‘Then, I am very pleased to meet you, Robert Portreath,’ she said gravely.
‘You’re English?’ he said.
‘Like your mother.’ She nodded.
‘You have very pretty hair and eyes.’
‘And that,’ Leona murmured sagely as she straightened, ‘is most definitely the Al-Qadim charm. Hello, Rafiq,’ she added gently.
‘My lady,’ he returned with a sweeping bow that held Melanie transfixed in surprise—until she realised she was seeing some kind of in-joke being enacted here, because both pairs of eyes were warm with amusement.
Then Rafiq was introducing his son to Sheikh Hassan, who bent to shake Robbie’s hand very formally. When he straightened his eyes made that fleeting contact with Melanie’s again.
It was Robbie who broke this next moment of tension. ‘Where is my new grandfather?’ he wanted to know.
All pleasure—forced or otherwise—instantly dropped away from everyone. Rafiq looked to his brother; his brother gave a reply. ‘He is in his rooms,’ his said quietly. ‘He knows you have arrived.’
‘Is he still ill?’
‘Ah,’ Hassan grimaced. ‘His health is just fine; it is his temper that is threatening to fail him.’
It was automatic for Melanie to reach for Robbie, protecting her son being her paramount need. Rafiq noted the gesture and his expression hardened. ‘You used to be famed for your diplomacy, Hassan,’ he drawled.
‘My apologies.’ Hassan offered Melanie the kind of half-bow she was used to receiving from him. ‘I was referring to our father’s impatience at us keeping him waiting.’
It was a slick recovery, but a lie nonetheless. Rafiq saw Melanie’s giveaway expression, went to claim Robbie’s hand, then slipped his other hand back around her waist. She looked up at him, eyes anxiously searching his for reassurance.
He tried to give it with a small smile. But with his brother and Leona watching them Melanie knew there was little more he could do. They began to walk down a wide corridor between pale blue walls on sand-coloured floors. No one spoke. Even Robbie had picked up on the tension and was quiet.
They entered a room that might have been William’s study in a lot of ways, though it was bigger and lighter and many degrees warmer. In the middle of the room, reclining on a divan, lay an old man whose fragile state tugged at Melanie’s heart. That he was seriously ill was obvious; that he was resigned to that illness was written in his face. He lifted himself as they came towards him, though, sliding his thin body up a high bank of pillows and fixing his eyes on Robbie.
Rafiq went down on one knee to embrace his father. The old man’s fingers held Rafiq’s face as they spoke in low and husky Arabic. What bowled Melanie over most was the wave of love she could feel coming from the two men. It filled the room, tripped her heartbeat, while she waited for them to remember she and Robbie were here. Then Rafiq was turning and beckoning to Robbie. Tears glazed her eyes as she watched her brave son step into the curve of his father’s arm.
An arm settled across her own shoulders. It belonged to Leona Al-Qadim.
‘This is your grandfather, Robert,’ Rafiq was explaining.
‘Does he speak English?’ the boy whispered.
‘Yes,’ the old sheikh answered for himself. ‘I speak many languages. Come…will you take my hand?’
It was an old hand, a gnarled hand. Robbie placed his own hand into it without hesitation and allowed himself to be drawn towards the divan. As he did so he slipped free from Rafiq’s comforting arm and, without needing any prompting, began to talk.
It was his way. Melanie knew that; Rafiq had come to know it. ‘William said that you’ve been sick. Are you doing to die like William? I like your room; it’s nice. Can you play chess? William played chess with me. Have you read all of these books?’
The old sheikh answered each separate question. He fell in love as they all watched. As the questions flowed so did Robbie’s small figure flow into a sitting position on the divan, then he curled until he was almost on the old sheikh’s lap. He was used to old men; he had grown up with one of the very best. To her son there was no fear in age and wrinkles. Melanie had always been aware that Robbie missed William, but she had not realised just how much until she saw how naturally he had drawn close to his grandfather.
Tears blanked out the old man’s image. Rafiq was standing straight and still. Leona’s fingers smoothed one of her shoulders, and somewhere behind her she was aware of Sheikh Hassan’s silent observation.
‘You have a beautiful son, Melanie,’ Leona said softly.
The sound of her voice broke the loaded atmosphere. The old sheikh lifted his eyes and looked directly at her. ‘You denied us all.’
It was a quiet and level accusation, designed to make its point without alarming her son. Rafiq stiffened his body. Melanie didn’t know what to say. The sheikh was right: she had denied them. The guilt of that was going to live with her for a long time.
‘She did not,’ a sober voice inserted. ‘I am afraid it is I who must take the blame for that.’
Rafiq turned to stare at his brother. Leona’s fingers pressed gently into Melanie’s arm.
‘I’m going to take Melanie away now,’ she informed all of them. ‘Robert, would you like to come?’
It was not the voice of choice; little boys recognised these things. He scrambled down from his grandfather’s divan and obediently walked with the women from the room.
‘Don’t shake so,’ Leona murmured softly. ‘My father-in-law is a good man. He just doesn’t know the truth.’
‘Neither does Rafiq,’ Melanie said. ‘I didn’t want him to.’
‘It is the way with these Al-Qadim men that they do not live well with itchy consciences. Hassan was honour-bound to tell Rafiq what he had done eight years ago from the moment he recognised your name.’
Leona led them up a wide staircase lined with pale cedar doors set into deep stone arches. It was a beautiful suite of rooms, wide, light and airy, in the coolest shades of pale aquamarine and ivory, with fretwork doors flung open to a balcony and the soft morning breeze.
A tiny dark-haired creature appeared from an adjoining room. She smiled at Robbie and held out her hand to him. ‘Would you like to come and explore?’ she invited.
Robbie looked at his mother; his mother looked at Leona Al-Qadim. ‘This is Nina,’ she explained. ‘She is a trained nanny. Robert, if you want to go with Nina, I promise you will have great fun.’
The boy went without any more encouragement. As he walked away Melanie could hear him throwing out questions again. ‘Are there camels here? Will I be able to touch one? Has my daddy got one I can see?’
‘His daddy must be very proud of him,’ Leona said gently.
‘He didn’t mention him to any of you,’ Melanie pointed out, and walked over to the open windows to gaze out on the kind of view she’d only expected to see on the television screen.
‘Rafiq is an—unusual man,’ Leona answered. ‘He is a brilliant mathematician, incredibly loyal to the few people he loves, but he is a law unto himself and always has been. And his private life is generally sacrosanct.’
‘Serena Cordero didn’t think so.’
‘Ah, Serena Cordero should be eternally grateful to you that you came along when you did.’ Leona smiled. ‘From what I can glean out of Hassan, Rafiq cancelled the rolling cheque that supported her dance tour, and which she was so fond of; then a few days ago he reinstated it. Said bitterness warped the mind, or some such clever phrase. We suspect this change of heart happened because you were busy turning him inside out. Though you will have to ask the big man himself, because he won’t tell us anything.’
‘So you speculate.’
‘Yes.’ Leona admitted it. ‘We feel we have to. We worry about him, you see.’ She released a sigh. ‘I know you might laugh at this, but beneath that big tough exterior Rafiq is vulnerable to hurt.’
But Melanie didn’t laugh. She shifted restlessly.
‘You
would have to know about the circumstances of his birth to understand this, his childhood living here in this palace as very much the resented second son of the old sheikh,’ Leona continued, unaware that she was confiding in one who already knew these things. ‘He is proud—too proud sometimes—and wary about letting anyone get too close to him. But from what Hassan has told me he took one look at you eight years ago and fell in love so totally that when you—’
‘Accuse me of betrayal and I will walk right out of here,’ Melanie cut in.
‘Take note of that,’ another deeper voice advised. They turned together to find Rafiq standing in the open door. There was a smile on his lips but his eyes were narrowed, and though he was attempting to look at ease Melanie could sense the tension in him, the anger that they were standing here talking about him like this.
‘You’re cross,’ Leona murmured. She knew him well, Melanie noted. ‘I was only trying to help Melanie to understand why we—’
‘Then let me help you to understand,’ Rafiq smoothly cut in. ‘My wife did not betray anyone. But your husband may require your help to convince him that he did not do something very similar.’
‘You’ve upset him.’ Leona sighed.
‘I forgave him,’ Rafiq returned.
‘Well, that only makes it worse!’ she cried. ‘You know what he’s like; he will prowl around now, seething with frustration!’
Rafiq offered her one of those bows. ‘Then may I suggest to my lady that she goes and joins him as he prowls?’
He was dismissing her, even holding the door open at the ready. Melanie decided she did not understand these people as she watched Leona Al-Qadim stroll up to Rafiq, smile and kiss him on the cheek before she left the room.
‘That wasn’t very nice of you,’ she remarked as he closed the door.
‘Leona is beautiful, charming and an absolute delight to be around, but she knows I dislike people meddling with my life.’ With that the red-chequered gut rah was dragged from his head and tossed aside. ‘As for you…’ He strode forward, sending her spine erect and at the ready. ‘You lied to me.’
‘I did not lie!’ she denied.
‘By omission you did.’
‘If your brother had kept silent there would have been no reason for you to know!’
‘That you came looking for me while heavily pregnant with my son? That you took the risk of yet more cruel rejection because you cared enough to try again? That you had to sit there listening to him scare you with the kind of scenario that would make any mother’s blood go cold?’
‘He loves you. He was protecting you. I understand that now.’
‘You understand nothing,’ he denounced. ‘I asked him to check if you were all right. I trusted him to do that small thing for me!’
‘I was all right.’
‘Well, I wasn’t!’ he rasped. ‘I was out there—’ he flung a hand out towards the sand-dunes she could see rising above miles of lush fruit groves ‘—pining for you!’
Pining? Melanie blinked. He spun his back to her on a tight hiss of a sigh. ‘When Hassan told me you wanted to see me I did not dare go to London in case I fell at your feet,’ he went on. ‘But I needed to know that you were okay. I hoped that by some miracle you were going to tell him some magical reason that would make everything okay. I sat out there…’ the hand flicked again ‘…waiting like a fool for the call that would send me to London on the next plane. What I got was a call telling me he couldn’t find you but he had heard that you were living with a man.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Melanie murmured. ‘I didn’t—’
‘Don’t touch me,’ he grated.
For a moment she froze in dismay. Then with a sigh she did the opposite, and walked around in front of him so she could wrap him in her arms. His heart was pounding, the great chest trembling as he fought a battle with himself.
He had lost, she thought. He had lost the battle. His arms came around her. ‘I don’t know what I am supposed to say to you, Melanie,’ he muttered. ‘You make me realise what a fool I was eight years ago. You make me face the high price I paid for my own pompous pride. You make me see that I have been treating you without honour from the moment I met you, and have done it all from a superior stance that deserves nothing but your contempt.’
‘I don’t hold you in contempt,’ she denied.
‘Then you should.’
‘Because you believed what you were carefully primed to see?’
‘Your uncle said some wicked things about you that day,’ he said heavily. ‘He poured out his poison and I, like a fool, drank it down, when any other fool would have known you were not the person he was describing to me.’
‘If it had been you in that window with another woman and your brother pouring poison into me, I would have believed,’ she admitted.
‘Hassan did poison you.’
‘He frightened me off for your sake. And he did it out of love, not avarice. There is a difference.’
‘A forgivable difference?’
‘You forgave him,’ she pointed out.
‘I forgave him,’ he agreed. But not himself, Melanie defined from his tone. ‘Tell me what you want from this marriage, Melanie,’ he demanded. ‘Tell me what the hell I can do to put some of this right for you.’
Lifting her chin, she looked up at him, saw glinting black eyes and harshly etched angles burnished bronze by the morning sun. ‘I would like you to make love to me without thinking that you only do it because you feel utterly compelled to,’ she told him softly. ‘I would like to lie in your arms afterwards and know that you really want me there. I would like to look into your eyes and see tenderness sometimes, not just anger or passion.’
‘You want me to love you.’ He smiled oddly.
‘I want you to care,’ she amended.
‘Take the love,’ he advised. ‘For it has always been there.’ He grimaced, then released a long sigh and framed her face with his hands. ‘Eight years ago I fell in love with the scent of your skin as you leant over my shoulder. I fell in love with the heat that coloured your lovely cheeks whenever I caught you looking at me. I wanted every part of you, every minute of your time, every kiss, every smile…’ He kissed her. It was so tender it brought tears to her eyes. ‘If you want my heart on a platter, Melanie, you can have it,’ he offered huskily. ‘I could not forget you—did not want to forget you. It was a lonely—lonely state of mind.’
There was nothing she could find to say in answer to that. Instinct—only instinct could respond. Her arms lifted to his shoulders and she pressed her mouth to the warm brown skin at his throat. ‘I love you, Rafiq,’ she softly confided. ‘But you have to believe it if this marriage is going to stand a chance.’
‘I believe,’ he murmured. ‘How can I not believe when you are still here in my arms after everything I have put you through?’
But he didn’t sound happy. On a small sigh she lifted her eyes and parted her lips to speak again—only he stopped her. ‘No,’ he denied. ‘Don’t say any more. It tears me apart when we talk about those things we cannot alter. Just answer me one last question. Can we put the past behind us and start again?’
‘Of course we can.’ She smiled at him.
The smile turned his heart over. The shine in her eyes warmed him right through. Lifting her up against him, he caught her mouth with his and refused to let it go as he walked with her across pale blue marble and through a door on the other side of the room. The door closed behind them; he released her mouth only long enough to lock it.
‘What about Robbie?’ the mother in her questioned. ‘He might come looking for us.’
He was already carrying her across to a huge divan bed that stood on a raised dais. ‘Not while he has my father waiting to pore over maps of Rahman with him,’ Rafiq lazily replied. ‘And this is the beginning of our honeymoon.’
‘I quite liked the Gothic setting,’ Melanie said as he laid her down on a sea of dark red satin.
‘Next time,’ he promised.
/>
‘Why? How many honeymoons are we going to have?’
‘A lifetime of them.’
He wasn’t joking. Two months later they were back in England, locked away inside their Gothic mansion. Melanie was lazing in the bath when Rafiq strode into the room and announced, ‘Hassan and Leona are the proud parents of a baby boy. Both mother and child are very well.’
‘Oh, do you think we should fly back?’ Melanie suggested anxiously. ‘It seems wrong for you and I to be enjoying ourselves here when we might be needed there.’
‘No,’ Rafiq replied adamantly. ‘Our son is with his new best friend—my father, Hassan and Leona are in twelfth heaven with their own son, and you and I, my darling, are on our second honeymoon here while Ethan Hayes and his crazy wife make William’s house fit to live in.’
‘You really should have told me about that,’ Melanie chided as he strode towards the tub. ‘I had a right to be consulted before you dared to touch anything in my house.’
‘But the house does not belong to you,’ Rafiq informed her as he removed his clothes. ‘William left it to our son—though you saw fit not to tell me that. So I asked Robert’s permission to renovate. He was delighted to give it. Unlike you,’ he mocked her, ‘our son had the good sense to know the house was in danger of falling down.’
‘It wasn’t that bad!’ Melanie protested. ‘And I thought Robbie loved it exactly as it was!’
‘No, he has better taste—as I do,’ he added arrogantly, referring to his good taste in wives.
With that, he stepped into the tub and slid himself into the water at the opposite end from Melanie. A hand reached up to pull a cord, which drew the purple silk curtain around them.
Candlelight flickered from hidden places. Silhouettes moved and came together…
A Passionate Marriage
By Michelle Reid
TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON
Hot-Blooded Husbands Bundle Page 52