by Lynne Graham
‘Don’t we always?’ Maya sighed. ‘Look, I’m heading home for a couple of nights. Mum has a chest infection and she’ll need help with Matt for a couple of days. It’s not serious but you know how out of breath and tired she gets.’
Izzy nodded while piling vegetables into the trolley for a side salad. ‘Give them my love,’ she urged, cruising by the milk and then the coffee, adding sugar and then condiments, reminding herself that she was returning to a totally empty kitchen while wondering if she should be shopping for dinner ingredients as well. No, for that she would require the official stamp of approval, she decided, because he might be a really picky eater, in fact probably was…for goodness’ sake, who didn’t eat takeout food? Nobody she had ever met.
On the other hand, she had never met anyone who used bodyguards either. What was the security all about? Maybe he was a diamond dealer? A dangerous criminal with a lot of enemies? An assassin on a top-secret government mission? Izzy entertained herself with such colourful ideas while she finished the shopping, anxiously checking her watch because the time limit Rafiq had given her was approaching fast.
It was a relief when the guard pulled out a card to pay at the checkout and, suddenly, she realised why he had been sent with her. Izzy flushed, embarrassed that she had contrived to overlook the reality that she wouldn’t have been able to cover the costs that week because she had had to cut back on shifts while swotting for her finals. Once again Maya was picking up the slack because her earning power was so much greater and Maya had already almost completed her doctorate. Still, Izzy only had one more year of living on a student budget to face, she reminded herself, but, of course, that plan was reliant on her passing her degree at an acceptable level…
There was no sign of Rafiq when she returned to the apartment and whirled around the kitchen like a maniac, quickly discovering the deficiencies of a kitchen space that nobody really expected to see much actual use. And when, rising above those deficiencies, she slid a bowl of side salad and a plate containing a perfect crisp golden omelette down on the table in front of him, she was justifiably proud of her achievement, but it still wasn’t what she would have considered to be an appropriate meal for a powerfully built man who stood at well over six feet tall.
‘You should’ve asked for something more filling,’ she scolded him helplessly. ‘I could have bought sourdough or added potatoes or rice. Of course, maybe you watch your weight or count carbs or something…’
As her flood of speculation dragged to a halt, their eyes collided and for Izzy it was like being speared by a trident. Suddenly her chest was constricted, and she couldn’t breathe and the saliva in her mouth had dried up and her heart was hammering fit to burst.
‘Are there men who count carbs?’ Rafiq asked with sudden interest, utterly ignoring the hovering guard who was supposed to first taste every dish set in front of his Prince and hoping he took the hint that that rule was finally being broken.
‘The bodybuilding ones do. For goodness’ sake, I know men who wear more make-up than I do!’
Deeply entertained by the conversation, because the people he met were usually very careful to steer the dialogue through safe, very conservative and often boring channels calculated not to offend him in any way, Rafiq sent her a flashing smile of appreciation. ‘Sit down and talk to me while I eat,’ he urged.
Taken aback by the suggestion and spellbound by that smile that lit up his lean, darkly handsome face like the sun, Izzy hovered, feeling overheated and oddly boneless as if her knees had somehow lost all necessary contact with her lower legs and feet. ‘Well…er… I was about to make you coffee and you haven’t much time.’
‘Skip the coffee. The water is fine and the omelette is superb,’ Rafiq asserted, leaning back to yank out the dining chair to his right. ‘Sit,’ he said again. ‘Do you realise that I don’t even know your name yet?’
‘Izzy Campbell. Izzy is short for Isabel but I’ve been called Izzy since I was a baby.’ Stiff with indecision, Izzy settled down into the seat. She was so close to him that she could smell him, and he emanated an inexplicably attractive aroma of sandalwood and soap and clean fresh male. For a split second she was tempted to bury her nose in him as if he were a pile of fresh laundry and colour ran up her throat to tinge her cheeks. He affected her in the weirdest ways, she acknowledged ruefully.
‘So, tell me about the men who wear make-up,’ Rafiq encouraged in the humming silence, recognising her discomfiture but spellbound by the strong zing of sexual attraction dancing in the air between them. On her part, it seemed so natural, so real, so utterly unforced and practised.
His lashes were as long and lush as black velvet fringes, Izzy noticed abstractedly as she told him about an acquaintance who, to impress a girl, had had a spray tan done in such a way as to fake the muscle definition he lacked, and Rafiq laughed in seeming astonishment. As well he might, Izzy conceded, when his own body was a masculine work of art, roped with lines of lean, strong muscle and hard abdominal definition. And then she mentioned a good friend who regularly used eyeliner to accentuate his pretty blue eyes.
With a sigh of annoyance, Rafiq checked the time on his phone and thrust away his empty plate. ‘I must leave for my appointment.’
‘You never said where you were going,’ Izzy dared to remark.
‘A business appointment,’ Rafiq lied, because the instant he mentioned the Zenara research facility he was officially opening at the university he too had attended, the game of secrecy and discretion would be blown to the four winds. And once she knew that he was who he was—Zenarian royalty—it might change her, might change the way she behaved and the way she treated him, and he already knew that he didn’t want that to happen.
Springing upright, Rafiq gazed down at her with a flare of scorching gold brightening his eyes as his scrutiny rested a second too long on her full pink lower lip and his imagination went crazy. Long brown fingers clenched hard on the back of the chair he had sat on because it was that much of a challenge not to reach for her and drag her into his arms. But it was too soon for that, way too soon when she wasn’t even flirting with him yet. And if she didn’t flirt, what then? It dawned on Rafiq then that he was too habituated to sure-fire hook-ups in very definite hook-up places and that for the first time he was trying something distinctly different. The realisation unnerved him just a little, for his entire experience of women outside marriage came down to eighteen months and a handful of one-night stands…
‘This evening,’ he breathed huskily, fighting off those uncharacteristic doubts, ‘you will make dinner for us both and you will join me for the meal.’
Her smooth pale brow furrowed. ‘Are you sure you want that?’
‘Yes,’ Rafiq delivered without hesitation. ‘I would enjoy your company.’
Rafiq departed with his guards and Izzy continued to operate on automatic pilot by immediately abandoning the messy kitchen to complete the cleaning tasks she had still to accomplish. She changed the beds, cleaned the en suite bathroom and pulled out the vacuum cleaner and all the time she was fighting off constant feelings about Rafiq’s invitation. It wasn’t a date, it was just what he had called it, ‘company’, she told herself repressively, a totally casual arrangement. Even so, that still meant that he had to be interested in her to some degree, she reasoned. She glanced down at her worn jeans and tee. Did she want to eat with him looking so very obviously shabby? Even so, she didn’t intend to get all dressed up and trowel on the make-up either lest she look madly keen. But, hey, there was nothing wrong with tarting herself up a little…
Izzy walked home at speed to the flat she shared with Maya and rifled frantically through her slender wardrobe before extending her search to her twin’s. Some of Maya’s stuff fitted her, even though Maya was taller and thinner. And it was one of her sister’s dresses that she ended up choosing to wear. After washing her hair in the fastest shower on record, she put on the dress. It
was green, stretchy and it hugged her curves but it was rather too long; however, it was the best option she had. At least it wasn’t glittery or too short or too low-necked, which would give her the look of a woman who was trying too hard to impress, she reflected ruefully.
Even if she was trying the hardest she knew how to impress, a little voice prompted in the back of her head. She reddened as she added a little subtle cosmetic enhancement and crammed her feet into a pair of her sister’s shoes. For dinner with a guy that hot, it was normal to make a big effort, she told herself forgivingly.
On the way back to the apartment she was forced to go shopping for the meal. She regretted her reluctance to buy the ingredients earlier because she didn’t have much in her bank account and that reality shrank the range of meals that she could cook. Having settled on a Thai curry, she utilised the pass key she had yet to return and walked into the kitchen.
She had only been there about five minutes before Rafiq strolled in with a bottle of wine in his hand as if he had been awaiting her arrival, which bucked up her self-esteem no end. ‘How was your afternoon?’ he enquired lazily.
And she thought, God bless him, he doesn’t have a clue. It didn’t even cross his mind that she had spent the majority of his absence cleaning the apartment. Izzy simply smiled forgivingly, recognising that he came from a vastly different level of daily life from her own and she was tickled by that revealing question. ‘Nothing special,’ she said quietly, choosing not to embarrass him with an honest response.
‘Let us hope this evening will be different,’ he murmured almost awkwardly, settling the wine down on the counter right in her way where she was dicing vegetables. ‘Where are the glasses?’
Yes, totally clueless, she thought with even stronger amusement, like a guy who had never been in a kitchen in his life. Rafiq was not accustomed to a woman cooking for him and even less accustomed to the working requirements of a kitchen in the midst of the preparation of a meal. She reached into the china cabinet to withdraw wine glasses and set them out for him while trying not to stare at him, because he had dressed down for the occasion. The formal business suit that had fitted him with designer-tailored perfection was gone, replaced with form-fitting denim jeans and a black shirt open at the neck. He still looked amazing. She reckoned he could even have rocked a dustbin bag with that lithe and powerful physique of his and those startling, stunning good looks. She no longer marvelled at her own susceptibility, reckoning that no man would ever provide her with so much temptation. Rafiq was in a class of his own: he was unique.
He poured a foaming golden liquid into the glasses and she squinted at the label on the bottle and her brows flew up. Champagne, the very best! She felt out of her element, watching him out of the corner of her eye as he lounged up against the hob where she was trying to cook, and almost groaned, recognising that she was dealing with a guy who was acting as if he had never been in a working kitchen in his life. It was weirdly cute, him striving to look cool and relaxed when the tension in his stance revealed that he was anything but relaxed and she took pity on him.
‘Why don’t you go and sit down next door while I finish up here?’ Izzy suggested gently as she lifted her glass and sipped.
Rafiq’s wide sensual mouth compressed, a muscle tightening in his strong jaw line. ‘If that is what you want…but it doesn’t seem very sociable to leave you alone.’
‘It’s fine,’ Izzy murmured soothingly, wanting to smooth away the frown etched between his brows. ‘I’ll only be a few minutes.’
‘You look amazing in that dress,’ Rafiq breathed thickly, scanning her shapely figure with a hungry intensity that she could feel.
For an instant that appraisal unnerved her and then that anxious feeling evaporated. Only a few weeks earlier she and her twin had talked about whether or not they were too choosy about men and how uncomfortable, immature and secretive it felt to be the only virgins they knew. They had decided that they were too fussy, too busy holding onto something that that they had got tired of holding onto while everyone else their age moved on into another, seemingly more adult phase of life. When they were teenagers, they had assumed that Mr Perfect would come along, Mr Right, but now they were no longer so naïve about the society they lived in. The men they met weren’t looking for sexual innocence and wouldn’t place any value on it and as a result both of them had reached the conclusion that their restraint was pointless.
After all, even their mother hadn’t waited until she was married. Lucia had been very honest about her life experience, freely admitting that she had got to twenty-five years of age zealously conserving what her traditional parents had assured her she had to conserve. But she had tired of respecting the social belief that to be valued she had to remain ‘pure’ even though the men she met were far from pure and, having fallen head over heels for their father, she had never lived to regret that decision, in spite of her judgemental family’s shocked rejection of her.
So, when Rafiq shot her an all-encompassing look that almost ate her alive, Izzy went pink with awareness but, on another level, she thought, yes, I could with him, and she felt positively wicked and forward and shameless, but she couldn’t help the heat that mushroomed up through her quivering body, because the desire that he was unafraid to show was coursing through her as well. And why should she be afraid of showing it? Of feeling that way? He made her body come alive in a way it never had before. He made her want what she had never wanted before. And who knew how long it would be before she met another man who had that effect on her?
Striving to act as cool as she knew how while struggling to handle all the different responses assailing her, Izzy set out the simple starter on the table and they sat down. ‘So, how did your appointment go?’ she enquired casually.
Rafiq shrugged a broad shoulder in dismissal. ‘Nothing unusual. I would prefer to talk about you. Tell me about yourself…’
In a few words, she described her family. He asked about her brother, Matt.
‘Was he born disabled?’ he asked with a frown.
‘No, he fell off a ladder when he was very young and broke his spine. He’s paralysed from the waist down. He’s eleven now and because he’s been in the wheelchair for so long he bears it very well,’ Izzy told him with quiet pride. ‘But caring for him is tough on my parents so Maya and I help as much as we can. Hopefully I’ll be able to do more when I can finally start full-time work.’
‘That will be soon?’ Rafiq assumed.
‘Well, no, if everything goes according to plan, and I get a good enough pass in my degree, I’ll have a year’s teaching training course to do next,’ Izzy explained. ‘I want to be a primary school teacher. Maya will probably take a high-flying job in the city. She’s very good with numbers.’
Of course, she wasn’t about to tell him the embarrassing truth that their parents were almost drowning in the amount of debt they had accrued over the years and at risk of losing their home, which had been specially adapted for her little brother’s needs. All their choices always seemed to come down to money, which was mortifying, but Izzy felt sorriest of all for her sister because Maya had no desire to be a high-flyer in the stock market but since that kind of work paid the best, she would have to take it. At least Izzy, being the less academic twin, would be able to follow the career she wanted.
‘Where are your guards?’ she asked curiously, keen to get off the topic of future plans when she couldn’t tell him the truth.
An almost imperceptible hint of colour honed the high cheekbones that lent Rafiq’s lean dark features such powerful impact. The four guards hired at his uncle’s insistence had been banished from the apartment while the remaining pair, who had long been in Rafiq’s employment, were enjoying a night off that they would never mention to anyone. It outraged his pride that even as a fully grown adult male he was obliged to utilise such ploys to escape the intrusive nature of his security arrangements. ‘They’re of
f duty tonight because I’m not going out.’
‘Tell me about Zenara,’ Izzy suggested.
‘Even though you’ve never heard of my country before?’ Rafiq murmured with a touch of a raw edge to his intonation.
Izzy went pink and then lifted her chin at an angle. ‘I offended you, didn’t I?’
‘Of course not,’ Rafiq countered, noting how that extra colour in her cheeks merely brightened the sapphire blue of her eyes.
‘Yes, I did. Well, I’m sorry, but we all have moments of ignorance,’ she pointed out in her own defence. ‘I expect I could come up with a topic that would leave you floundering too…if I tried.’
‘Not in basic geography,’ Rafiq told her drily.
Izzy compressed her soft pink mouth and shifted a narrow shoulder. ‘Yeah, bet you could have completed the science paper I tanked on this morning too. I’m not gifted at science or general knowledge.’
Rafiq frowned. ‘I thought you were studying for a degree in English?’
‘To complete my degree I had to study a couple of different topics this year and everybody said the basic science course was easy-peasy.’ Izzy’s lip curled at the memory. ‘Well, Maya could probably have aced it at five years old but even after swotting hard I couldn’t answer some of the questions.’
‘Hopefully you managed to answer enough to gain a pass,’ Rafiq said encouragingly. ‘It’s a mistake to do a major post-mortem after an exam. People tend to underestimate their own performance unless they’re exceptionally confident in their abilities. And by the sound of it you have been overshadowed your whole life by a very clever sister, which must have been difficult.’