He leaned forward, forearms resting on his legs, hands clasped together, and one of his legs bouncing in his agitation. He probably didn’t even realize what he was doing. What he was revealing to her with his actions.
“You were the first to know, and my mother had learned of the news of my promotion, too. But I hadn’t called her; you’d told her. I called him, though.” He took a cleansing but noisy breath through his nose. “I don’t know why I did, but I did.” He shook his head and scoffed. “My point is, I don’t want anything from Zoya Ali or her family.”
Amal didn’t have to hear anymore. She understood, loud and clear. He didn’t want this other family he’d found in Addis Ababa. Just like he’d learned not to want or expect anything from his father. Mansur had proved that by building his career, making his name, working for his fortune. He could take care of himself. He had his own back. And he’d taken care of his mother far better than his father ever had.
And hadn’t she done something similar? She’d worked hard to provide a good life for her grandmother when she’d been alive, and now for her brothers. Putting Bashir through his schooling and seeing Abdulkadir thrive in his own business meant the whole world to her. They were her family.
“It’s likely they feel the same. I’m just an intruder. Someone they feel obliged to be kind to,” he said, his voice dull and unfeeling. “And I’m not one to impose where I’m not wanted.”
When he finally looked at her it was with that wary reserve she’d grown accustomed to seeing whenever they discussed his father. Amal saw it for what it was now. Fear. She froze at the sight of it. Even blinked. Because she wasn’t certain she’d read him correctly. But, no, it was still there.
He’s scared.
Amal didn’t understand. Was he scared of her? Why?
Why would he be afraid of me?
Mansur, of all people...afraid of her?
The longer she swam in the bottomless pools of his brown eyes, the more emotions she saw. Unadulterated panic and bashful regret that he’d said too much. The fear that she’d push him away after he spoke unfiltered and from the heart.
As if I ever could.
Without thinking on it too much, Amal brought her hand to his arm. Mansur tensed under her palm, and yet he didn’t brush her touch away. Taking it to be a positive sign, she inched closer, leaning in and giving his arm the lightest squeeze.
“I used to wait on my father, too. I don’t remember too much right now, but I get the sense that I’ve been waiting on him for most my life, and it still feels like I’m in queue sometimes.”
“Hope...” he grumbled.
She smiled, understanding. “Yeah, hope. I think one day I’ll give up on it, but it’s always there.”
“Maybe now’s the time to make a pact. To keep each other from hoping again.”
“No, I don’t want to give up on hope. And neither should you.”
Amal slid her hand to his. He reached his fingers for her and took her hand. Their palms kissed, their fingers interlocked, and Mansur stared down at their joined hands.
When he opened his mouth next, he sounded less bleak. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you, Amal.”
* * *
I’m in love with you. Again.
The words were right there. Along with the truth of their past.
Looking up at her was a mistake. Manny lost his train of thought. He lost his nerve.
A blush warmed his face, and his body was filled with a contrast of emotions, both positive and negative. Joy that she hadn’t been chased off by what he’d said of his father. Anxiousness to move on and reveal his love. Hope that she’d want him after he unveiled his failure of a marriage proposal to her. And distress over what her reaction might be once she knew his true feelings for her.
“Tell me,” she urged softly, her hand gentle in his.
I loved you, and I haven’t stopped loving you.
Her warm brown eyes promised him all the trust and confidence in the world.
But I messed up, and you rejected me, and I don’t think I’ll ever be good enough for you.
It wouldn’t be the first time he’d fallen short of expectations. With his father, though, he should’ve known. He should have stopped trying. Should have maintained the wall he’d built, brick by brick, after discovering his father had married a second woman and had other children. Zoya and her sisters. He never should have wanted more from his father. But he had. And, if he were being brutally honest with himself, a part of him was still that stupid little boy who was waiting on his dad.
With Amal, though, it wasn’t too late. Manny still had a chance.
Still, he’d tucked away this frightening love for her. Had nearly convinced himself that he wouldn’t give his heart to her or anyone else. Wouldn’t repeat his mistake. And yet here he was, painfully tempted to tell her. Seconds and heartbeats from claiming his love for her again.
“Back in Hargeisa, you wondered who was watching out for me in America...”
He forced himself not to break eye contact with her. Vulnerability wasn’t his style. But Amal had made him want to risk it after his father had chosen to divide his attention and love between two wives and two families.
“I remember,” she said with a small grin. “I haven’t hit my head again.”
No, she hadn’t. His gaze alighted on the side of her head. He’d first spied the scar when her headscarf had slipped in the hospital. It had been a brief moment. An infinitesimally small fraction of time. But the sight of it had made him ache as if it were his own wound.
It was a miracle that he hadn’t realized he was in love with her in that very moment. When he had struggled to set her pain apart from his own. They were one. Always had been, for him, and always would be no matter what happened from this point forward.
Sucking in a fortifying breath, he exhaled with a subtle shudder and said, “And I told you no one. I wasn’t lying.”
He’d pushed everyone away. Other than when he had to attend a social event for business, as the new face of the company, Manny made it a point to block his schedule from intrusions. As for dating...he’d stopped in college, when his romances had floundered because he’d placed his career ahead of the few women he had dated. Then Amal had come into his life again. And for the first time in a long while he’d allowed someone in.
“I made a choice.” He tightened his hold on her hand, afraid that she would slip away from him. “I decided to be alone. I didn’t want anyone by my side. But you changed that.”
You changed me.
Manny swallowed. His voice was hoarser when he said, “You called one day to check on me. It wasn’t expected.” He smiled wistfully at the memory. “Actually, I was in the middle of crushing our competition in the market, and I’d caught the eye of our chairman for the soon-to-be vacated position of CEO. The board wanted a change. I’d made splashes in the industry. I had my head in the game...”
And then he hadn’t. Amal had called, and he’d got wrapped up with hearing her sweet voice. Her concern for him had astounded Manny. Besides his mother, he hadn’t thought anyone else worried about him.
He’d fallen in love with her slowly. Eventually Amal had told him she loved him first. Then he’d gone to see her with a ring and his heart, hoping she’d accept both.
The rest is history, he thought mournfully.
Only it wasn’t. Not for him. It felt very real right now, holding her hand, looking into her eyes, feeling squeamish in his building anticipation of the truth.
“We talked every day. You supported me. I had someone in my corner. Someone I cared very deeply about.”
He flicked his gaze to where she’d raised her hand to her temple and her scar. Manny released her other hand and brushed her fingers aside to see the scar for himself. She shouldn’t feel like she had to hide it from him. He’d take her anyway. Because he loved
her, and he wouldn’t ever live in a reality where he didn’t feel his heart would burst with longing for her.
“Does it really not hurt?” he asked. He recalled she’d said it had not, but it didn’t dampen his concern for her.
“No, though it tingles and throbs sometimes. It’s healed nicely enough.”
Her soft sigh puffed out and warmed his hand as he cupped her cheek. Amal leaned into his palm, and his heart thudded harder when she closed her eyes and smiled freely and happily at him.
“I hate that you don’t remember...”
She fluttered her eyes open. “Since I came to Addis I’m feeling the urge to have to recall everything less.”
Relief poured through him. “You’re happier?”
“I am,” she agreed.
She’d decided for him. Manny knew what path he was going to take—nerves be damned. It didn’t matter whether she wanted him or not. He just had to let her know.
Standing abruptly, watching her mouth form a surprised O, he asked in a husky, urgent tone, “Wait here for me?”
At her smallest of nods, he left her for his bedroom.
* * *
Amal couldn’t remain sitting.
She was up and moving when Mansur returned.
He looked more alert than he had all night. Except for when he’d appeared like a caged animal in the restaurant with his half-sisters and stepmother.
Almost immediately she noted that he was holding something in one of his fists.
“Amal, I said I had something to tell you, but I should have said I have something to show you.”
She hurried to meet him halfway, bumping her leg painfully against the corner of the coffee table.
“Easy,” Mansur said quickly, closing the gap between them and taking her hand. He was staring at her with such open and raw concern. It wasn’t the first time either. Only this time Amal felt a change in the air. There was something more to his movements now. And she couldn’t help but worry whether it spelled doom for them.
Amal had thought that maybe they were making progress finally. She liked Mansur; she knew that. He was attractive. She was crushing on him. But now she wondered if it could be more...
He made her heart race, her mouth dry, and her body hum pleasantly with the pull to be near him. Whatever he was doing to her, it was powerful and sacred, and she had never yearned to explore anything more in her life. And yet she couldn’t stifle the fear that what he had to show her was going to end her hope.
“What do you want to show me?” she asked.
If he was going to crush her with disappointment, she couldn’t see a better reason not to rip off the bandage and get this over and done with.
Mansur held up his closed fist between them. “Before I show you, I have something to say.”
“Mansur...” She trailed off breathlessly. She couldn’t help it. His eyes held a gleaming intent and purposefulness that was single-mindedly locked on her. None of his other gazes compared to this. Whatever he had to tell her, Amal realized now that it was serious and noteworthy.
Maybe even life-changing, she thought with a skip of a heartbeat.
“I didn’t come to Hargeisa knowing that I’d be with you like this,” he began.
Amal gulped, fighting the urge to flee out of the room.
“My mother left me a cryptic voicemail and I arrived blindly, afraid that something terrible had happened.” His eyes darted to the scar he’d caressed on her temple earlier. “Only to discover something had happened, and I hadn’t been there for you.”
Amal freed the breath she’d been holding unknowingly.
Mansur opened his palm to reveal a small black box. Before she could wrap her mind around what it could be, he opened it.
Amal gasped, touching quivering fingertips to her mouth. It was a proper reaction to the ring nestled inside. Not just any ring, but a sparkly band with the biggest and most lustrous diamond she’d ever seen. And the diamond was...heart-shaped!
She didn’t think she’d seen anything so magnificent in all her life—and that was saying a lot, given all she had seen in Addis Ababa and Bishoftu.
Thanks to Mansur.
Amal looked up and found he’d concealed his emotions from her once again. He could’ve been a perfectly chiseled statue. But then he blinked, and suddenly the cracks in his facade were clear to her. He couldn’t hide the trepidation or the fear from her. Not now that they were writ plainly on his face. That face she could love forever.
Love? Am I in love with him?
It would make sense. She thought of him unendingly in his absence. And in his presence she felt complete. Whole.
Was it crazy of her to want to kiss him?
“Is it mine?” She heard her voice...how it squeaked with her nerves.
“It is,” he said, slinging her a tremulous smile. Then, taking it out of the box, he grasped the ring between his fingers and held out his free hand. “May I?” he asked.
The touch of uncharacteristic shyness in his low, husky tone was new to her. She nearly gave him her trembling hand, but there was so much to ask him. Enough to keep her from giving in to the natural instinct to have him slip that ring on her finger.
Pressing her hands flat over her racing heart, she asked, “How is it mine, though?”
And had he planned this from the start?
Mansur’s change in expression from warm hope to confusion told her that it wasn’t likely. But surely he didn’t think it was sensible of her to accept his proposal? Even if he hadn’t actually said the words and asked her to marry him. The ring spoke for him.
“Is there something you’re not telling me?” she asked.
Her question stirred him into hanging his head. “I wanted to marry you once.”
Amal’s mouth popped open. Shock made it hard to breathe. Oxygen sawed in and out of her flaring nostrils and gaping mouth.
“I came to ask you in person, after my father’s funeral,” he confessed softly, continuing as if he hadn’t rocked her world off its axis.
“You did?” she choked, part-gasp, part-exclamation. “I don’t remember.”
“I’m aware of that.”
The bitter sting to his tone wasn’t her imagining. Mansur lifted his head, his thumb absentmindedly stroking at the diamond ring she hadn’t accepted from him.
He’d wanted her? She struggled with that fact in her mind. Her heart was another matter. It throbbed from the overload of joy. Mansur desired her enough to propose not once, but twice.
She’d always believed in fate. Her grandmother used to tell her some people were destined to be together. Maybe it was like that for her and Mansur? Maybe they belonged to each other, no matter the odds?
No matter her amnesia, she hoped.
“Amal, there is something else.” Mansur stopped moving his thumb over the ring and groaned lightly. “I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Anywhere,” she breathed.
What else had she forgotten—and why did he look ready to suffer a breakdown?
When he didn’t speak, she begged, “Manny, tell me.”
Maybe it was her plea that did the trick. Or perhaps he reacted to his nickname.
“When I proposed to you...you refused.”
Mansur pulled in closer to her. Their eyes were trained on one another unblinkingly at this point. As if he commanded her to watch as he devastated her with the awful truth she suddenly and fiercely wanted to erase from his memories, too.
“You rejected my proposal, Amal.”
She’d rejected him?
“You told me you loved me, and I knew it was all I needed to hear to propose.”
Mansur bared his teeth now, his voice rough and pairing well with his tormented expression. But he was beautiful even when he was tortured by a past that clearly hadn’t been pleasant.
“I never act without knowing the end goal, but with you it was different. You were different. I thought...” he said, then stopped and shook his head. “I wanted to believe our love was ready for a future together.”
Amal staggered away from him. Mansur didn’t stop or follow her. All recognizable emotion had seeped from his features. His face was as cold and lifeless as stone by the time she’d created a sizable gap between them.
Gasping, she asked, “I rejected you?”
He jerked a nod.
“Why?” And when he didn’t answer she raised her voice, pleading, “Why would I do that?”
Tears pinched the corners of her eyes. Why had she let go of the man she loved? Because she now knew, irrefutably, that she loved this man.
She loved Mansur.
“You didn’t like the way I handled myself after I’d arrived too late to attend my father’s funeral. I told you that I didn’t care to be there. I wasn’t as polite and thankful as I should have been to those friends and family members who had visited my mother to pay their final respects. But most of all you saw that I’d hurt my mother with my attitude. You called me out for it, Amal, and it was deserved. But instead of backing away, and giving you time to cool off, I made the mistake of proposing at the wrong time.”
He paused, chest heaving, eyes narrowed, his face cruelly inscrutable.
“Maybe it was for the best, after all.”
The finality in what he’d said broke her. Amal was ready to be sick all over the floor. She hadn’t even felt this sick on his plane. The room was spinning for her and she stumbled back.
Mansur was there when her knees gave out. He held her up and steered her to the sofa. Seating her first, he left and returned with a cool glass of water. Amal guzzled half of it down and he had to ease her up and help her drink the other half more slowly.
He waited and watched until her breathing had evened before he said, “I apologize for not telling you earlier.”
She understood why he hadn’t. It was his past, too. And, unlike her, he recalled it—and vividly, if his emotional display was anything to go by. Being who he was, Amal knew it had to be difficult for him to be that open. His stoic expression was his way of maintaining the control he’d felt he lost. But he couldn’t hide from her—not now. Not ever again.
Harlequin Romance September 2021 Box Set Page 63