It had stopped raining but the air was cold and damp. As he stepped out of the car he felt it seep into his bones and had a sudden wish to be at home, standing beneath the relentless heat of the desert sun.
But first he had a son to meet and a relationship to build. His heart gave a different kind of tug, and he grimaced as he turned to dismiss his driver. Then he swung back to look at the house into which Melanie had already disappeared. The car moved away as he walked up the path. As he walked inside the house seemed to stir, like a sleeping monster awakening from a long dark slumber as its senses picked up on the scent of threat.
Threat to whom? To Melanie or his son? Was it William Portreath’s ghost Rafiq could sense stirring in the shadows, watching Rafiq infiltrate his domain so he could see for himself if he was a worthy successor? He gave himself a mental shake. He wasn’t usually prone to such superstitious nonsense, he grimly mocked himself.
A sound came from the living room and he stepped into it to find Melanie on her knees in front of the fire, putting a light to the logs neatly aligned in the grate. Flames leaped to life and she was on her feet, moving round the room lighting faded old lamps, plumping faded old cushions. ‘Make yourself at home,’ she invited. ‘I need to go and change before—The fire should be okay, and I’ve switched on the central heating system so the house will heat up pretty quickly.’
For a man who had never walked into any of his many homes needing to think about what kept it heated—or cool, for that matter—Rafiq viewed all this brisk domesticity through vaguely shocked eyes. She disappeared into the hallway. He listened to her light footsteps as she ran up the stairs, and heard a door open and close. A few minutes later the clock on the mantelpiece chimed the half-hour. It was instinctive when he hitched back a snowy white shirt cuff to check the time on his state-of-the-art satellite-controlled wrist-watch and grimaced when he discovered that the old wooden-cased clock was accurate almost to the second.
Three-thirty, Melanie noted. That left them with ten short minutes before Robbie arrived back from school, and she tried not to predict what was going to happen as she scrambled out of her suit and into jeans and a pale blue sweater, then brushed her hair while avoiding any contact with a mirror because—
A ball of heat rolled in her stomach, then sank to the apex at her thighs. She caught her breath, then just stood there staring at the old-fashioned roses on the wallpaper while her head decided to play her some flashbacks from the last few hours just to make the feeling worse.
Oh, she’d behaved like an absolute wanton. What must he be thinking about her?
He—Rafiq ben Jusef Al Alain Al-Qadim. She gave him his name and was immediately hit with his naked image. Big, dark, muscular and sleek, with curling black hair following the contours of his long torso from his wide chest like an arrowhead pointing the way to the enthralling eminence of his, of his—
No. She blinked the image away, eyelashes fluttering with a terrible reluctance to let the image fade, which brought a flush to her cheeks as she slid her feet into a pair of lightweight flat shoes and tried very hard to concentrate her mind on what lay ahead of them instead of what lay behind.
She came down the stairs to the sound of a car engine idling outside the front gate. A door slammed; there was a child’s shout of ‘See you!’ and her whole body froze on a moment’s stark panic of what was about to happen.
The door was on the latch. She always made sure it was left on the latch so that Robbie could let himself in. His bag arrived first, swinging in through the door to land on the polished wood floor before he propelled himself inside. His tie was flying, as usual, his shirt collar curled up towards his chin.
‘Hi,’ he said, seeing her standing there as he closed the door behind him.
‘Hi, yourself.’ Her heart dipped and dived as she made herself walk forward on legs that felt hollow. ‘Have you had a nice day today?’
‘We’ve been making Christmas cards,’ he informed her as she went down on her haunches in front of him. ‘Mrs Dukes is going to print lots of copies so we can send them to our friends.’
‘Well, that sounds like a good idea.’ She smiled, or tried to, while anxiously straightening his shirt collar and running shaky fingers through his ruffled hair.
‘What are you doing that for?’ Robbie frowned at her. ‘I’m going to get changed in a minute.’
‘Because I have a surprise for you,’ she told him, feeling her tension hit its highest point, and feeling yet more tension coming at her in waves from inside the living room. She wondered what Rafiq was thinking, feeling—doing!
‘A surprise?’ Robbie prompted.
‘Yes.’ She smiled and straightened, then took hold of his hand. ‘A really marvellous surprise. Come and see.’
With that she led him towards the living room, heart in her mouth as she brought him to a halt in the open doorway. She felt Robbie look up, felt him stiffen, then felt her own deep sinking sensation as she looked up into Rafiq’s carved face. He was still standing where she had left him in the middle of the room, with the firelight flickering behind him. The air crashed with tension. It was sheer motherly instinct that made her swing her son to stand in front of her with his back to her, her arms wrapping themselves around him so she could feel his little heart pounding like a hammer drill.
‘Rafiq, th-this is Robbie.’ She made that first stammering introduction.
‘Robbie,’ she murmured gently to her son, ‘this is—’
‘My daddy,’ the little boy said.
No one could have predicted he was going to say that. Melanie wasn’t even aware how he knew what his father looked like; Rafiq just looked shell-shocked.
‘I saw you in a picture William showed to me,’ Robbie enlightened them. ‘You were in Egypt with a lady, but you weren’t dressed like that, though.’ He frowned at the smart Italian suit. ‘You had Arab clothes on and the lady had on a red frilly dress.’
As her son built a host of vivid pictures in his mother’s head he also began slipping through her fingers, drawn towards Rafiq as if he’d known him since birth and had simply been waiting for him to come. Through eyes gone glassy with tears and a heart almost too swollen to manage to beat, she watched Rafiq observe with bottomless black fascination as his son approached him with his head tipped back so his eyes could maintain contact with his.
Move! Melanie wanted to shout at him. Make a response! Can’t you see how brave he is being, coming to you like this? As if she’d shrieked the words out loud the stiffness faded from Rafiq’s body and he lowered his big frame to his son’s level.
‘Hello,’ he murmured rustily.
‘Hello,’ Robbie replied gravely. Black eyes searched black eyes for a few seconds. Then Robbie made his next courageous move and lifted up a hand and offered it to his father. Rafiq took it. Melanie watched through her tears as his large hand closed around her son’s tiny one.
It was the first touch, first contact. She saw Rafiq’s mouth move in response to it, then saw no more as tears blurred the rest of the tableau, and the silence throbbing all around them threatened to suffocate all three.
Then Robbie spoke again. ‘Can you ride a camel?’
A camel, Melanie repeated to herself numbly as she listened to Rafiq’s thickened reply. ‘Yes.’
‘William said you would know how. William said…’
She took the coward’s way out, turned and made a dash for the kitchen, where she gave her legs permission to fold and slid into a huddle on the floor in a corner. She pressed her face into her knees, covered her ears with her hands and waited in trembling agony for the emotions trampling through her to subside.
The telephone began to ring, cutting through everything like an unwelcome intruder. She leaped up, wiped her eyes with trembling fingers, and made herself answer it.
It was Sophia, ringing to tell her she had decided to stay the weekend in Manchester with friends. ‘How’s it going?’ she asked.
‘Robbie is with his father in the o
ther room,’ she announced huskily.
‘So he remembered to turn up.’ Sophia had called Melanie every day to check on progress and had become more hostile with every day that Rafiq hadn’t put in an appearance. ‘If he hurts that boy, I’ll—’
‘They came together like long-lost friends!’ Melanie said with a choke. ‘Give them both a few minutes and they will have me all trussed up and labelled as the bad guy for keeping them apart!’
‘Then don’t let them do it,’ Sophia said firmly. ‘You know why you kept Robbie a secret from him. Just keep on reminding yourself that the rat dumped you without cause, on the hearsay of some very twisted people, and then left you alone and damn near destitute to carry his can of oats!’
His can of oats. Melanie couldn’t help it; she laughed. ‘Thanks,’ she murmured.
‘Don’t mention it,’ Sophia dismissed. ‘I can still remember what you looked like when you turned up on William’s doorstep as fat as a pig and looking like the original bag lady. Homeless, loveless and still trying to get a line of communication through to that arrogant fool sitting comfortably on his billions.’
‘He doesn’t know that.’
‘Well, tell him!’
‘No.’ The stubborn lip protruded. ‘That belongs in the past and I am determined to concentrate only on the future.’ She paused, then decided to get the really bad news over with. ‘We—we’re getting married,’ she added reluctantly.
‘What—?’
Melanie winced. ‘We decided it was the best thing for everyone. Robbie needs him—even you agree with that, Sophia! And marriage seems to be the best way to give him the security he—’
‘Are you mad?’ her friend shrieked. ‘I’m coming home,’ she decided.
‘No!’ Melanie cried. ‘Don’t do that, Sophia! I know what I’m doing, I—’
‘You’re a babe in arms when it comes to men, is what you are, Melanie Portreath!’ the other woman derided. ‘Have you stopped for one minute to think what his motives are for suggesting such a wicked thing?’
Oh, yes, Melanie thought, she’d stopped to think. The word HOT lit itself up in block capitals, followed by the word SEX!
‘He will rush you to his desert hideout and lock you away there while he waltzes off with your son! It’s the way they do things over there! Get behind me, woman, and all that!’
‘He isn’t like that,’ she said, agitatedly twisting the ring on her finger.
‘All men are like that if they think they can get away with it!’
‘You don’t know him—’
‘Neither do you! You just slept with him once—’
Twice, Melanie silently corrected, then closed her eyes and thought—three times if you counted the last feverish grappling.
‘Then he took off, with your virginity etched on his belt,’ Sophia was saying, with no knowledge that Melanie had just taken off to a place she knew she should not be revisiting. ‘And left you behind with the word slut etched on to your blasted forehead!’
Melanie blinked. Sophia was right. She had walked around for years thinking that word was branded on her brow. She hadn’t dared trust herself with another man just in case he believed it and treated her the same way that Rafiq had done.
‘Do me a favour, Melanie, and don’t do anything stupid until I get back,’ Sophia said urgently. ‘Then we will grab your lawyer and sit down to talk through all of this.’
‘Okay.’ It made a lot of sense—more sense than she had been making all day, for that matter. ‘But don’t cut short your weekend or I won’t forgive you!’
The call ended with Sophia reluctantly agreeing to wait until Monday before she began her crusade to save Melanie from a fate worse than death. Melanie put the telephone back on its rest, feeling a whole lot better for having had Sophia talk stubborn strength back into her.
It lasted only as long as it took her to prepare Robbie’s favourite meal of pasta with tuna then to go in search of the two of them. She found them in William’s study, and the moment she stepped through the door her new-found strength collapsed like a house of cards.
The room itself said everything about the man who had spent most of his life in it. The walls were lined with books, the furniture was so old it was threadbare. The fire wasn’t lit and the two high-wing-backed chairs that flanked the fireplace looked as if they had been there for centuries. There was a chill in the air because the room was so rarely used these days, but someone had closed the heavy velvet curtains across the window and had switched on the faded table-lamps.
William’s big old desk stood in the window. Robbie had pulled a chair up to it to kneel on while Rafiq stood beside him. Both of them had lost their jackets, both dark heads were close as they pored over the huge map that had been spread out across the top of the desk. Robbie was using an elbow to support his chin, Rafiq the flat of a hand as he listened to his son tell him all about the Arabian state of Rahman as if he had lived most of his life there.
‘William said the river here keeps the valley fertile. And the mountains have snow on them in the winter,’ Robbie was explaining casually. ‘He said that you can walk for six days without seeing anything but sand, and that your daddy built this huge place—here—for the camel trains to use when they need to take a rest.’
His finger was pointing knowledgeably, but Rafiq wasn’t watching it. He was watching his son. The light from the desk lamp caught both sets of features, one young and smooth and contentedly serious, the other carved like wood to represent total infatuation.
‘William said you have the biggest oasis in the country. Is that true?’ He looked up, big brown eyes fixing on their older matching pair.
‘It belongs to my father.’ Rafiq nodded. ‘It is called the Al-Qadim Oasis. My—home is there.’
‘Yes.’ The boy looked away again, graver now, worried a little. ‘William said that your daddy is poorly. Is he feeling better? Is that why you’ve come to visit me?’
‘I came because—yes…’ Rafiq paused, then answered, ‘he is a little better.’
‘Good.’ Robbie nodded. ‘William was poorly for a long time before he—Shall we look at the photographs now?’
‘How about some supper first?’ Melanie inserted, trying hard to keep the thickening tears from sounding in her voice.
Both looked up; both straightened. One smiled at her; the other didn’t. ‘Hi,’ Robbie said. ‘I was just telling my daddy about Rahman.’
My daddy clutched at a tender spot inside her. ‘That’s nice.’ She tried a smile but couldn’t quite pull it off. ‘But it’s getting late. Why don’t you go and get washed and changed now? It’s your favourite for supper.’
‘Tuna? Oh, great!’ At once he was her little boy again, all beaming smiles and bouncing energy that had him leaping from the chair to land neatly on the faded carpet. He came towards her with a jaunty little stride—then stopped, the smile fading from his face as he turned to look at Rafiq. ‘You won’t go while I’m upstairs, will you?’ he said cautiously.
‘No, I won’t go,’ Rafiq promised him.
‘Great,’ Robbie said again, then grinned widely. ‘Great!’ he repeated, and was running out of the room, leaving two adults with a fallout he would never understand in a million years.
The moment they were alone Rafiq turned his back on her, broad shoulders like rods as he stared down at the map. ‘I will never forgive you for this,’ he breathed harshly.
‘Won’t forgive me for what?’ she took the challenge head-on.
‘This!’ he rasped, waving a hand across the spread map. ‘He knows more about Rahman than I know about it! He can plot a track across the desert from one of my homes to another!’ he stated harshly. ‘And he has learned it all from another man!’
‘William—’
‘Yes, William!’ he incised, then gave his big shoulders a shrug, as if to rid them of whatever it was that was sitting on them. ‘I think it is time you told me about William Portreath,’ he demanded tightly.
Tension spun through every tight syllable, bitterness and anger and—yes, Melanie realised there was a burning jealousy for the love and affection Robbie felt for William.
CHAPTER SEVEN
RAFIQ did not know what he was feeling. He tried grabbing in a lungful of air in effort to control himself, but he was way past the point of controlling anything. The last hour had been heaven and hell wrapped in one package. He had never felt such instant attachment to another human being, and all that person could talk about was William Portreath.
He turned to glare at Melanie. She was standing in the doorway looking wary and stubborn, and it was clear she did not want to have this kind of discussion with him.
‘Please,’ he ground out from his chest like the rattle of a pistol.
With a little jerk she swung the door almost shut behind her, her fingers still clutching at the handle and her shoulders straight and tense.
‘Okay,’ she agreed reluctantly. ‘What is it that you want to know?
His teeth gritted at the reluctance, and his chest clenched at the rebellious expression on her beautiful face. But he had a right to know, dammit! ‘Exactly what was William Portreath to you?’
‘If you’d read my papers you would know what he was,’ she returned. ‘William was my great-uncle on my mother’s side. He made his fortune travelling the world as a diamond merchant before coming back to England to retire.’
Her left hand appeared from behind her back and she glanced down at the diamond ring circling her finger. So did Rafiq, and he felt his skin prickle when he remembered the safety deposit box listed in her assets; it was packed full of diamonds that could probably kill the sparkle in the ones she wore on her finger.
‘You were his only beneficiary,’ he said, as if that had anything to do with all this. It didn’t. He was just linking one thought with another.
‘I didn’t know that until he’d died,’ Melanie made clear. ‘In fact I did not even know of William’s existence until my twenty-first birthday, when a letter arrived from Randal’s firm informing me that I was William’s heir and he would like to meet me,’ she explained. ‘So I agreed to come here to see him, and found myself faced with this crabby old eccentric.’ An odd little smile softened the defiance from her mouth. ‘We had a fight—’
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