Dreaming Of... France. Кейт Хьюит

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       CHAPTER ONE

      AMMAR TANNOUS scanned the crowded ballroom of the Parisian hotel with a coldly dispassionate air, his mouth a compressed line. Somewhere amidst this glittering throng his wife waited. Although waited, he acknowledged, was the wrong word; Noelle had no idea he was here. She might not even know he was alive.

      He narrowed his eyes as he shouldered his way through the crowd, noting the way conversations sputtered into silence, followed by the hiss of surprised speculation. The newspapers, he knew, had carried the story of his miraculous escape from a helicopter crash two months ago, although he hadn’t been front page news. He never was. Ammar always kept a low profile; working for Tannous Enterprises required he maintain an intense privacy. Still, some here recognised him.

      ‘Mr Tannous …’ A thin, nervous man approached him, looking, Ammar saw, not just nervous but scared out of his wits. Ammar tried to place the face, but he had done business with too many people to recall every frightened underling who had experienced the punishing power of Tannous Enterprises’s fist. ‘I was going to make an appointment …’ the man stammered, fluttering his hands in apology. ‘Once I heard the news …’

      The news that he was alive. Not very good news for most people, Ammar knew. Now he remembered the man, if not his name. He had a small clothing factory outside Paris and Ammar’s father had become lien-holder. He’d called in the loan just before his death in an attempt to bankrupt the man and cease his paltry competition with Tannous’s own interests.

      ‘I’m not here about that,’ Ammar said tersely. ‘If you wish to make an appointment, call my office.’

      ‘Yes … of course …’

      Without another word Ammar moved past him. He could have assured the man he wasn’t going to enforce his father’s claim, but the words stuck in his throat. In any case, he didn’t want rumours to start flying, or his business associates and allies to wonder or worry.

      All he wanted was Noelle.

      It had been her face, the memory of her smile that had driven his survival. When he’d been starving and dying of thirst, wounded and feverish, he’d longed for her. He might not have seen her in a decade, he might have sent her away only months after they’d married, but he intended to find her now … and finally claim her as his wife.

      His expression grimmer than ever before, Ammar moved forward through the crowd.

      ‘Someone is looking for you, and he seems rather ferocious.’

      Noelle Ducasse turned at the sound of her friend Amelie’s voice, a smile firmly curving her lips, her flute of champagne held aloft. ‘Oh, really? Should I start quivering?’

      ‘Perhaps.’ Amelie took a sip of her own drink as she surveyed the crowd. ‘He’s about six foot four with a near-shaven head and a horrible scar on his face. The whole look is rather sexy, mind you, but also a bit fearsome.’ Amelie raised her elegantly plucked eyebrows, clearly curious. ‘Does that description ring a bell?’

      ‘Not really.’ Noelle gave her friend, always prone to exaggeration, a bemused look. ‘He sounds like an ex-convict.’

      ‘Maybe. СКАЧАТЬ