by Lynne Graham
‘The intent was missing. You didn’t want to marry me,’ Tati reminded him stubbornly.
‘Is it enough to say that I would have that intent now and would marry you again, given the chance?’ Saif shot at her in a raw undertone.
Tati paled and studied her linked hands, reckoning that he was only saying that because she was pregnant and had to be placated. ‘No, it’s not. Let’s stick to our agreement for the moment.’
‘Which agreement? The “friends with benefits” idea seems to have died a death,’ Saif breathed curtly. ‘The agreement to part within months is impossible as matters stand.’
Tati bowed her head. ‘I’m not in the mood to talk about it right now,’ she told him shakily, feeling terrifyingly close to a bout of overwrought tears.
She was acting like a shrew and an indecisive one at that, Tati mused guiltily, and yet he had been endlessly kind and supportive. Despite her discouragement, he had escorted her to England and had sent a lawyer to the police station with her when she’d turned down his company. She loved him so much and, even when she was angry with him, that love burned like a torch inside her and made her want to do silly stuff like grab him and hug him just for being there when her life was tough. Nobody prior to Saif had ever stood up for her before. He was so loyal, so caring that he made her love him more than ever, but that only made her feel worse and more of a burden to him.
‘Your uncle contacted me this afternoon to request a meeting. He and your aunt have moved out of the manor.’
Tati dealt him a startled look. ‘They...they have?’
‘An obvious first move. It’s your house where they treated you like a servant,’ Saif pronounced with distaste. ‘He will now wish to impress you with his repentance.’
Tati couldn’t even picture a repentant version of her pompous relative. ‘What did you say?’
‘I said it was your decision as to whether or not you would see him,’ Saif murmured grimly.
Tati could tell by the hard slant of his wide sensual mouth what his decision would have been, but she appreciated that, for once, he hadn’t interfered. ‘I’ll see him at the hotel this evening if it suits.’
For the first time she was asking herself why she had got so very angry with Saif. She had deeply resented the admission that he had known about her uncle’s crime before she had, even though she would never ever have found out the truth on her own behalf. She had spent her adult life being pushed around by people with power over her or her mother and she had often been browbeaten into doing what she didn’t want to do. Saif had decided that he knew better than her even though the wrongdoers were her relatives, and she knew them best. But there was one crucial difference with Saif, she acknowledged now that she had calmed and taken a step back from shock and anger: Saif did what he did from an engrained need to protect her, not from a desire to belittle or control her, and that made a huge difference.
Tati slanted a glance at his lean, bronzed face, recognising the hard tension bracketing his mouth. ‘I’m sorry I’ve been so unreasonable about all this,’ she told him before she could lose her nerve. ‘It’s such a nasty, sordid business.’
‘And I don’t want you dealing with this right now,’ Saif slotted in honestly, his stunning green eyes enhanced by his dense black lashes.
‘It’s almost over,’ she pointed out. ‘And I want to go and see the manor again tomorrow.’
‘Why?’
‘I spent a lot of my time there when my grandmother was still alive. It was a place of happy memories until Mum fell ill,’ she admitted stiffly. ‘I refuse to let my last few unhappy years there when my uncle was in charge spoil that for me.’
Saif was prepared to admit that Tatiana had a backbone of steel under that fragile exterior of hers, a quiet dignity, which had very much impressed the lawyer who had been at the police interview with her. He had phoned Saif the instant he’d emerged from it, full of praise for the calm, intelligent manner in which Tatiana had dealt with the situation. But Saif was much less fond of that reference to the house that was hers here in England and her attachment to it. He said nothing, however, convinced that he would strike a wrong note if he commented. He had never been in an equal relationship with a woman before, he reflected with a frown. Perhaps that was why he had erred and dictated rather than discussed.
Her uncle Rupert arrived at eight that evening at their hotel. Tati saw him alone, hardening her heart while he recited his woes and excuses, not to mention his embittered recriminations against the grandmother she had loved. It was always someone else’s fault, never his when anything went wrong in Rupert Hamilton’s life. When she told him of her decision his mask of discomfiture slipped for a second, and his hatred showed. He argued with her until she lost patience because she could not have cared less what happened to her uncle and aunt or where they went, but their daughter, Ana, was a different issue. If she could protect her cousin she would, and she would not apologise for it. The older man left in a very bad mood.
‘I almost intervened when I heard him raise his voice,’ Saif confided as he strode out of the room next door.
‘I’m not scared of him and he no longer has any influence with me,’ Tati admitted tightly, very pale, her blue eyes shadowed. ‘But it was very unpleasant. He was shocked at what I had to tell him. Even after what he did, he still thought he could talk me into giving him the Fosters Manor estate, but I refused him and told him that when the time came I will be signing the London apartment over to Ana, so that she will still have a home. If she chooses to have her parents live with her there that’s their business, not mine. I will warn her that her father is likely to try to persuade her to put the apartment in his name and that she must not agree to that. I can do no more. I understand that my uncle is likely to get a prison sentence of short duration as he has no previous record and that my aunt is likely to get community work. So, that’s it now, all done and dusted.’
‘You’re exhausted,’ Saif pronounced, bending down and scooping her bodily out of her chair before she could even guess what he was planning to do.
‘I don’t know why,’ she sighed as he carried her through to the bedroom and settled her down on the bed.
‘You’re pregnant and the stress hasn’t helped. Dr Abaza said that you would probably be unusually tired these first weeks.’
Tati got ready for bed, wondering if Saif would be joining her, because there was another bedroom available. She was thinking that it was far too early for him to even be thinking of sleeping and recalling that the night before he had not come to bed at all when her own eyes drifted shut.
* * *
In the morning, she felt strong enough to deal with just about anything. Even leaving Saif? She studied him over breakfast, a clenching low down in her belly as she collided with those spectacular eyes of his, hunger flaming through her in warning. Heat built in her cheeks and flushed through her entire body and she pressed her thighs together, thinking that Saif still mesmerised her. Swearing off him, taking a step back, was horrendously difficult when every natural impulse drew her back to him.
‘You’re coming down to the manor with me?’ she queried in surprise. ‘I thought you had work to do.’
‘The work is always there. If I didn’t ignore it sometimes I would never have any free time at all,’ Saif asserted with a flashing smile that was nonetheless distinctly tense to her gaze.
He couldn’t actually have guessed what she was thinking about doing...could he? For goodness’ sake, Tati scolded herself, he’s not telepathic! And yet she couldn’t escape the sneaking suspicion that somehow he knew, somehow he had worked out already that she had decided she could not continue their marriage on the basis he had suggested. It might be the sensible, kindest approach for their unborn child, but she was only human and neither a saint nor a martyr and, if he pushed her, she would just tell him the truth so that he fully understood her position.
Tati dressed with care for the visit, donning a pretty polka-dot sundress that matched the summer sky. As she had already discovered to her consternation, pregnancy changes had kicked into her body a lot sooner than she had expected and quite a few items no longer fitted comfortably. Her breasts had swelled while her waist seemed to be vanishing. Luckily, a looser dress hid the fact.
Saif watched his wife’s shuttered face begin to light up as they turned into the driveway of the old house. She was happy coming back here, happy that she was going to leave him. He straightened his wide shoulders and breathed in deep as they approached the front door, and she began to dig in her bag for the keys her uncle had handed over.
‘Use the doorbell. When I realised you were coming here, I had cleaners and a housekeeper hired to greet you,’ Saif divulged stiffly.
‘Good grief, why would you do that?’ Tati exclaimed, discomfiture claiming her afresh.
‘You will not be a servant in your own home,’ Saif breathed thinly.
‘I’m pregnant, not disabled!’ Tati protested. ‘I’m not like Ana. I’m very self-sufficient. I can cook, clean, do anything.’
‘But you will not...today anyway,’ Saif completed flatly.
A pleasant older woman welcomed them into the wainscoted hall. It shone with cleanliness and the scent of beeswax polish was in the air. Tati smiled, recalling it that way from her childhood. Wandering into the pretty but faded drawing room, she went straight to the piano to study the photos there, picking up one of her grandparents when they had still been hale and hearty. She wasn’t remotely surprised that, while there were a few gaps where her uncle and aunt had removed their own pieces of furniture, they had left behind all the family photos.
Two little blonde girls were in the background of the picture, giggling, and beside them stood a tall, elegant blonde with a bright smile. ‘Ana and me,’ she told Saif. ‘And that’s my mother with us.’
Her eyes throbbed and her throat ached as she thought back to those days at the manor before her uncle took over.
‘I won’t let you leave me!’ Saif breathed with startling abruptness into the silence.
In consternation, Tati spun round to look at him, her face as red as fire because he had guessed what she was planning. ‘You make it sound so emotional when it’s not,’ she muttered uncomfortably. ‘I don’t know how you guessed that I was thinking of living here and of not returning to Alharia with you.’
Saif lifted his strong jaw, green eyes glittering. ‘I know you and I won’t let you do it.’
Regret softened her blue eyes. ‘I’m afraid I don’t see how you can stop me.’
‘I’d kidnap you,’ Saif announced, disconcerting her so completely that she simply stared at him with a dropped jaw. ‘Maybe after the baby was born. I wouldn’t want you harmed by the exercise... obviously.’
But there was nothing remotely obvious in that threat that Tati could understand. She adored him but there was no denying that he was a conventional guy, occasionally even rather strait-laced. Remarkably handsome and sexy and full of charisma, but not the sort who broke rules. Hadn’t she watched him freeze before her very eyes when Ana had tried to flirt with him? He had been appalled and he hadn’t known how to handle it without being rude. So, for Saif to talk about kidnapping her with apparent seriousness shocked her beyond bearing.
‘You wouldn’t do anything like that,’ she told him gently. ‘It just wouldn’t be your style.’
‘If I am forced to live without you, I can make it my style,’ Saif assured her with perfect gravity.
Tati sighed with regret. ‘Look, you said a lot of true, logical things when we talked. Yes, it would be better for our child if we stayed together for the first years, but I just can’t face a future where I’d be living a lie.’
‘I will do whatever it takes to keep you...even if I have to change myself. I will change for you,’ Saif swore with sincerity.
Her eyes stung with tears. ‘You don’t need to change. It’s me who has the problem. I broke our rules: I fell in love with you...and I want much more from you than a fake marriage, and that’s unfair to you.’
‘You...you love me?’ Saif almost whispered, staring at her fixedly as if that were the biggest shock he had ever had.
‘I wouldn’t have told you if you hadn’t been talking that...er...weird way,’ she muttered in mortification.
‘Weird?’ Saif’s mouth quirked. ‘As in being willing to consider kidnapping you? Doesn’t it occur to you that while you were falling in love I might have been too?’
Her blue eyes widened, and she shifted infinitesimally closer to his tall, muscular frame. ‘Might you have been?’
‘First time I’ve ever been in love. First and last time,’ Saif intoned hoarsely, curving a not-quite-steady hand to the curve of her cheekbone. ‘I want you in my life for ever and ever like the stupid fairy tales.’
‘Fairy tales are not stupid,’ Tati told him tenderly, happiness surging up through her in an ungovernable flood. ‘How come I’m your first love? There must have been someone else at some stage.’
‘Maybe I was a late developer,’ Saif quipped. ‘I was always very careful not to spend too much time with any woman because I feared falling for someone I couldn’t have. I knew that eventually my father would expect me to marry a woman of his choice.’
That caution was so much in his nature that she almost laughed. She turned her head to see the new housekeeper in the doorway offering them coffee. ‘That would be lovely but...perhaps, later,’ she suggested. ‘I want to show my husband round the house first.’
‘I suppose we should take a look at the outside first,’ Saif remarked levelly.
‘No, we’re heading for the nearest bedroom,’ Tati whispered, amused by his innocence. ‘I’m about to jump your bones like a wild, wanton woman.’
‘With you, wild and wanton works very well for me,’ Saif murmured with a sudden laugh of appreciation. ‘I’m more relaxed with you than I have ever been with a woman. I suppose we’ll be stuck with visits from your ghastly cousin, Ana, for ever.’
‘No, she won’t be flirting with you the next time we see her. You withstood her attractions and that hurts her ego and turns her off. Next time, she’ll be telling me that she doesn’t know how I stand you being so quiet... She doesn’t realise that you were only quiet because she embarrassed you,’ Tati commented cheerfully.
‘I wasn’t embarrassed,’ Saif contradicted. ‘I just don’t like women who are all over me like a rash.’
‘Like me?’ Tati teased, stretching up on tiptoe to kiss him, her hands roaming across his chest beneath his jacket as she pressed into his lean, strong length in an act of deliberate provocation.
‘You’re the sole exception,’ Saif husked as she linked her fingers with his and urged him towards the stairs. ‘Would you really have stayed here and left me?’
‘If you hadn’t said you loved me, I think...yes,’ she muttered guiltily. ‘I would have been so unhappy believing that you were only tolerating me until you felt it was time for us to split up.’
‘I tolerate you with pleasure...that doesn’t sound quite right,’ Saif husked on the landing as he bent over her, nibbling a caressing trail down the slope of her neck. ‘We need a bed.’
‘I’m not sure there’ll be one made up.’
‘I ordered a new bed for the main bedroom and said we would be staying the night.’
Tati gazed up at him, impressed to death by that level of preparation. ‘How did you know we’d be here for the night?’
‘You’ve been so distant since we had that discussion at the palace that I knew I was in trouble,’ Saif confided. ‘I was determined to persuade you to stay with me...somehow. But I didn’t know how I was going to do it, only that I would need a good few hours to have a chance of accomplishing it.’
‘You’re so modest,’ Tati muttere
d, tugging him into the main bedroom, relieved to see that, aside from the new bed and bedding, it looked much as it had in her grandparents’ day. Thankfully, her uncle and aunt had removed every shred of their presence. ‘I can’t believe we are here in this house together and that you love me.’
‘Believe,’ he urged fiercely as he flipped off her shoes and unzipped her dress, lifting her to arrange her on the bed like a precious sacrifice. ‘I love you so much. You have no idea how it felt to think that I was losing you for ever...and all because I said the wrong things.’
‘It took you a while to realise how you felt,’ Tati told him forgivingly, stroking a fingertip across one high cheekbone.
‘No, it didn’t. I started suspecting way back when I kissed you in the street after we got off that Ferris wheel in the Place de la Concorde. I’ve never done anything like that in my adult life, but I couldn’t resist you when you smiled. I knew then that I’d never felt that way in my life...it was so powerful,’ he admitted. ‘But I refused to examine my emotions because it didn’t fit in with our plans and I was afraid that you would walk away the way my mother once walked away from me.’
Tati groaned and wrapped her arms round him tightly, touched to the heart. ‘I’m not walking away. I’m never going anywhere. Gosh, you were a pushover. It took me much longer because I was working hard at trying not to get attached to you. Trouble is...’ she sighed blissfully, sitting up helpfully to make the removal of her bra easier ‘...you’re an attachable guy.’
Saif chuckled. ‘You just made up a word. What does it mean?’
Her fingertip traced the sensual line of his lower lip. ‘It means that there’s a whole lot of stuff I like about you...like how protective you are. I’ve never had that before and at first I confused that protectiveness with you trying to boss me around, and I’d suffered way too much of that kind of treatment here.’