by Lynne Graham
Evidently accepting that he had got all he was likely to get from her, Zayn engaged in normal conversation for what remained of the meal. He was much less guarded than his older brother, yet very mature for his age, only his sudden boyishly enthusiastic smile betraying his youth. She understood his loyal protectiveness towards Rafiq because she was equally attached to her twin and two orphaned brothers, regardless of the age gap between them, were almost certain to be close.
They sat in the shade playing poker, Izzy working up a tally of losses that hugely amused Zayn.
‘It’s lucky for you that we agreed not to play for money,’ he teased. ‘You’re a hopeless card player.’
‘It’s been a long time since I played,’ Izzy admitted ruefully.
‘I’d take you for a drive in the desert but Rafiq thinks I’m reckless at the wheel and you’re too precious a cargo for me to take the risk,’ he told her cheerfully.
They ended up playing a board game then, which Zayn played with the same ferocious spirit of competitiveness. When he departed in a helicopter before lunch, he and Izzy were on easy terms and she was sorry to see him leave. After lunch she felt queasy and went for a nap, but it didn’t help. Her pregnant stomach was determined to be oversensitive and feeling under par was a side effect she assumed she had to accept. It was a surprise when a doctor was shown in by her maid, who had evidently contacted him. Where he had come from, she had no idea and she was taken aback to be told when she asked that he was the doctor ‘in residence’ at Alihreza. A herbal tea was prescribed and Izzy sipped it throughout the afternoon, pleasantly disconcerted to discover that it did definitely help the nausea and reduced it to a more bearable level.
She dozed through the hottest hours of the day, wakening to learn that Rafiq was on his way back. She went for a shower to freshen up, enjoying the cool sprays hitting her overheated skin before rifling through her new wardrobe to pick a casual cotton blue-and-white maxi dress that was both cool and comfortable. It was unnerving how fast her body was changing, she thought ruefully. Her breasts had swelled at least a cup size and her once neat waist was vanishing as her stomach pushed out.
When she heard another helicopter flying in, she was reading a magazine in the shade of the courtyard. Eventually, Rafiq came striding across the courtyard towards her and by that stage she was seriously tense and mentally walking on eggshells.
Sheathed in jeans and an open shirt, his bronzed skin shadowed by stubble, his stunning eyes gleaming at her from between lush lashes, Rafiq was a lethally lustrous and rawly masculine presence. Instantly her senses went on high alert, her heart rate increasing and, that quickly, she wanted to slap herself until she wised up. It was one thing to be attracted to the man she had married, quite another to break out in a girlish fever just because she was seeing him for the first time that day.
‘My uncle sends his profuse apologies for dragging me back to Hayad for the day and leaving you alone here.’
‘The fire…was it serious?’
Rafiq nodded grimly. ‘A club popular with our young people. Although there were few deaths, many serious injuries were caused by the panic that broke out once the alarms and the sprinklers went off. I have been dealing with distraught parents and fire officials all day,’ he confided heavily, studying her with appreciation. ‘It is a relief to come back here and find you sitting calmly beneath the trees looking as fresh as a daisy.’
‘But not feeling calm,’ she muttered awkwardly, never able to be comfortable accepting a compliment and cringing because that made her feel as gauche as an adolescent.
‘I understand that Dr Karim needed to attend you this afternoon.’
‘Yes and he’s very charming,’ Izzy responded with a stiff smile. ‘Why is there a resident doctor?’
‘Because you’re here and my uncle is very mindful of your health and keen to ensure that, should there be any kind of emergency, expert care is on hand,’ he admitted. ‘But while the doctor is here, he is also treating the staff and the local Bedouin. He will have a constant procession of patients requesting his attention.’
Izzy relaxed a little more and watched Rafiq take a seat opposite her, the sheer vibrancy of him that close tugging at her with invisible cords.
Rafiq drank in the sight of her, as pretty as a picture, and swiftly looked away again, troubled by the shuttered look in her once clear eyes and her defensive posture. He was responsible for that change in her, he reminded himself broodingly. She no longer trusted him. He had made a huge error with his assumptions and destroyed any faith she had had in him. He had screwed up royally and now he had to redress the damage at the same time as he concentrated on achieving the end goal he wanted.
‘Now, tell me,’ he urged. ‘Are you well?’
His air of gravity made her frown. ‘It was only a bit of sickness, Rafiq, nothing serious, nothing unexpected. Please don’t fuss over me. I’m young, strong and healthy.’
‘I don’t see concern as fussing,’ Rafiq countered. ‘Obviously, I will worry about your well-being. I am keenly aware that what we discussed last night was destructive. Now you don’t trust me. You may even fear that I could be planning to try and take our children from you.’
Izzy turned pale at that suggestion and gooseflesh cooled her arms as fright gripped her. ‘No, I hadn’t got quite that far yet but I don’t want to even hear you say such a thing.’
‘Fears voiced aloud cause less concern than those that remain secret and unspoken,’ Rafiq murmured. ‘I don’t want you worrying about anything at the moment. Stress is bad for you.’
‘Stress is an integral part of being temporarily married to and pregnant by a…a stranger,’ Izzy muttered in an apologetic rush. ‘You don’t feel like a stranger to me. Somehow you never did but how much do I really know about you and what you could, ultimately, be capable of? And where do we go from here?’
Disconcertingly when she least expected it, Rafiq smiled, a flashing charismatic smile that warmed her chilled and anxious body from the inside out. ‘We will work it out, Izzy. I promise you that we will work it out without any harm or hurt to anyone,’ he assured her.
His sheer confidence blasted out at her like a force field, the controlled power of the nature he hid behind a cool, measured facade lacing his stunning dark eyes and flawless masculine features as he studied her.
‘That’s a lovely idea but I don’t think it will prove possible in the long run,’ Izzy countered heavily. ‘We’re going to fight—’
‘We are not going to fight,’ Rafiq sliced in with conviction as she shifted, the hem of her dress lifting to reveal delicate ankles wrapped in impossibly feminine ribbon ties. It was the ribbons that he found sexy, he told himself, unable to imagine any ribbon attached to Izzy’s body that he wouldn’t want to tug loose and untie. Hardening, he shifted position, regretting his tight jeans. ‘I may have been apart from you today but, believe me, I didn’t waste my time. I considered all our options and we have many more than you seem to think.’
‘Options?’ Izzy repeated, her brow furrowing. ‘Like maybe…we separate now before everything gets even more complicated?’
His dense spiky lashes dipped to screen his gaze and he almost swore in frustration at that startling suggestion. ‘That definitely wasn’t one of my options,’ he admitted.
Her attention lingered on his full sensual mouth, framed and accentuated as it was by a blue black shadow of stubble. A hot liquid sensation tugged in her pelvis and she pressed her thighs together, sudden painfully intense hunger gripping her like a dangerous drug. ‘Well, what was…er…your preferred option?’ she prompted, dry-mouthed, so tense that she couldn’t even swallow.
The silence simmered like a haze of heat on a hot day, blurring her surroundings and the clarity of her thoughts but fully centring her attention on him.
‘Easier than yours… I think,’ Rafiq husked, springing upright with that lithe,
fluid grace that stabbed her with a longing she could not control.
‘Easier?’ she questioned breathlessly.
Without the smallest warning, Rafiq bent down and scooped her up off the padded sofa into his arms. A startled sound of surprise was wrenched from her and she gazed up at him with huge sapphire-blue eyes. ‘Rafiq…what are you doing?’
‘What comes most naturally to me,’ he murmured, settling back on his seat to cradle her across his lean muscular thighs, his arms caging her in place. ‘You chose a pessimistic option. I choose a more positive one.’
‘Oh…?’ she gasped, heart hammering, body striving to melt into the pure heated allure of him that close in spite of her attempt to remain stiff and discouraging.
‘We continue as we are,’ Rafiq breathed in hoarse extension. ‘Last night wasn’t planned. Nothing that has happened between us has been planned. The attraction is too powerful to be ignored and too rare to be discounted or suppressed.’
‘A-attraction? Rare?’ Izzy exclaimed, sapphire eyes welded to glowing gold.
‘I have never wanted any woman as much as I want you,’ Rafiq confirmed without hesitation.
‘You said…continue as we are?’
‘Give our marriage a decent chance while we await the birth of our children,’ Rafiq extended. ‘We see if we can make it work and if we work, we stay together to raise our family.’
‘You mean…like a real marriage?’ she almost whispered as he stroked his fingertips across a slender ribbon-bound ankle.
Beautiful dark golden eyes held hers fast and hard. ‘I want to keep you and our children but there are still other variations on the same theme available, which, if you wish, we can discuss. I am prepared to be flexible.’
His hand was sliding up her calf and she was lost in the sensations darting to more tender areas of her body. Indeed, the stroke of his knowing fingers against the sensitive soft skin of her inner thigh fired up every sense. That fast she wanted to rip off his shirt and sink down on the male arousal pushing boldly against her hip. Her face flamed. Rafiq brought out every shameless urge she possessed, introducing her to a side of herself she had not known existed until he appeared in her life.
Variations on the same theme, though, God bless him, she thought helplessly, her soft mouth quirking, recognising that he had approached her armed with every possibility he could muster, like a businessman engaged in trying to finalise a very important deal.
He didn’t know how to do romantic, didn’t even try. But without a doubt he wanted to keep her, and that truth smashed down Izzy’s barriers and flooded through her defences to wash them away. The craving inside her, which she had been fighting to the very last ditch, was released like a sudden storm. Without a single word, she snaked up her hand to spear her fingers into his luxuriant black hair to drag his beautiful sensual mouth down to hers.
His lips smashed down on hers with an urgency that thrilled her to the marrow of her bones. He wanted her, he desired her as no man had ever desired or wanted her and, in that moment, the simple knowledge that he wanted her as much as she wanted him was sufficient to silence every other insecurity. Rafiq was going to be hers, absolutely hers for ever, because she wasn’t prepared to let him go. His tongue plunged deep into the damp interior of her mouth and she moaned low in her throat.
‘Dinner will be late tonight,’ Rafiq breathed raggedly as he leapt up with her still clutched in his arms and strode towards the lift below the arches. ‘Very, very late.’
Her entire body still buzzing from the provocative stroke of his fingers, Izzy was simply out of her mind with the same desire that powered him. Only he had the nerve that she lacked, she acknowledged, burying her hot face in a wide strong shoulder as he stalked past the servants hovering on the terrace, unconcerned by their scrutiny, unashamed of his passion. In the lift, he pinned her against the mirrored wall and kissed her breathless and she rocked against him like a shameless hussy, craving the arousal he couldn’t hide from her, needing that physical contact in that instant as much as she needed air to breathe.
‘You’re amazing,’ he told her thickly, laying her down across his bed. ‘The most amazing woman I’ve ever met.’
It’s only sex, her brain warned her, but she silenced that voice at supersonic speed because she was living in the moment—revelling in the moment, if truth be told—as Rafiq stood back and stripped, all urgency and hunger and appreciation, revealing a lean bronzed torso taut with muscle definition, exposing long powerful hair-roughened thighs.
It didn’t get better than this, she told herself dizzily, it would never get better than this…
CHAPTER NINE
THE FOLLOWING DAY at Alihreza, Rafiq rose early, kissed her brow and headed for his office to catch up on work.
Izzy lay in bed feeling exceedingly foolish for her complete capitulation the night before. Her intelligence hadn’t featured much in that decision, she acknowledged with a wince. Reality was, however, now staring her in the face. She was falling in love with Rafiq. What had started out as an infatuation had transformed into something much deeper and more long lasting. The instant he had offered her the chance to stay and become a normal wife rather than a temporary one, she had snatched at the offer, hadn’t even hung back long enough to ask to hear the other options. She raised cooling hands to her hot face and groaned in chagrin.
She had agreed to stay married to a man who didn’t love her and who would probably never love her. A man already familiar with the limits of a marriage of convenience, a man whose sole driving interest was in retaining custody of his unborn children. There it was: the awful truth she didn’t want to face. Rafiq’s primary objective was keeping his heir and spare in Zenara and raising them in his own home. She was a prized incubator to be tended, not a woman with thoughts and needs of her own. Realistically, Rafiq was likely to tell her whatever it took to keep her in Zenara. And how did that bode for their future? Or her happiness? Could she settle for that?
‘Of course, you can’t settle for that,’ her sister told her sternly on the phone an hour later. ‘I’ll be flying in to see you in a few weeks.’
‘The plane fares to Zenara cost a fortune!’ Izzy warned her twin.
Maya laughed but it was an almost bitter laugh that made Izzy frown because she didn’t get the joke. ‘Money’s not a problem for me now,’ her sister declared. ‘We have a lot to catch up on but I’m concentrating on the fact that I’ve settled Mum and Dad’s problems for all time and no sacrifice is too great to achieve that, is it?’
‘If you’re the sacrifice, I’m not sure,’ Izzy sighed. ‘Oh, Maya, do you truly hate this job?’
‘It’s not a typical job. We’ll talk when I see you. Face to face is always better.’
But the weeks passed and in the end Maya wasn’t able to visit. First, she fell ill and said she didn’t want Izzy to visit her in Italy, which hurt but had to be accepted. And then in the aftermath she said she didn’t feel either like travelling or entertaining and that had to be accepted too, Izzy conceding that for the very first time her twin was asking for space from her. Maybe it was part of growing up and attaining adult independence, she reasoned worriedly, wondering if she had been coming across as a little too clingy and demanding in the sibling stakes while resolving to let Maya get on with forging her own path.
In the meantime, life went on in Zenara. Izzy was able to satisfy her curiosity about Rafiq’s first marriage as he began talking more freely to her. ‘The guilt after Fadith’s death was the worst burden.’ Rafiq sighed, smoothing long fingers over the firm swell of Izzy’s pregnant stomach as they lay in bed a few weeks later. ‘In truth the marriage was miserable for both of us. Fadith never attained what she most desired…a child or even the status of Queen.’
‘Was that so important to her?’ Izzy queried, running a hand down over his flat, taut stomach to stroke him with tender possessive fingertips and smile
as he stretched and groaned half under his breath, loving the effect she could have on him. ‘I mean, I can understand her desire for a child, particularly when the two of you were hoping for an heir to the throne, but I don’t really understand why being Queen was so important.’
‘Because that was why she married me. Status meant a lot to her and her family.’
‘I can’t understand that outlook.’
‘No, but then you’re different, wonderfully different,’ Rafiq growled, rolling her over to pin her beneath him. ‘Fadith never loved me, never wanted me for me. A passionate clandestine romance with one of her brother’s friends before our marriage set that in stone. He died in a car crash and she decided that she’d never love again, which is why she agreed to marry me.’
‘So, she wasn’t a virgin,’ Izzy remarked in surprise.
‘No but she was honest enough to tell me that before I agreed to marry her. I was shocked, out of my depth because I was much more naïve than she was and although virginity isn’t demanded, it is rather taken for granted in a marriage at our level. Girls are sheltered, guarded in our society,’ Rafiq confided. ‘I was more surprised that she had loved someone else.’
‘Oh, dear,’ Izzy whispered reflectively. ‘That was far too much for you to take on at sixteen.’
‘I wasn’t jealous because she felt more like a sister to me than a wife for months after we married,’ Rafiq admitted wryly. ‘That brought problems too. All she ever really seemed to want from me was a baby and, sadly, when she didn’t achieve motherhood she blamed me for it. She was totally convinced that if there was anything wrong with either of us, it had to be my problem, my flaw.’
Izzy winced, imagining what that must’ve been like for them both when the expected development failed to materialise over ten long years. ‘For me, babies were always something I knew I wanted but it was also something that was planned for way in the distant future,’ she told him absently. ‘But now that it’s something very much in the present, I’ve adjusted.’