by Lynne Graham
‘I was too proud to confront you with my suspicions. I will regret that for the rest of my life,’ Rauf admitted in a roughened undertone, his hard-boned, devastatingly handsome features taut. ‘But the conviction that you could never have felt for me what I felt for you because you loved someone else made the most sense to me then. I was devastated…too devastated to judge the facts with intelligence or even keep them in proportion. To save face, I said nothing.’
‘Oh, Rauf…’ Lily whispered unsteadily, her gaze clinging to his remorseful gaze. ‘Do all Turkish men have such colourful imaginations?’
‘We’re a passionate people. But, between you and I, the greatest weakness was that too much had been left unsaid,’ Rauf conceded half under his breath, rational thought receding as he met her beautiful eyes and struggled to concentrate.
Electric tension hummed between them in the stillness of the grassy glade.
‘Left unsaid…’ Lily echoed, mouth running dry, a languorous, wanton heat infiltrating her with the desire that he could awaken so easily.
Rauf bent his dark head and kissed her just once in a stormy surge of pent-up hunger that made her quiver with almost painful longing. As he jerked back from her, releasing his breath in a stark exhalation at the cost of that restraint, she was tempted to haul him greedily back to her.
‘In a couple of days, we’ll be together again, güzelim,’ he framed unevenly, catching her hand in his, pressing his lips to the centre of her palm. ‘I want that to be special.’
They flew back to Istanbul in the helicopter that afternoon. At the airport, Rauf received a call informing him of a dispute at one of his newspapers. With a longsuffering groan, he tucked her into the limousine that would take her back to his family home while he went into the office to deal with the threatened strike. ‘I might not be able to make it back in time to take everyone out for dinner as I promised,’ he warned her ruefully.
He did not make it back in time and, although the rest of his family went ahead on their own, Lily was feeling tired and, aware that her own relatives would be arriving the next day, she decided to have an early night instead. After a light meal, she was about to do exactly that when a maid entered to tell her that she had a visitor. Every evening over the preceding week Lily had sat with the matriarchs and received formal visits and gifts of gold jewellery from the older generation of guests who would be attending their wedding. On this occasion, shorn of the helpful support of Rauf’s family, Lily could only hope that her unlucky last-minute visitor spoke a little English.
But when she walked into the airy drawing-room the welcoming smile on her lips fell away as her aghast gaze landed on the tall, lanky blond man posed by the fireplace.
Brett gave her an unpleasant smile. ‘Didn’t I tell you I’d see you soon?’
CHAPTER TEN
FOR possibly the longest moment of her existence, Lily was frozen to the spot.
She stared back at Brett with a choking sensation of fear in her throat and goose-flesh prickling the nape of her neck. Yet even as she looked, incredulous that he should have taken the risk of not only coming to Turkey, but also daring to visit her at the Kasabian home, she was noting the changes in him. Usually a very sharp dresser, he was wearing a crumpled suit, he needed a shave and his pale blue eyes were bloodshot. As he moved forward she got a whiff of the sour smell of alcohol and recognised the ennervated edge of desperation he was striving to conceal.
‘I know all the Kasabians are out tonight,’ Brett told her in an effort to intimidate her. ‘I watched them leave the house and I’m sure you’ll want to keep this little courtesy call of mine to yourself.’
‘And why would I want to do that?’ Although Lily’s own voice emerged faint in tone, she was already overcoming her old instinctive fear of him and seeing him with the eyes of a woman rather than a frightened teenager. The family might be out but the door onto the hall was still ajar and she knew that one of the staff would be hovering out there, waiting to receive the expected request for tea for her visitor.
‘How could you think I would be dumb enough to credit that Rauf Kasabian had married you within a couple of days of your arrival here? Give me a break,’ Brett mocked. ‘The wedding of the year doesn’t take place until the day after tomorrow. I was able to read that in one of Kasabian’s own newspapers. But the wedding of the year won’t take place at all if I start shooting my mouth off…’
In spite of the knowledge that she could have nothing to fear from Brett and that she and Rauf were already married, a cold, chilled sensation infiltrated Lily’s stomach, a hangover from the bad old days when Brett had seemed to second-guess her at every turn. She wanted to call the police but realised that she did not even know what phone number she needed to use, nor how she could contrive to leave Brett alone without making him suspicious.
‘Won’t it?’ Lily lifted her chin and studied him with loathing. ‘You can’t hurt me any more.’
An unattractive flush of colour mottled Brett’s sallow skin. ‘Can’t I? Let me share a secret with you. Kasabian’s cash payments on that contract were never made and, sooner or later, the news that that money has gone missing will emerge and all hell is going to break loose at Harris Travel. But if you tell Rauf about that now, you’ll be in big trouble too.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Lily countered drily without turning a hair in receipt of what Brett had evidently hoped would be a bombshell.
Brett’s full mouth twisted. ‘Well, that just proves how stupid you are, because when I set up another bank account to syphon those payments off I put your name on that account too! If I go down, I’ll take you down with me. I’ll say we had an affair and that you were in on the theft every step of the way with me. So, you’d better keep quiet until you get that wedding ring on your finger—’
‘Still the same old threats and they’re sounding very tired,’ Lily cut in with angry contempt. ‘You’re not dealing with a scared little teenager now and I know you have to be very scared to have risked coming over here—’
‘Go upstairs, Lily…’ Another achingly familiar male voice intervened from behind her. ‘I’ll deal with this.’
In the seconds that followed Rauf’s quiet entrance, Brett succumbed to panic. Surging forward just as Lily spun round in surprise and relief to see Rauf, Brett gave Lily a violent shove out of his path in an effort to reach the door and Rauf went for him like a lion. But Rauf only managed to land one powerful punch on the other man before registering that Lily, who had been smashed up against the wall, had fallen. Rauf’s rage that Gilman should have dared to approach his wife with threats again was overpowered by his fear that Lily might have been seriously hurt.
Dizzy and winded by that fall, Lily was gathered with anxious care into Rauf’s arms and lifted over to the nearest couch. ‘Are you all right?’ he demanded rawly.
‘Brett?’ she gasped.
The slam of the front door answered that query and Rauf groaned out loud in frustration. ‘I came back minutes after he arrived and I called the police immediately. I should’ve stayed out of the room until they arrived but I couldn’t stand to hear him threatening you!’
‘I’m just glad he’s gone,’ Lily confided unevenly.
Thinking that having Gilman arrested and charged just before their wedding might have cast something of a pall over the festivities, Rauf just held her close and wished he had contrived to get more than one healthy punch in.
‘And I’m so grateful there wasn’t a fight,’ Lily added.
Again, Rauf said nothing, knowing that she would be dismayed by the admission that he felt seriously deprived of what had very probably been his one and only opportunity to pulverise the vicious little creep. He ushered Lily upstairs to her room and then went back down to deal with the police.
Lily’s family arrived the following afternoon. Douglas Harris looked brighter than he had in months and her three nieces were bubbling over with excitement. After a slew of necessary introductions and socialising and talk
ing to her father, who was full of praise for Rauf, Lily took Hilary into another room so that they could talk in private.
Her sister enveloped her straight into an unusually emotional hug before sighing. ‘I didn’t phone because I had too much to tell you. For starters, this week I heard that Brett and my erstwhile friend, Janice, had split up.’
‘Oh…good,’ Lily pronounced. ‘That’s justice.’
‘Well, it may well be.’ Hilary gave her a wry scrutiny. ‘Apparently, Brett has done something dishonest with Janice’s divorce settlement and the police are involved there too. There’s a rumour that he’s been gambling—’
‘Gambling?’
‘I suspect that explains what he did with all the cash he helped himself to from Harris Travel,’ Hilary said with fierce resentment. ‘But I can be grateful for two things…one, that Brett has been such a useless father that the girls won’t ever miss what they’ve never had, and two, thank goodness, I wised up to what a louse I’d married years ago!’
Lily blinked at that blunt and surprising assurance. ‘You…did?’
‘Unfortunately, I hadn’t the slightest idea that he couldn’t be trusted with money,’ Hilary conceded heavily. ‘But just before Joy was born I realised that he was running round with other women. By then, though, Dad had gone and signed over the house and that and the girls made me feel that I had to try and keep our marriage together—’
‘I can understand that, but if you didn’t love Brett any more why did you always look so sad after the divorce whenever he was mentioned?’ Lily prompted.
Her older sister winced. ‘Put that down to the awful knowledge that I’ve wasted the last few years of my life. I just got on with being a mother and I turned a blind eye to Brett’s affairs. If I had ever dreamt what was really going on under my own stupid nose, if I had known that, way before you even left school, Brett was threatening you…’ she breathed painfully and slowly shook her head with bitter regret ‘…I’d have slaughtered Brett long ago!’
Thrown by that declaration, for Lily had still had no plans to tell her sister quite how low her ex-husband had sunk in the more distant past, Lily exclaimed, ‘How did you find out?’
‘Rauf brought me up to date and, no, don’t you dare criticise him for interfering because I just know that you weren’t ever going to tell me!’ Hilary admitted ruefully. ‘And after finding out about that, learning that my ex-husband is on the run from the Turkish police didn’t phase me at all. If I knew where Brett was, I’d hand him over personally—’
‘Are you serious?’ Lily interrupted, for she had been wondering how on earth they would cope if Brett was caught before the wedding and had feared that her sister would be very distressed by any such development.
‘I want him prosecuted and locked up too.’ Hilary breathed in deep, her fine features rigid and flushed with anger. ‘In fact, when Rauf told me about Brett having the neck to come here last night and try his old tricks on you, my blood just boiled!’
The sisters talked for over an hour and then Lily finally asked Hilary what she thought of Rauf.
‘He just adores you. It shines out of him like a light,’ Hilary quipped with sudden amusement. ‘Why are you looking surprised? I mean, you’ve got to know that after he hauled you off to the altar so fast. I couldn’t believe it!’
He adores you. Lily almost mentioned that Rauf had rushed into that civil ceremony primarily out of a wish to protect her reputation, but thought better of it because she could see that Hilary was charmed by the belief that she was on the sidelines of a true romance. Rauf was warm, tender, romantic and everything she had always known he could be, but he had yet to mention that word ‘love’ and Lily was already so happy that she was determined not to let that bother her.
At dawn the following morning, the pre-wedding preparations began. Lily was ushered out to the hamam, wrapped in a sturdy sarong and, surrounded by animated women, whisked through the entire invigorating process of being warmed, cooled down again by playful scoops of cool water tossed over her and then enveloped in loads of bubbles from head to toe and scrubbed by a lady built like a human tank with an abrasive mitt. It was fun and Lily giggled a lot. Finally rinsed clean while Hilary looked on in awe, Lily’s hair was subjected to a camomile bath that left the strands as sleek and glossy as pure silk, and she was settled onto a couch where she was massaged with fragrant oil. Far from it being the over-vigorous process she had feared, it was very relaxing.
In the outer room, she was served with apple tea and her nails were manicured before an elaborate henna pattern was painted onto her right hand. ‘To soothe Nelispah,’ Rauf’s mother whispered, explaining that the old lady had been a little disappointed to be told that Lily would not be entering the hotel ballroom, where the wedding would be celebrated, on the back of a white horse.
A couple of hours later, Lily pirouetted in front of a full-length mirror, hopelessly in love with her gorgeous wedding gown. The simple traditional design she had selected made the most of the exquisite fabric. An elaborate and beautiful gold necklace arrived from Rauf as a bride gift and Nelispah’s bright gaze shone as much as Lily’s at that evidence of custom being observed. Beneath her gown, Lily wore a blue satin garter that Hilary had given her as well as the raciest set of silk lingerie in her possession and when her nieces, Penny, Gemma and Joy, danced in to surprise her with their pretty bridesmaids’ dresses she was delighted.
She left the Kasabian home on her proud father’s arm to climb into an open carriage drawn by two white horses. But without a doubt the moment that was the highlight of her day was when she entered the opulent hotel and saw Rauf waiting for her. He just stared with such blatant appreciation that she blushed, her own gaze equally absorbed in taking in how drop-dead gorgeous her husband looked in a superb dark suit.
‘You take my breath away, güzelim,’ he confided huskily, dark golden eyes possessive as the wedding march was played and he led her into the ballroom with their families and all the guests trooping in behind them.
The ceremony over, they ate a meal that began with the official wedding soup and afterwards they cut the cake and offered it round to their relatives. Rauf claimed a kiss at that point that sent her heartbeat racing.
‘I wasn’t expecting that,’ she confided breathlessly as he whirled her out onto the floor to begin the dancing.
‘Perfectly acceptable at our wedding.’ His brilliant smile warmed her like the bright clear Turkish sunlight. ‘But don’t be surprised when I disappear later. My family bring my bride to the very door of my home and then we get a month’s break from the whole lot of them—’
‘I love your family!’ Lily protested.
‘Tomorrow we set off on our honeymoon cruise round the coast on my yacht,’ Rauf imparted with satisfaction. ‘And if we get tired of that, we can go anywhere, do anything—’
‘Or sneak back to Sonngul,’ Lily whispered. ‘It still feels like my favourite place in the world.’
Her own family were staying on for a week’s vacation with Rauf’s family and Lily parted from them with farewell hugs to be borne off in a limousine containing Nelispah and Manolya, for the bridegroom’s mother was not allowed to play a part in delivering the bride to her future home.
Set down before yet another ancient and huge house where Rauf awaited her, Lily laughed as he swept her off her feet and carried her indoors. ‘It’s been a wonderful, wonderful day,’ she told him happily.
‘It’s not quite finished yet.’ Rauf set her down with pronounced care and guided her into a glorious light-filled bedroom that overlooked the very waters of the Bosphorus. ‘Do you know that I have never said the words, “I love you” to any woman and even today I feel ashamed to offer you my love?’
‘Ashamed?’ Lily studied him in shaken disbelief.
‘But my love is yours, for what it is worth, and it always has been,’ Rauf proclaimed tautly, lodged by the French windows that opened out onto a deck festooned with tubs of beautiful flowers.
>
‘Always has been…’ Lily parrotted, mesmerised by the sight of Rauf struggling to find words that were so obviously difficult for him to speak, scarcely able to even think about what he was telling her.
‘At nineteen, I was infatuated with Kasmet, but I never knew love until I met you. She only hurt my pride and gave me an excuse to say marriage wasn’t for me,’ Rauf murmured grimly. ‘You know, I’m still very angry about her telling you those ridiculous lies this week.’
‘Forget about that. She was just envious and wanting to spoil my happiness,’ Lily said dismissively, far more interested in what he had admitted just a minute earlier.
‘Three years ago, when we first met, I was a slick operator or, at least, I thought I was.’ His wide, sensual mouth twisted with a derision directed at himself. ‘I wanted you on my terms and you were worthy of much more, but success with too many other women had made me arrogant and selfish. My obstinate belief that I would never marry almost destroyed our relationship—’
‘You still bought that diamond ring I wear back then,’ Lily reminded him gently, her blue eyes soft with love.
Dark colour accentuated his fabulous cheekbones. ‘I was still immature. The ring would have been given then with a certain amount of resentment that I could win you no other way,’ he admitted heavily. ‘That is nothing to be proud of either. But this time around, from the outset of our first meeting, I was even worse—’
‘How?’
‘I was just eaten by jealousy of Gilman. I thought you were only in Turkey because he had taken off with another woman. When I realised you were a virgin, I was shattered, but that bitter jealousy was so ingrained in me after three years that I just moved on to suspecting that, even though you hadn’t had an affair with him, you had loved him. Those first couple of days we were together, I acted like a guy with only one not very reliable brain cell.’