‘I need to talk to you.’
‘Talk away. I’m not stopping you.’
‘I’m not having this conversation over the phone.’
‘And I’m not offering you an alternative,’ she answered coolly. ‘What do you want, Saladin?’
‘To see you.’
‘Sorry. No can do.’
‘Livvy,’ he growled. ‘I’m serious.’
‘And so am I,’ she said. ‘You said some pretty tough things to me that last night. You were suspicious and hostile and accused me of all kinds of devious motivations—’
‘For which I apologised.’
Only because you had to, thought Livvy. Only because you had to. ‘Yes, you did. So surely we’ve said everything that needs to be said. It was a fantastic affair and I’m sorry it had to end that way—but the point is that it had to end some time.’ She cleared her throat. ‘How’s Burkaan?’
‘He’s fine. Livvy—’
‘Look, I’ve got to go,’ she said desperately as she heard another email ping into her inbox. ‘Someone’s trying to contact me. Goodbye, Saladin, and...take care of yourself.’
She cut the call before she had the chance to change her mind, or to be lulled by a seductive voice into doing something that would only bring her pain.
After Livvy had put the phone down, she sat down at her desk. She wasn’t going to make a fuss about it, she thought, even though her heart was crashing painfully against her ribcage, because the pain would go. It might take time, but it would definitely go. She would answer her emails and carry on as normal and rejoice that she’d had the strength to resist him. Her hand hovered over the mouse and her whole body stiffened as she clicked on the first email and began to read...
An hour must have passed before she realised that she hadn’t moved and was sitting in total darkness and that Peppa was mewing plaintively by her feet and Stella had long gone. She ought to do something. She ought to feed the cat and...
And what?
Sit there for the rest of the evening thinking about what a devious bastard Saladin really was?
Her eyes skated down the rest of the emails. There were two tentative booking enquiries, plus one of those round-robin jokes that one of her school friends always insisted on sending and that she didn’t find remotely funny. And a ‘Singles Nite’ being offered by the local pub. She screwed her eyes up as she looked at the date. Tonight’s date.
Print out this voucher for free entry to the Five Bells ‘Singles Nite’. Music, karaoke and so much more!
A sudden new resolution flooded through her as, impetuously, she pressed the print button, fed Peppa and then went upstairs to get ready.
She told herself that she was going to stop acting like a startled hermit and get out there and put everything Saladin had taught her into practice. No longer was she going to live like a nun. There was no reason why she couldn’t have other relationships—in the same way that there was no reason she couldn’t have another career. Defiantly, she applied more make-up than usual, fished out a sparkly top to wear with her jeans and piled her hair into an elaborate topknot so that it wouldn’t get wrecked by the wind on the way out to the car.
When she drew up outside the pub, she almost turned around to go home because music was blaring out at a deafening pitch. Inside it was crowded, but at least the noise became less loud when a woman started swaying around on a small stage, tunelessly singing about her intention to survive. There were a few people Livvy recognised from the village, but not well enough to sit with—so she bought herself a tomato juice, told herself that she would drink it up and then go. Baby steps, she thought. Baby steps. You’ve come out on your own and it hasn’t killed you. And although it’s pretty dire—next time might be better.
She found a corner seat and sat there smiling as if her life depended on it. She tapped her feet to the music and tried to look as if she was having a good time and eventually a man about her age wandered over, with a half-drunk pint in his hand. He had thick hair and crinkly blue eyes and he asked if he might join her.
But before she could answer, a silky and authoritative answer came from behind him.
‘I’m afraid not.’
Livvy didn’t need to hear the deeply accented voice to know it was Saladin. She should have realised he’d walked in because the pub had suddenly gone quiet and even the woman doing the karaoke had stopped singing as she stared at him incredulously. But who could blame her? Powerful olive-skinned sheikhs wearing dark cashmere weren’t exactly at a premium around these parts.
Livvy put her tomato juice down on the table with shaking fingers as the conversation all around them took on a sudden roar of interest.
‘How did you get here?’ she demanded, her heart starting to race. ‘You’re in Jazratan.’
‘Obviously, I’m not. I flew in today and came here by helicopter,’ he answered.
Her face remained unwelcoming, but she kept it that way. Why had he followed her and why was he here on her territory, when she was just starting out on a long journey to forget him? ‘What do you want?’