Cinderella's Royal Secret

by Lynne Graham

  She was young and she was strong, no man’s patsy, no man’s fool. She would move on, write off Rafiq to the accident of fate he had been. She couldn’t call him a mistake because it wasn’t his fault that she had conceived, but they didn’t belong together. He was going to be a king, for goodness’ sake, utterly removed from her in every way, just as their twins would be in their relation to him, she registered belatedly, titled royals with a commoner mother with no claim to fame.

  Long powerful fingers splayed across her stomach, which was no longer quite flat. ‘I still think they’re a miracle,’ he murmured levelly. ‘And I’m already so curious about them.’

  ‘I suppose you’re hoping for a boy to be your heir,’ Izzy remarked, involuntarily touched by that miracle reference coming her way again.

  ‘The firstborn will be my heir. Gender is irrelevant. A warrior queen here in the eighteenth century put that kind of sexism behind us. A future queen in waiting will be as acceptable as a king.’

  ‘A warrior queen?’ Izzy exclaimed, startled by that news.

  ‘And reputedly a tougher negotiator than all the tribal heads put together!’ Rafiq extended with amusement. ‘It is many years since there was a constitutional bar to a woman taking the throne in Zenara. Zenara may strike you as a conservative country but, in some fields, we’ve always been quite free thinking.’

  That assurance was a huge surprise to Izzy and not an entirely welcome one because in the back of her mind she had already been guilty of thinking that if she gave birth to two girls Rafiq might choose to be less involved with them and seek less regular access. Her cheeks coloured with shame at that ungenerous thought because it was selfish of her to want to keep the parental sharing to the minimum. Their children would benefit most from having two interested parents.

  ‘Are you planning to visit the children here on weekends and school holidays?’ Rafiq enquired curiously, wondering and in great surprise at himself if it could even be vaguely possible to run a marriage on such a part-time basis.

  And Izzy froze as if a fire alarm had gone off and sat up with a sudden jerk, a befuddled expression stamping her triangular face as she shook her head. ‘Visit them...here?’ she repeated in disbelief. ‘Why would I be visiting my children when they’ll be living with me?’

  A silence laden with electric undertones fell and Rafiq gazed back at her with much of the same frowning disbelief.

  ‘I mean, I know we never actually talked about the arrangements in any detail but I naturally just a-assumed,’ Izzy stammered, watching the dark tension clench his lean, devastatingly handsome features taut with a sense of foreboding.

  Rafiq was very still. ‘And I assumed that you would be leaving the children here in Zenara with me to be raised as royals,’ he breathed in a raw undertone. ‘I thought you understood the situation. It is not solely of my choosing that they should live here but how else can they learn the language and how to integrate with our life if they only make occasional visits?’

  Izzy had already heard more than enough. She snaked out of the bed like an electrified eel, stooping in haste to gather up her discarded clothing. Her hands snatched at her panties in desperation and she struggled to climb into them. Her hands were shaking. She could not credit, refused to credit that he could have thought for one moment that she would be prepared to walk out on her children with only occasional visits back to see them on offer.

  ‘What sort of a monster do you think I am that I could agree to walk away from my kids?’ she demanded wrathfully.

  Lean, strong face hardening, Rafiq also left the bed. ‘I did not attach such an offensive label to you. This is an emotive subject and you need to calm down.’

  ‘I don’t need to do anything I don’t want to do!’ Izzy slammed back at him furiously, outraged to register that she was on the brink of tears.

  ‘Izzy.’

  ‘You made horrible assumptions about me and got me to marry you on false pretences!’ she condemned in gritty interruption. ‘When I leave Zenara in a few months’ time I will be taking my children with me!’

  ‘Not without my consent,’ Rafiq slung back at her without hesitation as he hauled up his jeans and zipped them.

  Izzy froze. She was in a mood, fit to be tied, wholly unable to rationalise the rage and hurt and sense of threat she was experiencing and that declaration of his was the last straw. ‘Not...without...your...consent?’ she questioned incredulously.

  ‘Not without my consent,’ Rafiq repeated with unapologetic emphasis.

  ‘Well, we’ll just see about that!’ Izzy flung back wildly, dragging open the door between their rooms and slamming it shut again with a thunderous crash.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘YOU CAN’T JUST get into bed and ignore this!’ Rafiq raked down at her as she lay in her bed.

  Izzy spared him a brief glance that couldn’t quite contrive to take in all of him for, clad only in jeans, a shirt hanging open on his bronzed torso and with his feet still bare, there was an awful lot of tall, lethally well-built Rafiq to encompass.

  Izzy parted her lips. ‘Watch me,’ she urged curtly.

  Rafiq stalked across the room like a predator ready to spring on prey and she watched even though she didn’t want to. Something about that fluid prowling, loose-limbed grace of his tugged at her every sense and, gritting her teeth, she turned over and buried her hot face in the pillow. She was a mess of conflicting feelings. Rage and hurt. Lust and self-loathing. Fear and resentment.

  ‘We have to talk about it,’ Rafiq grated.

  ‘Nothing to talk about,’ Izzy said mutinously. ‘We’re not going to take a twin each and call it quits, are we? And since no sane parent would do that to their children that leaves us standing in conflicting corners.’

  Rafiq flung back the sheet covering her and she flipped over in disbelief, her sapphire eyes alight with fury. He scooped her up, ignoring her struggles, and planted her down on the side of the bed.

  ‘We will talk about this,’ he said again fiercely.

  Bridling like a cat that had been stroked the wrong way, Izzy smoothed a hand down over the silk and lace sleep shorts and strappy top she had put on, uneasily aware of how much skin she was exposing.

  ‘How could you think for one minute that I would walk away from my babies?’ she demanded rawly.

  ‘I spent my formative years with a mother who continually walked away. Yes, I saw other maternal examples, in my uncle’s home in particular, but I have always been aware that, just as there are men who can walk away from their children, there are also women who choose to do the same thing,’ Rafiq completed in a driven undertone.

  Izzy could not argue with that statement, but she still flung her head back to look at him, unable to accept that explanation for his assumption about her. ‘But you know me. I can’t believe that you thought I would do that.’

  ‘You said you wanted your life back the way it had been. When you married me, you were very set on retaining your freedom and the choices you had already made. I can understand that outlook,’ Rafiq conceded grimly. ‘It was not for me to judge you.’

  ‘Oh, don’t come over all tactful now!’ Izzy interrupted angrily. ‘You assumed that I would give up my children pretty much completely to do...what? Train as a teacher? My children are more important and if you don’t get that, you don’t get anything about me!’

  ‘It may be that I was guilty of wishful thinking, of hoping that there would not be conflict between us over this issue.’

  ‘Oh, you’d better believe that there’s going to be conflict!’ Izzy hissed.

  ‘But there were no false pretences,’ Rafiq insisted. ‘There was a genuine misunderstanding. I took too much for granted when you agreed to marry me. I was too keen to persuade you to marry me for the sake of the children, too relieved by your agreement to go into the matter in proper depth. Neither of us clearly expressed ou
r wishes or intentions.’

  ‘It should’ve been obvious to you that I always intended to take my children back to the UK with me.’

  Rafiq raised a lean brown hand in an infuriating silencing motion. ‘They are my children too.’

  ‘I’m their mother,’ Izzy stated vehemently.

  ‘And I am their father. Why should I be any more willing to be deprived of my children than you are?’ Rafiq demanded wrathfully, stunning dark golden eyes ablaze with anger.

  ‘I wasn’t planning to deprive you of them. You would’ve been free to see them any time you liked!’ Izzy fired back.

  ‘And how much time do you think I have to travel to the UK?’ Rafiq prompted. ‘In eighteen months, I will be King. My uncle only leaves Zenara for state visits, which are tightly scheduled, and he has little free time for travel. I will no longer be travelling on business. Even now I am bound to a very tight itinerary. I am not and I will not be free to do as I like.’

  Izzy breathed in deep and threw her head back, copper curls dancing around her porcelain-pale face. ‘I’m sorry if that is the case but, considering that we agreed to separate before we married, your problems are not my problems,’ she declared, suppressing the guilt his arguments had unleashed inside her and the sensation that she was being unfair. ‘And if you are likely to be that busy, surely the children will be much better off living with me.’

  ‘For them I will make time, I will always make time,’ Rafiq framed with fierce conviction. ‘Probably because few people made time for me as a child.’

  And her heart clenched inside her because she knew that he would make that effort, knew it for sure even while still furiously, bitterly resenting his willingness to believe that she would have been prepared to accept only an infrequent role acting as a mother to her children.

  ‘This pregnancy may not have been planned but, now that it has happened, I’m fully willing to change and adapt,’ she told him curtly.

  Rafiq thrust impatient long fingers through the black hair still tousled by her clutching hands. Her face flamed and she looked hurriedly away from him as if by so doing she could block such thoughts and memories.

  ‘It’s too late in the day for this conversation,’ Rafiq murmured flatly. ‘I can see that I have offended you and that was not my intention. Perhaps tomorrow we will both be in a more reasonable state of mind.’

  ‘I still don’t understand how we’re going to work anything out when we both want the same thing,’ Izzy breathed tightly.

  ‘We’ll work it out because we’re both adults,’ Rafiq countered impatiently. ‘And adults negotiate and compromise.’

  Izzy almost urged him to speak for himself because she wasn’t in the mood to compromise, not when it came to being a mother to her own children. That wasn’t negotiable, was it? In that field, she wasn’t prepared to make concessions because she couldn’t afford to bend. It would break her heart to walk away from her babies and deny them her full love and attention. How could he think otherwise?

  ‘I won’t surrender my rights,’ she whispered tightly as Rafiq reached the connecting door that separated their bedrooms.

  Rafiq skimmed dark golden eyes back to her in an electrifying moment of silent communication. ‘We’ll see.’

  No, we won’t see, she told herself as she punched her pillow and got back into bed. She wasn’t about to change her mind, no matter what he had to say. Some wedding night, she thought prosaically, cringing at the recollection of the intimacy they had shared before she realised how he saw her. Well, monster was an exaggeration, she conceded grudgingly, but Rafiq certainly did view her as less than the feminine ideal of caring motherhood and that had bitten deep. Why had it hurt so much? Why on earth did she care so intensely about his opinion of her? Why was she so vulnerable when it came to him? Why couldn’t she grow a thicker skin?

  In the morning she was heavy-eyed and still at odds with herself. It was both a relief and an annoyance to walk out into the courtyard where breakfast was to be served and be greeted with an apology on Rafiq’s behalf and the news that a major fire in a hotel in the capital city, Hayad, had demanded his presence early that morning. Braced to see him again and deprived of the expectation, she stiffened and her back went rigid. She would be much happier without him, she told herself staunchly.

  She was still deep in that uneasy mood when a young man strolled out from under the trees shading the table. He extended a confident hand in greeting. ‘May I join you for breakfast? I’m Rafiq’s brother, Zayn.’

  Momentarily, Izzy froze because in the midst of all the drama she had forgotten about his visit. But there he was, tall, lean and as dark as Rafiq in colouring and unmistakeably her husband’s sibling. Dark eyes inspected her with unhidden interest.

  ‘I had to see for myself if you could live up to Uncle Jalil’s acclaim,’ he admitted as he gave a nod to a hovering servant and smiled with Rafiq’s easy charm while breakfast arrived at full tilt, offered in a bedazzling choice of dishes.

  ‘Acclaim?’ Izzy queried with a look of surprise.

  ‘My uncle believes that you are exactly what my brother needs. Considering that he once believed that Fadith was the perfect wife for Rafiq, who can blame me for being a complete cynic and refusing to trust in his assessment?’

  ‘Fadith,’ Izzy echoed uncomfortably, now feeling very much under scrutiny, for Rafiq’s kid brother was making no attempt to hide his scepticism. ‘Rafiq rarely mentions her.’

  ‘Rafiq never rats on anyone. It’s a point of honour for him. An amazing trait for someone who was shafted at birth and cursed to pay for our late, unlamented father’s sins,’ Zayn continued with bite. ‘He deserves better now.’

  ‘Yes,’ Izzy agreed, dry-mouthed, feeling under fire and unsure how to respond with anything other than honesty. ‘And you want to know if I’m a better bet, but I’m afraid only Rafiq could answer that question.’

  ‘You think?’ Zayn lifted a black brow and scoffed, ‘Twins? My brother already thinks you are the eighth wonder of the world!’

  Izzy reddened and continued to carefully eat the muesli she had selected. She was tempted to tell Zayn that no woman wanted to be valued purely for her fertility but that was too private a thought for sharing. ‘Lucky me,’ she murmured a shade flatly.

  ‘Do you love him?’

  Izzy glanced across the table in consternation. ‘You can’t ask me that!’

  ‘I just did. I want my brother to be happy. It’s that simple,’ Zayn declared unrepentantly.

  Feeling under pressure, Izzy pushed her curls back from her damp brow. ‘I don’t know how I feel. Everything’s happened so fast. One minute I was single, the next I was married and expecting twins, for goodness’ sake! I’ve hardly had time to catch my breath.’

  ‘So, that’s a no, then,’ Zayn assumed, his mouth down curving.

  Izzy looked back down at her plate, struggling to concentrate. In truth she didn’t know what she felt for Rafiq, only that she felt too much in too many different ways, not all of which made sense. Last night, he had left her feeling angry and hurt, but she had still come down to breakfast with a helpless sense of anticipation. The disappointment that had infiltrated her once she learnt of his absence still rang like a hollow bell of warning inside her, reminding her that she couldn’t afford to get too attached to the man she had married, not when their marriage wasn’t expected to last.

  ‘It’s a marriage of convenience,’ she told Zayn baldly since he had been so blunt with her. ‘And it’s early days for us.’

  ‘Only my unlucky brother would get to make two marriages of convenience,’ Zayn ground out and, glancing at her, he saw her surprise and curiosity. ‘No, it wasn’t a teenage love match with Fadith. But you need to ask him for the details.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to ask you,’ Izzy said, thinking I so was, her face colouring afresh. Like most people she preferred to avoi
d contentious issues and it was obvious to her that Rafiq didn’t want to talk about his first marriage. Getting the story from Zayn would have been easier, most particularly when she and Rafiq were currently at daggers drawn.

  Evidently accepting that he had got all he was likely to get from her, Zayn engaged in normal conversation for what remained of the meal. He was much less guarded than his older brother, yet very mature for his age, only his sudden boyishly enthusiastic smile betraying his youth. She understood his loyal protectiveness towards Rafiq because she was equally attached to her twin and two orphaned brothers, regardless of the age gap between them, were almost certain to be close.

  They sat in the shade playing poker, Izzy working up a tally of losses that hugely amused Zayn.

  ‘It’s lucky for you that we agreed not to play for money,’ he teased. ‘You’re a hopeless card player.’

  ‘It’s been a long time since I played,’ Izzy admitted ruefully.

  ‘I’d take you for a drive in the desert but Rafiq thinks I’m reckless at the wheel and you’re too precious a cargo for me to take the risk,’ he told her cheerfully.

  They ended up playing a board game then, which Zayn played with the same ferocious spirit of competitiveness. When he departed in a helicopter before lunch, he and Izzy were on easy terms and she was sorry to see him leave. After lunch she felt queasy and went for a nap, but it didn’t help. Her pregnant stomach was determined to be oversensitive and feeling under par was a side effect she assumed she had to accept. It was a surprise when a doctor was shown in by her maid, who had evidently contacted him. Where he had come from, she had no idea and she was taken aback to be told when she asked that he was the doctor ‘in residence’ at Alihreza. A herbal tea was prescribed and Izzy sipped it throughout the afternoon, pleasantly disconcerted to discover that it did definitely help the nausea and reduced it to a more bearable level.

  She dozed through the hottest hours of the day, wakening to learn that Rafiq was on his way back. She went for a shower to freshen up, enjoying the cool sprays hitting her overheated skin before rifling through her new wardrobe to pick a casual cotton blue-and-white maxi dress that was both cool and comfortable. It was unnerving how fast her body was changing, she thought ruefully. Her breasts had swelled at least a cup size and her once neat waist was vanishing as her stomach pushed out.