He’d discharged his duty.
So maybe he’d given her grief over it, but she’d asked for that, messing with the coin seller in the first place. That was hardly his fault. What other conclusion could anyone have drawn?
He ran his hand through his hair and turned away from the window, unsatisfied with his cold justification for his behaviour. Because if she had been innocent all along then he had treated her appallingly, unafraid to accuse her in front of anyone in hearing distance that she was a thief.
Even if only at first.
He thought back to that morning with Mehmet and how angry she’d been. Deservedly angry.
He’d appointed himself judge, jury and executioner and, sure, he’d been trying to dissuade Mehmet from the notion that she actually meant something to him, but even that rationalisation seemed hollow now.
Because she wasn’t nothing to him. He’d miss her when she was gone. You didn’t miss people who meant nothing to you. You were happy to see them walk out of your life and go.
But not Amber. And the closer it got to her leaving, the more uneasy, the more unsettled, he became.
It was because of those good days, he reflected. A string of the best days of his life, that would be followed by a life without Amber.
It was akin to contemplating life without the sun. Unimaginable.
And yet that was what he was setting himself up for by letting her calmly walk out of his life—a life full of empty days, of going back to women that were repulsed when they saw his scars and eagerly turned their backs on him, of going back to women who seemed grateful they didn’t have to touch his skin. A life full of brief, meaningless encounters.
Amber had kissed him there. On his shoulder, where skin met scar. Amber had traced the ridges of his scars with her fingertips. Not in pity, or in morbid curiosity, but because that was the way he was and she accepted him the way he was.
Oh, God, he was such a fool.
He wasn’t just going to miss her.
He didn’t want her to go.
He strode the wide living room, the sky and sea merging into one in the windows outside, his thoughts in turmoil.
What was this feeling? What was wrong with him?
Because suddenly he wanted his days to be filled with her.
He wanted to spend his life with her.
His chest ached, his gut churned, his brow broke out in a cold sweat as the sick knowledge dawned on him, a sick knowledge he denied as fast as the realisation dawned.
Because he wasn’t supposed to fall in love.
He wasn’t supposed to love anyone.
And yet, Amber had arrived and all the rules he’d lived by had meant nothing.
Because he loved her.
He raised his eyes up to the ceiling. Oh, God, he had to stop her going. He couldn’t just let her walk out of his life. He had to do something.
But what if she wouldn’t stay? What if this was all one-sided? She was on the rebound. She wasn’t looking for love, she’d said.
And then he thought about the last few days, when something had clearly been troubling her, something that she hadn’t been able to share with him, that had dimmed the light in her eyes and had taken the edge off her smile.
She’d cried that night after they’d made love. She’d told him the story of her ancestor then to explain away her tears and it had never really made sense to him why she was so moved.
But if she’d told him the story because she’d needed to tell him something to explain away her tears?
Because she couldn’t tell him the real reason?
Because she was no more looking forward to leaving than he was to her going home...
Was there a chance?
Did she feel something for him?
Could she have fallen in love with him? Might that explain the tension around her troubled eyes?
He didn’t know much about love, but it made a kind of sense that she would be as averse to divulging her feelings as he was. No doubt more so, given the way he’d ridden roughshod over her wants and insisted on calling the shots from day one.
She had reason to resent him right there. And yet their lovemaking had been nothing but explosive. Could love be born into such a mixture? Was it even possible?
He looked towards the bedroom where she was packing the last of her things as his phone beeped. His driver, letting him know he and the car were only five minutes away.
He had to talk to her.
Would she listen?
Would she want to hear what he had to say?
But in the end, he thought as he strode towards the bedroom, it didn’t matter.
Because he had to try.
* * *
Her time in Turkey was at an end. Amber packed the last of her things, preparing for her flight home later that evening. It was the bracelet that brought her out in a sweat. Where to pack it? Stashed away in her luggage and risk it being stolen if it wasn’t picked up on X-ray, or in her hand luggage and almost guarantee it would be detected.