Cinderella's Royal Secret

by Lynne Graham

  No longer, however, did she kid herself about her own feelings. She adored Rafiq and, although it embarrassed her, it was still a struggle to keep her hands off him. He still shared a bed with her every night, and she cherished that intimacy, loving the way he still held her close even when she complained, tongue in cheek, that he made her too warm. While they had still been lovers, she had felt needed by him, necessary, desired. Without that physical connection, she felt bereft, unimportant, insignificant aside of the reality that she was carrying their children.

  Did he feel anything for her at all, beyond the reality that his children’s well-being rested on hers? Was her only value to him based on her ability to bring the twins into the world? What about her personally? Was there another dimension to his care of her, beyond that of her pregnancy? Those were the fears that tormented Izzy with every passing day.

  She studied the ever-growing collection of her jewellery and picked sapphires to wear over diamonds. Earlier in life it could never have occurred to her that such luxurious choices would one day be hers. But Rafiq’s generosity and frequent gifts had endowed her with a fabulous collection of priceless jewels. She donned a pair of loose flowing pants with a tunic and high heels, reckoning that she would look like a ship in full sail but aware that she had no real choice in the clothes department, having developed a girth that normal garments could not encompass.

  Rafiq was always giving her stuff but the superb nursery being put together down the corridor in a previously unused section of the palace was even more telling. She had picked a bright jungle print and primary colours to provide their twins with a stimulating decor. Rafiq had taken an interest in every single choice she made, unashamedly enthralled by the prospect of being a father. His enthusiasm both warmed her heart and hurt her at the same time. If only he could have focused that emotional intensity on her...and why shouldn’t she ask him where she stood in his life? What was she so afraid of? If all he cared about was the babies she carried, she had the right to know that and he would probably be honest enough to tell her. So, she would ask...

  She was about to leave her bedroom when a cramp gripped her stomach and she fell still, her hand pressing against her abdomen. When a damp sensation assailed her, she rushed into the bathroom to check herself. Horror gripped her when she saw the bright red blood.

  Oh, dear heaven, was she losing her babies? She had believed she was safe this far on in her pregnancy—well, as safe as any woman could ever be in her condition. In a panic, she stabbed the button on the household line that would summon Dr Karim...

  CHAPTER TEN

  EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED over the next hour was ever after a blur for Izzy.

  Dr Karim came running and then she was being swept off in an ambulance, Rafiq hanging onto her hand, as pale as someone of his bronzed complexion could be. He looked like a man in the grip of his worst nightmare and, ridiculously, she wanted to smooth his tumbled black hair from his brow and soothe him.

  ‘We’re going to deliver the babies now,’ Dr Karim told her gently, after she had been separated from Rafiq and a nurse had helped to undress her and slot her into a hospital gown. ‘But I’m afraid it will be a C-section, because one of the babies has moved into a breech position.’

  ‘It’s too early!’ Izzy gasped, stricken, frantically worrying about the survival of her twins.

  Mr Abbas, the English-speaking consultant obstetrician engaged for her delivery, whom she had already met on several occasions, joined them and answered her.

  ‘No, it is only a couple of weeks early and we were prepared for this development by your most recent ultrasound. We have every prospect of achieving a safe delivery,’ he declared with immense confidence as she was wheeled into the operating theatre and monitors were attached to her. The epidural was administered without any pain.

  Rafiq reappeared by her side, gowned and masked, his lean, darkly handsome features rigid with fierce tension.

  ‘Mr Abbas...’ Rafiq urged half under his breath. ‘Whatever happens, my wife must come through this procedure safely. She must be your first priority.’

  Izzy blinked rapidly, her eyes dazed, because she was certain she had to have either misheard or misunderstood that instruction.

  ‘Try to relax, Your Royal Highness, I fully intend to bring all three of your family safely through this experience,’ Mr Abbas informed him as the doors of the theatre swung open and an entire medical team trooped in to join them and a series of checks was carried out.

  Rafiq squeezed the life out of her hand. He looked terrified.

  ‘A lot of women have to have this,’ Izzy felt it incumbent on her to state.

  ‘This is you,’ Rafiq rebutted hoarsely. ‘There is only one you.’

  A sheet was erected, cutting off her view of her lower body. Her fingers went numb in Rafiq’s fierce hold. She felt that she was being touched and then there was a little pressure but absolutely no pain. What seemed like only a few minutes later a baby’s wail broke through the silence and a cross little face topped with a shock of dark hair appeared for an instant before disappearing again.

  ‘That’s Leila,’ Izzy whispered in total awe.

  ‘She’s...’ Words seemed to fail Rafiq entirely at that point.

  ‘And that’s Lucia,’ Izzy added when a second baby made a brief appearance above the sheet.

  She wasn’t able to hold them. The operating theatre was too cold for them and the babies had to be checked and wrapped up warm to be borne off. As she turned to comment on the fact to Rafiq, there was a crashing sound and she caught a narrow glimpse of him sprawled on the floor before aides rushed to lift him and help him out.

  ‘He will be fine, Your Royal Highness,’ Mr Abbas murmured gently. ‘The emergency was a little too much for your husband’s nerves. The Crown Prince has been very concerned throughout your pregnancy.’

  ‘Has he?’ Izzy muttered in surprise, because she genuinely hadn’t realised that Rafiq was actively worried, had simply assumed that he viewed caring for the needs of a pregnant wife as his duty and responsibility.

  ‘A not unexpected reaction from a man who saw his mother die after his brother’s birth. That delivery was a sadly botched business and I’m sure it left a mark on our future King to have witnessed such a tragedy as a young child.’

  She was moved into the recovery room and asked if she required anything for pain. She didn’t, and when two nurses came in wheeling tiny cribs that held her babies, she was entranced. Leila had Rafiq’s hair and Lucia was blonde, a sort of sandy strawberry blonde that might or might not turn red. Izzy cradled each baby to her in turn and smiled, so very relieved that everything had gone well and quite in awe of her children. When Rafiq appeared in the doorway, still looking pale, she beamed and extended a hand to him encouragingly. ‘Come and see them properly,’ she urged.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he breathed tautly, his stunning dark golden eyes full of regret. ‘I wasn’t able to be there for you as I should have been.’

  ‘No, I’m the one who should be apologising,’ Izzy told him ruefully. ‘It never crossed my mind that you could be so wound up about this.’

  ‘I didn’t want to alarm you with my fears. My anxiety was better kept to myself,’ Rafiq pointed out stiffly.

  ‘I didn’t know that you saw your mother die,’ she muttered with regret. ‘I wish you had told me that.’

  ‘Not while you were pregnant. All I could do was ensure that you had the very best medical care available,’ he countered gravely. ‘And look after you.’

  And look after her he had, continually fussing over what she ate and how much she rested and how she felt, she acknowledged, reckoning that she had been blind not to suspect the very real fear that he was concealing on her behalf.

  ‘I won’t tell anyone that you fainted,’ Izzy murmured, reaching out to close a hand over his.

  ‘With the number of staff tha
t witnessed my collapse, it will be a well-told story the length and the breadth of Zenara,’ Rafi responded in a wry tone of acceptance. ‘I am simply grateful that both my wife and my daughters are safe and healthy.’

  ‘Would you like to hold them now?’ Izzy proffered.

  Rafiq sank down in the chair beside her bed and Leila was placed in his arms. He studied the tiny face under the pink beany hat and Izzy watched him swallow hard and blink rapidly, but the sheen in his lustrous gaze was unmistakeably emotional. He touched a careful fingertip to her little cupid’s bow mouth. ‘So tiny...’

  ‘I’ll have you know that they are both a very good weight and isn’t it wonderful that, even though they’ve arrived a little early, they don’t need to be put in incubators?’ Izzy proclaimed with pride. ‘We’ll be able to take them home with us as soon as we’re ready.’

  ‘I would like you to spend two nights here within the care of trained personnel...just to be safe,’ Rafiq admitted quietly as Leila was returned to her mother and Lucia was brought to him.

  ‘So precious,’ he muttered with deep appreciation. ‘I think they are going to have blue eyes and this little lady may even have inherited your hair. My uncle and aunt and Zayn would like to visit this evening. Do you feel up to that? Feel free to ask them to wait until tomorrow.’

  ‘No, I’ll be fine. I want to show my daughters off,’ Izzy admitted with a rueful grin. ‘But I have to phone my own family first.’

  ‘Perhaps I could contact your parents for you, and you could take care of your sister. I hope that she will come to meet her nieces. I know you have been worrying about her and that you would enjoy that,’ he completed thoughtfully.

  It was one of those moments when she almost dropped her guard and told him that she loved him but she swallowed the words, recalling the guy who had been trapped for ten years in an unhappy marriage and who had settled, for the sake of his children, for a second loveless marriage without complaint. If she told him how she felt about him, he would feel that once again he wasn’t delivering what his wife wanted and needed because he didn’t love her back. She couldn’t do that to him, she just couldn’t do that, not when he already made such an effort to be caring and supportive. She must have imagined those instructions he had given the doctor about making her safety a priority during the birth. Surely the children, his heirs, must always have come first on his scale? Obviously she had got it wrong because he could never have uttered such a heresy, she reflected, not when their entire relationship was based on the importance of the babies she had conceived.

  Three days later, thoroughly rested, she travelled back to the palace in a limousine flying the Zenarian flag. She showered and dressed slowly, careful of the occasional twinge from the site of the incision and pleased to see that as her stomach receded a hint of a waist was already beginning to show again. The arrival of the twins in the nursery was a real event in the palace because it had been so many years since there had been babies in the royal family. The staff were very excited and flocked to see the little girls.

  * * *

  A week later there were many appreciative sighs over the picture Leila and Lucia made when they were dressed in white broderie-anglaise camera-ready outfits for the official family photograph session that was expected of them. Rafiq argued that it was too soon, and that Izzy needed more time to recover from the birth, but Izzy was well on the road to recovery by then and said she would sooner get the photo call over and done with.

  After all, Izzy thought, little was expected of the Zenarian royal family in terms of public exposure and, after the years of scandalous headlines and rumours generated by Rafiq’s misbehaving father, the family had all chosen to follow a low-key lifestyle. They were expected to appear at ceremonial occasions and official events, but the private life of the royal family remained private and there were no paparazzi hunting them in the hope of digging up dirt. The birth of the twins, however, fell into the realm of public interest and the populace needed to see the children.

  ‘And their future Queen,’ Rafiq reminded Izzy gently as she gave her opinion to him. ‘You should put on some jewellery.’

  ‘I’m never going to be able to pull off regal,’ Izzy opined with a grimace, smoothing down her tailored cream dress while her maid was directed by Rafiq to lay out diamonds for her to put on.

  ‘Your beauty and our children are more than enough to impress,’ Rafiq assured her with amusement. ‘Leila and Lucia are the next generation of an unbroken line that our people never thought to see continued except through Zayn and that would have required a change in the law.’

  The Regent awaited them in the same elegant reception room where their wedding ceremony had been staged. Izzy’s daughters delighted her by falling asleep for the session and the photographer was quick to take advantage. Within twenty minutes the photographs were complete, and the twins were being settled back into their cradles.

  ‘You know, you never did tell me what those other options concerning our marriage were,’ Izzy remarked as they walked into his bedroom, which had somehow become their bedroom, except when she was getting dressed because her wardrobe was stored in her room next door.

  Rafiq froze where he stood. ‘Why are you asking about those options now?’

  ‘I’m just curious,’ she told him truthfully.

  Rafiq nodded his proud dark head, his stunning dark golden eyes resting full on her face. ‘It’s a little late in the day to discuss those options now,’ he began tautly.

  ‘Only if you are already taking it for granted that our marriage is working and that I’m going to stay in Zenara for good,’ Izzy pointed out defensively.

  ‘You would hold me to ransom now that our children are born?’ Rafiq demanded, disconcerting anger flashing in his strained gaze, warning her that he had not been in any way prepared for such a dialogue.

  Izzy straightened her slim shoulders. ‘It’s not a question of holding you to ransom,’ she framed with distaste. ‘Maybe I think it’s time for us to have a conversation about where we go from here. Not talking about it makes me feel like I’m still on trial in the wife stakes!’

  Rafiq stared back at her in apparent disbelief. ‘How could you ever have thought for one moment that you were on trial with me?’ he demanded rawly.

  ‘Well, isn’t that the right label for the way we’ve been living for the past few months?’ Izzy prompted tartly, although she was trying hard not to lose her temper. ‘You made the deal. You set the rules. You said we’d see if we worked as a couple and you’ve never mentioned the subject since!’

  ‘Evidently I’m no good at making deals or agreements with you!’ Rafiq retorted in a savage undertone. ‘I always get it wrong and now you’re asking about the options I referred to at the time. They were of a more short-term nature than long-term.’

  ‘I’d still like to know what they were,’ Izzy pressed, seriously unnerved by the storm she had unleashed with her awkward questions.

  Rafiq stalked over to the window, his strong jaw line clenched hard. ‘I could have asked my uncle for permission to base myself in the UK for a few months while you followed your teacher-training course. I would’ve bought a house there, but I would have asked you to return to Zenara for the birth so that our daughters would be born here.’

  ‘OK. That was a...a considerate option,’ Izzy acknowledged, struggling to come up with the right words in response to that surprise possibility that he had chosen not to share with her at the time.

  ‘Another choice would have entailed you doing your studies here. As you know, we have classes at the university taught in English,’ he reminded her doggedly. ‘Both options, as I’m sure you have noted, involved us remaining together as a couple. Had the Regent and the executive council refused to agree to my spending so much time abroad, I would have joined you in the UK every weekend instead.’

  ‘So...’ Izzy mused thoughtfully, mulling over wh
at he was telling her. ‘None of the options let me walk away free and clear.’

  His bold, strong profile went rigid and he swung back to her, golden eyes blazing like flames. ‘No,’ he agreed without apology. ‘I wasn’t prepared to let you go free and if you’d run away, I would have followed you and endeavoured to persuade you into returning. There is nothing I would not have done to keep you.’

  As she listened Izzy’s heart was hammering and ridiculous hope was suddenly blossoming inside her tight chest to such an extent that it was a challenge to breathe. ‘And why was that?’

  ‘I do not think I could live without you in my life,’ Rafiq grated between his teeth, as though the words were being torn from him under the pressure of the cruellest torture. ‘You have transformed my life and I will do just about anything not to return to the life I led before I met you. It was empty, joyless. My sole focus was becoming King, and my sole interest was this country. Now...wrong though it is in my position...you are my main focus!’

  ‘Well, I don’t see what’s wrong with that or why you should get so worked up about sharing that with me,’ Izzy told him softly. ‘I think what you’re saying is that you love me.’

  ‘You don’t love me when you can ask about those options all these months on!’ Rafiq shot at her rawly, his pain and vulnerability palpable to her.

  ‘No, I just wanted to know where I stood and now I know that I’m standing exactly where I want to be,’ Izzy murmured gently as she crossed the room to his side. ‘Because I love you too. I started falling for you the day we met but you walked away, and I would never have seen you again if I hadn’t traced you because I’d fallen pregnant.’