She didn’t want an apology. ‘I have to speak to Randal!’ She was becoming hysterical. ‘When will he be back?’
‘He didn’t say…’
‘W-well…’ Melanie took in a breath and tried to calm herself ‘…I need you to get him on his mobile phone and tell him I have s-speak to him urgently.’
‘Yes, Mrs Portreath. I will try to contact him for you but I can’t promise. He tends to switch off his mobile when he’s in a meeting, you see.’
Melanie placed the receiver back on its rest, then sank weakly against the wall and put a hand up to cover her aching eyes.
‘What was all that about?’ Sophia questioned.
‘I left my papers on Rafiq’s desk,’ she breathed. ‘How could I have been so stupid!’
The covering hand began to tremble. On a sigh, Sophia came to place an arm across her shoulders. ‘Okay, calm down,’ she murmured soothingly. ‘I think you need to remember that he didn’t give you much chance to do otherwise,’ she pointed out.
No, he hadn’t, Melanie agreed. He’d just got rid of her. He’d heard enough—had enough—and had just got up and marched her out! Sophia almost copied him by marching her back to the kitchen table and sitting her down again, only her friend used a guiding arm to do it whereas Rafiq hadn’t even spared her a glance, never mind touched her! As if she was unclean. As if he would have contaminated himself if he’d remained in her company too long.
A shudder ripped through her. ‘Stop shaking,’ Sophia commanded. ‘The man isn’t worth the grief.’
But Melanie didn’t want to stop shaking. She wanted to shiver and shake and remember another time when he’d done almost the same thing. She had followed him back to London, had almost had hysterics in her desire to get inside his embassy and plead with him. What she’d met with when she’d eventually been granted an audience had been Rafiq locked into his Arab persona, about to attend some formal function dressed in a dark red cloak, white tunic and wearing a white gut rah on his head. He’d looked taller and leaner, foreign and formidable. His face had taken on a whole new appearance: harder, savage, honed to emulate some cold-eyed, winged predator. ‘Get out.’ He’d said those two immortal words then turned his back on her to stride away.
‘Melanie, if he still despises you as much as you think he does, he will probably consign your papers to the bin without bothering to read them.’
‘Yes.’ She liked that scenario.
‘But would it be a very bad thing if he did read them?’ Sophia then dared to suggest. ‘At least he would know everything—which is what you wanted, remember? It was why you decided to go to see him in the first place.’
Sophia was holding onto her hands while trying to talk some good sense into the situation. But she hadn’t been there this morning; she hadn’t seen the size of the mistake Melanie had made. It had been huge; she’d been damned by her own foolish optimism, letting the years soften Rafiq’s hard image until she’d actually begun to question whether she had been fair to him.
William had helped by gently nudging her in this direction. Dear, sweet, gentle William who, like herself, hadn’t liked to see bad in anyone. But even William’s advice had only been wise with all the facts laid before him. If Rafiq did decide to read those papers they would only tell him half the story. As for the other half—
Well, that half belonged to his eagerness to believe badly of her simply because people had told him to.
But, no. She sighed. There had been so much more to it than words of poison spoken into his ear. He had seen her with Jamie. It had all been so desperately damning. And explainable, she reminded herself, if he had only given her the chance to explain. He hadn’t and still wouldn’t. That hadn’t changed. He still looked at her and saw her through the unforgiving eyes of a half-Arab man with his feet firmly entrenched in cultural principles and a deep-rooted belief that all women were natural sinners.
And she no longer wanted a man like that to come anywhere near her son so he could contaminate him with his poisonous view of her.
‘Melanie—’
No. She scrunched her hands free, then got to her feet. She didn’t want to talk about it any more. For what was the use in talking when it was basically too late? All she could hope for now was that Randal would come through for her and manage to retrieve her stuff before Rafiq decided to feed his hatred by reading things that he really did not want to know.
‘What are you doing at home at this time of the day, anyway?’ she asked Sophia as an abrupt change of subject. ‘I thought you were supposed to be wowing them all in some court or other.’
‘The case was adjourned,’ Sophia explained. ‘And I’m off to wow them in Manchester tomorrow, so I decided to come home to pack a bag and catch a flight up there today. I’ve got friends there I haven’t seen in ages—but I’ve changed my mind,’ she then added swiftly. ‘I’m going to stay here with you, just in case—’
‘No, you’re not.’ Mouth set in a stubborn line, Melanie glared at her with a warning look. ‘I had a bad experience today but I’m all right,’ she insisted, and to prove it she gathered up the tea mugs and took them to the sink. ‘Maybe I even needed it to help me move on from the past.’
‘You believe you can do that?’ Sophia sounded sceptical.
Maybe she was right to. ‘I have no choice.’ Just as soon as I’ve got my papers back, she thought with a shiver. ‘Because I won’t be repeating the same mistake twice.’
It was such a complete, final statement that Sophia didn’t even attempt to say another word. Ten minutes later she’d gone, leaving Melanie with the rest of the afternoon stretching out in front of her like a long dark road filled with nerve-stretching uncertainty—and a heartache she didn’t want to feel.
She called Randal’s office three times with no satisfaction. Actually picked up the phone to call Rafiq’s secretary, only to change her mind when his final words came back to hit her full in the face. She would not even get beyond the main switchboard.
How could a man fester in such hatred that it could make him want to humiliate her like that? Tears threatened again; she swallowed them down and went upstairs to change out of her suit. As she removed the jacket she caught sight of herself in the mirror, saw the black lacy bra and relived the feeling of long brown fingers staking their claim. She shuddered, despising herself for being so easy, finished removing the suit and scrambled into a pair of faded old jeans and a roll-neck top that covered everything. By the time she walked downstairs a few minutes later she was the casual Melanie her son was used to seeing when he arrived home from school. No sign of designer clothes left anywhere for him to pick up on. No hint that she’d been doing anything today that was different from any other day.
Robbie arrived with a shout and a bump of his school bag against the polished hall floor. She turned from chopping vegetables at the sink to watch him come in through the kitchen door. His maroon and gold striped tie had flipped over his shoulder, and beneath his gaping school blazer she could see the white tails of his shirt hanging free from grey school trousers. One grey sock was up, the other was down, and his glossy black hair looked as if it had been in a fight.
Her heart dropped like a stricken bird, because even with his rumpled appearance he was hitting her hard with his father’s image.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Guess what we did today?’
‘What?’ she asked.
He frowned. ‘Are you catching a cold?’
Melanie shook her head and tried swallowing the tears again. ‘Just need to clear my throat.’ Which she did. ‘So what did you do today?’ she prompted.
‘We went to the park to collect fallen leaves that looked like skelintons, then took them back to press some into a books and draw round others.’
‘Skeletons,’ Melanie corrected.
‘Skeletons,’ he dutifully repeated. ‘Do you want to see?’
‘Of course I want to see,’ she answered. ‘But not before I get my hug.’
With a grin
that could knock her eyes out he came towards her, a tall boy for his seven years. Melanie squatted down and opened her arms to receive him. As she hugged him close she felt another wave of emotion threaten. She must have sniffed, because Robbie jerked his head back.
Eyes as dark as his father’s looked into hers, only they weren’t the same, because this pair of eyes were darkened by love and warmth and concern whereas that other pair…
‘Are you sure you’re not catching a cold?’ he demanded.
‘Robbie,’ she said firmly, ‘I am not catching a cold, all right?’
It was a mother’s voice, the I-know-everything voice. He continued to study her for a moment, then nodded his head. ‘I’ll go and get my bag.’
End of small developing crisis, Melanie thought with a sigh. Since William had died Robbie had lived in fear that she was going to follow him. Every sneeze, every twitch, every minor ouch could shake him to the core with fear.
They played with the leaves, drew some more, ate supper, watched some television then eventually went upstairs to play games in his bath before curling up on his bed to read stories. By eight o’clock he was fast asleep and Melanie had given up on expecting Randal to call.
For the next hour she tried to keep herself busy doing the usual mundane chores. They’d used to employ a housekeeper, but she’d decided to retire when William had died and there seemed no point in employing another when there was only two of them to be looked after now. But the house was big—too big for both of them. A large Edwardian terraced home, with five bedrooms and four main reception rooms, it deserved a large noisy family to fill it, not two people who seemed to rattle around in it these days.
Melanie missed William, she missed Lucy the housekeeper, and she missed having only to open a couple of doors to find someone else there when she felt in need of company. As she felt now, she admitted, when she found herself standing in the front living room just staring into space.
Diversions, diversions, she told herself forcefully, and had just decided to go upstairs and indulge in a long hot bath in the hopes that it would ease some of the stress from her aching body when the sound of a car drawing up outside caught her ear. On legs that had suddenly turned very heavy she walked to the window and twitched back the edge of a curtain. As soon as she saw the low black monster crouching by the front gate she knew the long anxious wait was over.
Rafiq climbed out of his car and set the central locking system, then turned to view Melanie’s home. It stood in the middle of an Edwardian terrace, brick-faced and solid-looking, with an iron gate leading to a small garden and a narrow porch with a half-stained-glass front door. One big bay window sat on each side of the porch and three flat windows faced the upper floor.
Did one of those windows belong to his son’s bedroom?
Even thinking the word son threatened to lock him up inside. He saw a curtain twitch in a downstairs window, felt a cold winter gust of wind wipe what was left of the colour from his face.
An omen? he wondered, and had to accept that it probably was. This was not going to be easy. He was still in a deep state of shock and Randal had advised him to stay away until he had given himself time to recover. But Randal was not him. The other man could have no conception what was it was like to be him at this present moment. For how was he supposed to balance logic on the top of raging emotion? It was impossible. He was just swinging from one dark place to another with no respite in between. He had spent the whole afternoon with Randal Soames, swinging like that between a raging fury aimed entirely at Melanie and a heart-clutching sense of dismay at what he had almost tossed away today.
The curtain in a downstairs window gave a second twitch. Just before it fell back into place he caught a glimpse of Melanie’s face. She had seen him. He must go in now. Had he actually been considering going away without doing so?
He didn’t know, was no longer sure of anything. Half an hour ago he had been pacing his apartment; now he was here without recalling what had happened in between. He was the most controlled man he knew—prided himself on it—but control of any kind had completely deserted him. Pride, they said, usually came before a fall. Well, he was falling, had not stopped falling since he’d glanced at a piece of paper in his office and had seen the name Robert Joseph Alan Portreath typed in bold print in the middle of a blur of legal jargon.
Robert had been Melanie’s father’s name, but Joseph Alan belonged to him—Rafiq ben Jusef Al Alain Al-Qadim.
His throat moved on an attempt to swallow, his eyes growing glassy as he reached for the gate. It swung inwards with a creak of ageing wrought iron. As he stepped through it he caught sight of a figure through the stained-glass door and knew that Melanie was coming to open the door for him.
Don’t touch the bell! Melanie prayed feverishly as she made a last dash to get the door open before the shrill ring could fill the house and wake up Robbie.
It was like one of those nightmares where you opened the door to find yourself staring at the darkest force you could ever imagine. Big and broad and dressed entirely in black, Rafiq filled the narrow porch like a huge black shadow, blocking the light from the street behind him and taking the air from her lungs.
He believed. It was written there in every sharply angled feature, in the clench of his jaw and the muscle-locked stiffness of his big frame.
‘Invite me in.’
His voice sounded like sawdust. Melanie tried to get a grip on her pounding heartbeat. ‘It’s late.’ Like a coward she went for the easy route. ‘I w-was just going to bed. W-why don’t you come back tomorrow and we we’ll—?’
‘Invite me in, Melanie,’ he repeated grimly.
‘So that you can insult me again?’
‘Probably.’ He grimaced. ‘I cannot be sure what I am going to do. I’m in shock,’ he admitted.
Melanie could see it. ‘All the more reason for you to come back tomorrow, when—’
His eyes gave a sudden flash. It was the only warning she got before she was being picked up by a pair of tough arms and bodily carried into the hall then into the living room.
‘How dare you?’ She gasped as he dropped her to her feet again.
He didn’t bother to answer, instead he turned and strode back into the hallway, leaving her standing there shaking in her shoes and burning like fire down the front of her body where it had been crushed against his. She heard the front door click into its housing, heard his footsteps bringing him back this way. He stepped into the room, then closed this door also.
One look at his face here in the better light of the living room had her mentally backing away. Whatever all the hovering outside had been about, it hadn’t communicated the anger she was being faced with now. He was in a rage, and a six-foot-four-inch male with a body to match his height was not what you wanted running loose in your house.
‘I think y-you need to calm down a bit,’ she stammered as he came towards her. ‘You’re in sh-shock, and you might not know w-what you’re—’
‘Shock,’ he repeated so softly that she shivered. ‘You think this is shock?’
‘Angry, then,’ she amended with a wary shrug and a gasp when the backs of her knees made contact with the arm of a chair. ‘I can understand why you might feel you have the right to be. But—’
‘Let us get one thing straight.’ He cut across her. His mouth was thin and his eyes even narrower. ‘I have the right to throttle the life from you for what you have done to me. But all I want from you are some acceptable answers!’
‘Then back off—’
Back off? Rafiq stared down into her beautiful frightened face and blinked in complete astonishment. There was little more than an inch separating them. In fact he was standing so close she was arching her back in an effort to maintain the distance.
He was stunned. The red-hot rage had surged up out of nowhere, catching hold of him the moment he’d seen her standing at her door looking like the old Melanie, in jeans and worn-out old trainers. The years had fallen away and h
e’d found himself swapping new grievances for old grievances.
On a deep-throated curse he spun away from her, put a hand to the back of his neck and gripped. Behind him he could hear the uneven tug of her breathing, could feel her wariness, her fear. He closed his eyes and tried to get a hold on what was threatening to overwhelm him. He was a mess inside and the feeling was so alien that he didn’t know how to deal with it.
‘I apologise,’ he muttered.
‘It’s all right,’ she answered, but it was still the voice of fear.
He heard her movements as she edged warily sideways, heard the scrape of metal on metal and turned, a sense of pained horror filling him with dismay. She was standing by the fireplace and clenched in one hand was a brass poker. His eyes turned black and his stillness was suddenly electric. She believed him to be so dangerous that she armed herself against him.
‘You don’t need that, Melanie,’ he said huskily.
He wasn’t standing in her shoes, Melanie thought anxiously. He hadn’t seen the look in his eyes just before he’d turned away. ‘W-when you calm down I’ll put it down,’ she promised.
But she was shaking. Inside and out she was shaking. The way he ran those eyes over her she had a horrible feeling it would take him less than a second to disarm her if he decided to. He was big, he was strong, and he was also an expert in unarmed combat. She’d watched him in action once, in the Maitlands’ all-purpose gym, when she’d gone in with a fresh stack of towels, only to find herself pulled to a complete standstill by the sight of him stripped to the waist and sparring with his brother. Sheikh Hassan had been stripped to the waist too, but she couldn’t recall what he looked like. Only this man, moving with a speed and dexterous grace that belied his size and weight. He’d seen her standing there and had stopped to stare; within seconds he’d been flat on his back with his brother pinning him there. ‘Such distraction is very unfair,’ he’d sighed out complainingly and, as Sheikh Hassan had glanced up to see what he was talking about their positions had been smoothly reversed.
Man pitched against man, power against power, slick and smooth and so inherently masculine, with rippling muscles and the gleam of their bronzed flesh and the scent of the efforts permeating the air. She’d turned and run.
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