What had she been thinking? She should never have come here. And she wouldn’t have done so. Only the driver of the pick-up—Pete? Was that his name?—had been so upset about hitting her car it had just seemed easier to go along with his insistence.
But, as Dan often said, nothing good came easy.
‘How kind,’ she said coolly. ‘But you really didn’t have to go to so much trouble.’
‘It was no trouble.’
His mouth—that beautiful mouth that had kissed every centimetre of her body—slanted at one corner like a fathah accent.
‘I was in San Francisco closing a deal, so it was merely a slight diversion.’
Pain scraped across her skin. No change there, then, she thought, a pulse of misery and anger beating in her throat. During the entire time she had known him Omar had always been closing a deal somewhere. It just so happened that today the deal was happening in San Francisco.
‘A bit like our marriage,’ she said, tilting her chin.
She felt her pulse jerk as his eyes narrowed under the veil of dark lashes, but he didn’t react. Instead, he turned his head fractionally to look at Carole. ‘Could you give us a moment?’
It was phrased as a question, and if any other man had spoken those exact same words it would have been treated as such. But despite the mildness of his tone there was no mistaking it for anything but an order.
That was how Omar spoke. Who he was.
Omar Al Majid was the son of one of the richest self-made men in the Middle East. His father Rashid’s personal wealth was immense, rivalling that of the emirs and sheikhs who ruled the desert lands of the Persian Gulf. In Omar’s world—a world which was outside the experience of most normal people—his word was law, his wishes instantly and always satisfied.
Catching sight of the nurse’s expression, Delphi felt her pulse start to beat unevenly. It was the same look she had seen countless times on the faces of all those people who’d used to sidle up to her parents in shops and restaurants to ask for selfies or autographs.
It was a mixture of glazed, mute reverence and stunned disbelief that they were in the presence of some near-mythical being. Her stomach twisted. But then, as now, they’d only seen the glittering golden body, not the feet of clay.
‘Of course.’ The nurse blushed a little and, still staring dazedly up at Omar, disappeared through the curtains.
Now they were alone, his gaze flicked back to her face, and instantly the anger and frustration she had been holding tightly inside for so long surged up inside her. ‘What exactly are you doing here, Omar?’ she said stiffly.
He was silent for what seemed an eternity, and then he said calmly, ‘I would have thought that was obvious.’
There was that same dangerous softness in his voice as before.
‘You’re hurt, and I’m your husband.’
A shiver ran through her body as he took a step closer.
‘Clearly my place is here, by your side.’
Her chin jerked up. ‘If you wanted to be by my side, you’re about six weeks too late.’ The memory of that rainy May morning swelled inside her, and with it an ache that no amount of painkillers could ever numb. ‘I needed you then. In fact, I needed you during the nine months of our marriage. I don’t need you now.’
Her words were provocative, deliberately so, but Omar didn’t so much as blink. He just stood there, watching her in silence, calmly, assessingly.
‘You really want to do this now?’ he said finally, one smooth, dark eyebrow arching towards the strip lights. ‘Here?’
How could he say that so calmly? Stand there with such serenity? But it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise. Omar was the master of any social situation—including, it would appear, meeting his estranged wife in an ER at a rural hospital in the middle of Idaho.
‘Do what?’ Lifting her chin, trying to stay calm or at least look it, she forced herself to hold her gaze steady on his beautiful dark eyes. ‘There’s nothing left to do. We’re done, remember? Finished. Over. Or did you not get the paperwork from my lawyer?’
He frowned. ‘It must have got lost.’
She banked down her anger. ‘Then I suggest you find it. Or do you think that rocking up here will make me change my mind?’
He did. Even before he spoke she could see it in his eyes. That assumption, so alien to her, that what he wanted to happen would happen.
‘We made promises,’ he said finally.