Harlequin Romance September 2021 Box Set

by Andrea Bolter

  And her name was Amal.

  * * *

  Amal’s muffled squeal made the quest for coffee worth it. That was what he told himself when she took her first sip of traditionally brewed Ethiopian coffee and exclaimed, “This is delicious!”

  Having already sampled what Addis Ababa had to offer coffee-wise, he wasn’t as affected—and yet even he grudgingly admitted that Zoya hadn’t exaggerated the good cup that could be found in this run-of-the-mill restaurant. No advertisements promoted the tasty, freshly ground beans. Any normal patron would be going in blind. But they had his half-sister.

  Lucky us.

  There was a bitter flavor to his thinking—more bitter than his black coffee.

  Unaffected by his off-putting mood, Amal and Zoya gabbed over their coffee. Their excitement might have been contagious if he’d allowed himself to listen. So he’d tuned them out for the greater part of it, only finally tuning in now.

  “It’s tasty, isn’t it?” Zoya was asking with a grin.

  Amal nodded vigorously. “I don’t have anything to compare it to in Addis Ababa, but I’ve had cappuccinos in Hargeisa that are good, but not this good.”

  “I’ve made it my mission to find the best coffee,” Zoya told them, including Manny when she smiled his way, “and after nearly five years as a marketplace vendor, I can say this place can’t be beat.”

  Zoya repeated her praise in Amharic, for the hostess of their coffee ceremony. The hostess murmured her gratitude, also in Amharic.

  “I wonder if I can make this at home,” Amal said, having emptied her small handle-less cup and waiting for a refill from the fresh green beans that the hostess roasted for them now. “Mama Halima would probably like it.”

  At the mention of his mother, Zoya looked at him, and Manny grasped the opportunity to tie this meeting up and move on with his life before his half-sister got the idea that he wanted more from her. Like a relationship. Something he absolutely didn’t care to establish today.

  Or ever, he thought firmly.

  “Mansur?” Amal was saying.

  She continued to insist on calling him by his given name, and he’d given up correcting her. He liked the way she said his name. But she was the exception.

  “Do you think your mother would like some coffee? I think she would.”

  She was looking to him for an answer. And so was Zoya.

  Manny pried his jaws apart to say, “We’ll look for a gift for her in the market. Which reminds me—we should be leaving.”

  “How long are you staying in Addis?”

  His half-sister wasn’t smiling anymore. What he might have described as wariness masked her expression, concealing what she was really thinking once more.

  Manny gritted his teeth and worked through the childish urge to snap that it wasn’t her business. She’d merely asked a question of him. One he could handle sans adult tantrum.

  Flicking a gaze to the restaurant’s exit, he said offhandedly, “As my business is concluded, not much longer.”

  He didn’t elaborate on how that “business” was the inheritance left by their father solely to him. But Amal knew what his icy nonchalance hid, and she frowned at his ungracious tone toward Zoya. He’d been concerned that she might form an attachment to the other woman, and now she was proving his suspicions correct.

  “You’re leaving soon?” his half-sister asked.

  “Very soon, hopefully.” Manny kept his eyes on Zoya and away from Amal’s pointed gaze and the guilt she was already awakening in him.

  Zoya’s brows knitted with her confusion. “Wouldn’t you like to meet my sisters and my mom?”

  “I don’t have time,” he lied.

  “Oh...” was her hollow reply.

  For a moment the only sound breaking their table’s silence was the hostess transferring the roasted darkened beans into a pestle, then the long-handled mortar grinding the beans and scraping the sides of the wooden bowl.

  Manny should have known Amal would be the first to rupture it, with her sweet, silvery voice.

  “Does your mother make traditional Ethiopian coffee?”

  Amal’s query held a cheery note that enchanted Manny into looking at her once more. She didn’t have eyes for him, though, her attention now secure on Zoya.

  “She does,” his half-sister said, laughing lightly, “but I can’t say it’s as good as the cup you’ve just had. She’s tried to teach me, too, but I’ve never had the patience and dedication required to do it.”

  “If you don’t mind, I’d love to visit sometime.”

  Her request surprised Zoya as much as him. He sat forward, coffee forgotten, and felt the bitter, roasted flavor clash with the flood of fiery bile leaping from his chest into his throat.

  Zoya beat him to a response. “I’d like that, Amal. You’re welcome anytime.” Pausing, she glanced askance at him. “As are you, Mansur.”

  He glared at Amal, and she stubbornly stared back at him, meeting the worst he could fling at her. Something powerful happened then. His mind changed from night to day, and his heart swayed in the span between one heartbeat and the next.

  Amal, Amal, Amal.

  She’d seeped into his skin and manipulated him, and he couldn’t even find it in himself to hold on to his annoyance. Maybe he’d regret it later, when he realized how easily she affected him. Right now he couldn’t think beyond what he opened his mouth to ask.

  “Would dinner with your family tonight be all right?”

  Zoya’s brilliant smile burst clear of the clouds of her circumspection. She didn’t even seem affected that he’d called her sisters and mother her family and not his.

  “That’d be perfect!” she exclaimed, her dimples deeper than ever.

  She was smiling so brightly it made him feel guilty that he’d upset her in the first place.

  Zoya leaned forward in her seat, excitement raising her voice. “They won’t believe that you’re in Addis and that you’re coming for dinner.”

  “You all know about me, then?” Manny asked.

  He had wanted to ask earlier in her shop, when Zoya had initially called him by name. But he’d figured that his father must have told them of him. That they knew about Manny and his mother in Somaliland.

  Zoya appeared bemused, though. “Why wouldn’t we? Our father—inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un—spoke about you all the time.”

  Then she surprised him when she grew visibly shy, tucking an errant curl behind her ear and smiling past her apparent nerves.

  “I also looked you up. Well, we did. My sisters and I... We were curious about you, and all that you have achieved in America.” She lowered her voice and looked between him and Amal conspiratorially. “Are you really a millionaire?”

  Amal covered her mouth with her hand, but she couldn’t completely smother her laughter.

  And, despite what he felt about Zoya, he was amused by her wide eyes and genuine need for an answer. “Yes,” he said at last, “I’m a millionaire.”

  Zoya’s mouth rounded into a big circle, and her eyes grew even larger with her shock. When the surprise wore off, she apologized.

  “It’s just I don’t meet...millionaires...” she hissed the word, cupping her mouth and speaking for their ears alone “...every day, and you’re my brother.”

  Half-brother.

  Manny had to bite his tongue to stop himself from correcting her. And there went the temporary lapse in his sour mood.

  Raising his cooling coffee to his scowling mouth, he regarded the secretive teasing smile Amal flashed him. She knew what she had done. Exploited his fondness for her. Influenced him into accepting Zoya’s dinner invitation. And now she sneaked gloating looks at him, rubbing in her victory.

  Ooh, she was clever. Attractive, smart, and wily. And his heart was doing that stupid thing of falling for her again.

>   You’re in love with her.

  The truth struck him as suddenly and soundly as his about-face decision to dine with Zoya and her family.

  He’d never stopped loving Amal.

  CHAPTER TEN

  HE SHOULD HAVE canceled dinner with Zoya and her family.

  Manny regretted the decision not to as he pulled up outside the restaurant. His hands gripped at ten and two o’clock on the wheel. He wanted nothing more than to do a sharp U-turn and beat it back to the hotel. Break this dinner engagement and leave Addis Ababa and Africa as soon as he was able to get his plane in the air.

  You’d be leaving Amal, too.

  A good thing. Because he’d just realized—like the fool he was—that he had been deluding himself all along.

  You love her—so what?

  So what? He couldn’t chance loving her again. It was a torturous feeling, wanting her and knowing he wouldn’t be able to have her. For that, he’d have to spill his guts. Come clean with her—first about his failed marriage proposal to her. And once Amal remembered she wouldn’t desire him. She’d explain why he wasn’t enough for her all over again. Why he wasn’t worthy.

  Besides, they lived in two separate worlds. He couldn’t see himself staying in Hargeisa for long. And she wasn’t going to leave the life she had in Somaliland.

  He’d get through this dinner, see that she was comfortable in her hotel if she chose to do her therapy and remain in Ethiopia alone, and then he would head to his American home. That was if he could even manage to leave the car to meet with Zoya and her family now.

  “We can turn back.”

  Amal’s voice pierced the bleak fog painting his thoughts. She had a smile ready for him. Small but encouraging.

  “Whatever you choose, Mansur. I don’t want you to feel like you have to do this right now.”

  “Why?” He grated the question. “Why is it important to you that I do this—now or tomorrow or ever?”

  She stared at her lap, at her upturned palms that had closed into fists. “I’m grateful I had my grandmother. Without her, I don’t know who my brothers and I would be today. And you have Mama Halima. I know that. Your mother is wise, kind, and generous...”

  He heard the “but”.

  “But, knowing that my father didn’t want us...it hurt. It still hurts.” She closed her eyes and breathed slowly, her chest rising and falling with emotion.

  Opening her eyes, she turned her head to him and he saw them. The tears shining in them, brighter under the LED lights above their heads in the headliner. Mansur resisted dimming the lights to hide her tears. He didn’t like seeing her crying. Never had and never would.

  Her voice wavering with her despondence, she said, “I don’t want that for you. Zoya seems like a sweet and friendly person. If her family is anything like her, wouldn’t you want to meet them?”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  What more did she want from him? He had nothing else to give.

  She tipped her head up toward the car roof. “I want you to be happy,” she said. Then, sniffling, she opened the passenger door, stepped out, and shut the door behind her. He saw her pause before the restaurant, wipe her eyes, and then enter without a backward look.

  Through the front glass of the restaurant he saw Zoya approaching Amal. Judging by Zoya’s smile, all was right as rain. But his half-sister did look around Amal when she pointed behind her. They had to be talking about him. Probably Zoya was wondering where he was, and whether he’d show his face as he had promised earlier, during their impromptu coffee date.

  Manny sat back and watched as Amal disappeared from view with Zoya, who was leading her further into the restaurant, where he couldn’t spy on them from his car.

  “I want you to be happy.”

  Did she? Because if she did, wouldn’t she have accepted his proposal a year ago? Wouldn’t they be married and blissfully sharing a life together at this very moment?

  Her amnesia couldn’t have changed her that much. Deep down, she still had to be the same person. The same Amal who believed family was irreplaceable and to be cherished no matter what. The Amal who had dreamt of improving the lives of her neighbors and Hargeisa’s citizens by building a new hospital with her architectural skills. The Amal who had inspired him to make risky moves that were normally unlike him. With her by his side he’d felt courageous. He’d felt unconquerable.

  So far, all this week with her had done was remind him that nothing had changed for him.

  Amal was still herself, and he was still the man who just wasn’t good enough for her.

  * * *

  “He was right behind me,” Amal insisted for the fourth time—or maybe it was the fifth time?

  She had lost count after looking around the long table, up and down, at the strangers staring back at her. Mostly strangers. Zoya she knew, and her fiancé Salim she recognized from the flower shop. The others were Zoya’s two younger sisters and her mother—Mansur’s stepmother.

  “I’ll look again.” Zoya stood and left the table.

  Amal watched her leave and faced Zoya’s family. Mansur’s family. It wasn’t long before Zoya returned, her downcast eyes and her frown communicating what Amal suspected from the beginning might have happened. Mansur had left. He’d left her with his family.

  She swallowed some of the iced water in her glass. Their plates were all empty, because they’d thought to wait for Mansur before starting dinner.

  But he wasn’t here.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, her gaze tracking over the table, settling on each face before finding Zoya’s again. “I didn’t...”

  She stopped short, feeling the heat of tears pushing from the back of her eyes. If she’d known Mansur would do this, she wouldn’t ever have allowed him to drive them here. It made her wonder if she even knew him. Who had she been traveling with this whole while?

  A stranger, that was who. A complete and total stranger.

  And if this is who he really is I should be glad he’s shown me what he’s capable of.

  She couldn’t love a man willing to put his own pride over his family—and that was what it was to her: sheer pride. He was judging these good people solely for their connection to his father. It wasn’t the fault of Zoya and her sisters that they shared the same father as Mansur. They hadn’t chosen to have him as a half-brother. And yet they were trying to make the best of the situation. They were willing to bring him into their family.

  “We could do this some other day?” Zoya suggested, looking pained and confused by Mansur’s absence. Everyone else appeared just as unsettled.

  “No,” Amal said, looking around and stiffening her jaw. “No,” she repeated. “We’ll have dinner as planned, if that’s all right with you all.”

  Zoya translated Amal’s English into Amharic for her mother, while her fiancé and her sisters understood and agreed to stay. Zoya’s mother smiled and nodded, giving her assent as best as she could with the language barrier.

  By the time dinner was in full swing Amal would have liked to say she felt much better about her decision to stay and was stubbornly enjoying the dinner that Mansur had so rudely skipped out on. But she couldn’t help wondering if he was all right. If she’d pushed him into this for herself more than for him.

  The last thing she’d told him was that she wanted him to be happy. And she did. But he hadn’t been happy about having this dinner, and he wouldn’t have chosen to do it if she hadn’t practically forced him into it.

  The flavorsome Ethiopian cuisine went unnoticed as her mind got stuck on Mansur. Nobody but Zoya caught on.

  The other woman leaned in and whispered, “Are you all right?”

  She spoke in thickly accented Somali, and Zoya smiled at Amal’s blatant surprise. Amal didn’t need to ask who had taught Zoya the language. Her father, of course. But hearing the Somali made her thi
nk of Mansur even more. Made her long for her home, where she would be safe from having to worry about her heart and how it had somehow grown inextricably tangled with Mansur’s. She was afraid that if she tried to separate her heart from his she’d have nothing left. That it would be worse than coping with her amnesia.

  “Go,” Zoya urged gently, dropping her voice even lower. “Go and tell Mansur I said it’s fine and that we’re not upset with him. Please.”

  Amal opened her mouth to say she would stay and finish dinner, but she tightened her lips closed when she realized that she didn’t want to continue sitting here and pretending everything was all right.

  She had to go after Mansur. Make him see reason before he destroyed the good thing that he could have with Zoya and her family.

  “Go,” Zoya said once more.

  Amal nodded, looking around the table and catching the questioning eyes of Zoya’s family. She knew Zoya would clean up the mess Mansur had created, and would explain why Amal had had to leave.

  With a whispered, “Thanks...” Amal left her seat and hurried for the exit.

  She nearly crashed into whoever was opening the door. The apology she’d begun to give stopped short when she saw who it was.

  Amal gawked up at Mansur, stunned to see him entering the restaurant. Given that he had been less than enthused about the dinner, and hadn’t shown up before their meal started, Amal had assumed he’d abandoned her.

  And with her clogged throat she couldn’t even tell him how she’d felt.

  “I had to park the car elsewhere and I didn’t have time to let you know,” he explained, his brows furrowing deeper the longer he gazed at her face. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” she squeaked.

  Sparing a glance around him, she noticed his car was missing. He’d been finding another place for the car. Of course! He hadn’t left her with his family and embarrassed her in front of good people.