would help him accept it from her. All she knew was that the aftermath of making love to Desmond Tesfay always felt intimate, safe, familiar.
She wanted to grant him that intimacy now, and she knew instinctively that if he left the room now that wall would go up—and go up forever. She couldn’t offer him more than this, but she could at least offer him this.
She likely would come to regret the impulsive, heated decision, but that was tomorrow’s problem.
When her silken sleeping shorts and camisole had been removed and he was finally, finally inside her, she rocked her hips back and forth, trying to drive him deeper. Harder. Faster. She was so slick that it was hard for either of them to maintain control. He was groaning and growling in her ear, making sounds that might have been sobs were his eyes not bone-dry. And after, when he slipped from her and lay panting beside her, staring at the ceiling, she turned into him, looped her arms round his neck and did the weeping for him.