A Mediterranean Marriage

by Lynne Graham

  ‘You were jealous of Brett—?’

  ‘And then when I heard you on the phone to him, I suffered the tortures of feeling second-best all over again. I needed to hear nothing suspect in the conversation to torment myself even more.’ Rauf groaned.

  ‘Yet, in spite of all that, you still wanted to marry me and you knew that you loved me.’ Lily worked out those facts for herself with immense satisfaction, for that was a level of love she had never dreamt a male with his fierce pride could feel for her. That was love in block capitals, a love big enough and generous enough to overcome every obstacle and his pride as well.

  ‘Then I blew it again on our flight to Istanbul over your name being on that bank account and there was nothing more sobering than realising that I was losing you altogether.’ Rauf swore and spread speaking hands expressively wide.

  ‘I’m not so easy to lose,’ Lily confided.

  ‘My pride made me persuade myself three years ago that my love for you had died,’ he confessed tautly. ‘But I know now that you genuinely cared for me in those days and that I must have hurt you a great deal…’

  ‘Yes…you hurt me terribly,’ Lily told him honestly.

  Rauf paled but reacted much as if he had expected to have that confirmed.

  ‘One minute you were there and the next it was like you’d never existed and I started to believe that I’d just imagined that we’d ever shared anything worth holding onto,’ Lily continued. ‘I decided it could only have been a casual thing for you—’

  ‘Casual?’ Rauf loosed a bitter laugh of disagreement. ‘It was six months before I could even catch sight of a blonde head in the street without secretly, crazily hoping it would somehow be you. I worked myself into the ground that entire year, because at least when I was working it took my mind off you for a while. I never believed in love like that until I was without you and the hardest thing for me to accept now is that I deserved to be miserable.’

  Lily was over the moon to learn that Rauf had had such a hard time getting by without her, but thought it tactful to conceal a delight that struck her as a little cruel. At the same time she was now quietly rejoicing in his staggering assurance that his love was hers and always had been. ‘I wasn’t exactly happy myself. Tell me, when did you decide that you were still in love with me?’

  ‘I always knew it was there deep down inside me…lurking…’ Rauf expelled a heavy sigh. ‘But I didn’t ever think about it after the first year we were apart. I just shut it out until I saw you again. I went haywire and made appallingly bad decisions—’

  ‘Such as?’ Lily probed in growing fascination as she tried to think of love as something that ‘lurked’ like a secret, dreadful threat.

  ‘I told myself that I was taking revenge when I took you to Sonngul to stay with me but, in truth, I was only snatching at the first possible excuse to be with you again. I didn’t know what I was doing…not really doing until it was too late. But I knew I loved you at the civil ceremony—’

  ‘So why didn’t you mention it…why wait until now?’

  ‘I had treated you with dishonour and that shamed me. I had not valued you as I should have done. I had even less right to be talking about love. All I had done was cause you more distress and I regret that most of all.’

  ‘But I brought a lot of that on myself,’ Lily countered guiltily. ‘I couldn’t make myself tell you what I’d had to put up with from Brett—’

  ‘I could see that you were hiding something from me. You’re not a very good dissembler,’ Rauf told her gently. ‘Once I knew that there was a secret, my suspicions about the nature of your relationship with him refused to die. Yet the moment I heard the truth that was the end of them.’

  Lily flushed. ‘Honesty pays,’ she muttered in discomfiture.

  ‘But an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust does not encourage honesty.’ Rauf studied her with marked strain in his gleaming gaze, lean, strong face clenched taut. ‘All I want to ask you now is if some day you feel you could love me again?’

  Lily screened her gaze, not wanting to let him off the hook too fast. ‘Anything’s possible.’

  ‘I love you enough for both of us, güzelim.’

  ‘I’m really beginning to believe that you do.’ Lily crossed the room to where he stood so straight and tall and, meeting the loving intensity of his tawny eyes, she just couldn’t keep him in suspense any more. ‘But luckily for both of us, I wasn’t any better at getting over you than you were at getting over me…I’m still very much in love with you.’

  For several seconds, Rauf stared back at her in surprise and then, all of a sudden, he strode forward and just snatched her into his arms with an extreme lack of cool. He curved unsteady hands to frame her cheekbones. ‘You’re not just saying that to save face for me?’ he probed tautly.

  ‘No, I’m not that kind,’ Lily declared with eyes brimming with amusement at that very Turkish suggestion. ‘I just love you lots and lots and never met anyone who could make me feel as you could.’

  ‘Must be a lot of real losers out there because I wasn’t that impressive,’ Rauf muttered, and then he claimed her mouth with all the passion of his volatile temperament.

  Matters moved fast from that point. Curtains were hastily yanked shut, clothes fell away without ceremony and the bride and groom fell between the sheets of the marital bed to make up for ten nights of being kept apart.

  ‘I’ve been up walking the floor every night this week…I just missed you so much!’ Rauf confided raggedly.

  In between frantic kisses, Lily hugged that sense of security to herself, revelled in his hungry tenderness, the sheer happiness that she saw in his eyes. There was a new dimension to their loving, a wonderful closeness and contentment in the aftermath.

  Rauf told her about Talip Hajjar’s visit to Sonngul and how complete his faith had been in her that evening when he had explained to the army police officer what she was doing in Turkey. Then he made her laugh out loud as he admitted that the sight of her name on that bank account with Brett’s had, within minutes of his angry condemnation of her, put him in a literal panic on her behalf.

  ‘I immediately lost all desire to press charges against Brett because I was afraid the police would not be able to prove your innocence,’ Rauf stated in some embarrassment. ‘About then, I realised that I would lie for you, break the law, do absolutely anything required to protect you and that shattered my view of myself as an honourable man.’

  Lily looked up into the dark golden eyes resting on her with adoring intensity and kept quiet rather than tell him that, next to those words of love that she had convinced herself that she would never hear, that was the most touching admission she had ever heard. ‘I was a bit disconcerted when you suddenly mentioned getting me out of the country as if I was a master criminal!’ she confided with a helpless giggle.

  ‘I hadn’t yet even laid charges against Brett for those missing funds, so how could you have been at any risk? I was functioning on that single brain cell again,’ Rauf groaned incredulously. ‘I think I know why I never fell in love before…ESP must’ve warned me it was likely to be the most humbling and embarrassing experience of my life.’

  As he smoothed down her tumbled hair and welded her to his lean, relaxed length Lily smiled with sunny contentment. ‘But I’m your reward…and, let’s face it, humility never used to be one of your more marked traits,’ she teased with new confidence. ‘I love you all the more for just being you.’

  ‘Flaws and all?’

  Lily nodded forgivingly.

  His shimmering smile curved his handsome mouth and warmed her all the way down to her toes. ‘You’re the best thing that ever happened to me…I love you more than anything else in this world.’

  Twenty months later, Lily settled her infant son, Themsi, into his canopied cot at Sonngul. Themsi was four months old. She hummed his favourite lullaby half under her breath until his big eyes slowly slid shut and the extravagant dark lashes he had inherited from his father d
rifted down onto his rounded little cheeks.

  From the window of the nursery, she watched the sun go down in spring splendour over the beautiful gardens before she drew the curtains and walked back to check that her baby was as comfortable as he could be. Themsi was only just beginning to sleep in more than fits and snatches and she smiled at the memory of finding Rauf beating her to his first cry those initial broken nights, for nobody had fallen harder for Themsi at first glance than his father. Her son was a very much indulged baby. Nelispah Kasabian had wept over him in joy and her own daughter and granddaughter were equally enchanted with the new addition to the family.

  ‘Four children?’ Nelispah had whispered conspiratorially to Lily, her wise old eyes fixed with satisfaction to Rauf as he’d cradled his son with tender pride for a family photograph. ‘He’s good for at least six! He’s all heart underneath the tough front.’

  Yes, Lily had discovered that learning the Turkish language had paid definite dividends. Nelispah Kasabian knew Rauf back to front and inside out but would never have dreamt of revealing that fact to him.

  Lily could barely believe that she had already been married for a year and eight months. The time had flown because she had never been happier. However, when Rauf and Lily had returned from their wonderful honeymoon they had been stunned to learn that Brett Gilman was dead. Soon after Brett had contrived to get himself back to England, he had been killed in a car accident. Apparently, he had been drunk, but mercifully no other car had been involved in the fatal crash. The files on Brett’s criminal activities had been closed.

  Hilary had been stunned when her ex-husband had been killed and the children had been very upset. At the same time, Lily’s nieces had seen so little of their irresponsible father since the divorce that they had not been as badly affected as they might have been. Rauf had tried to persuade her sister to allow him to buy her a larger home, but her sister had said no. Hilary had been working hard to build up Harris Travel again and Serhan Mirosh, the quiet but very attractive forty-year-old investment consultant whom Rauf employed, had made increasingly frequent visits to offer his advice and guidance.

  Rauf had given Lily a wicked grin of satisfaction one evening when he’d come home. ‘Serhan has fallen in love with Hilary. He sees her as a damsel in distress and longs to take all her business burdens onto his own shoulders—’

  ‘I don’t believe you!’ Lily laughed for Serhan had always struck her as a real sobersides for all his good looks.

  Rauf’s grin merely grew wider. ‘He confessed this afternoon when he asked if I would have any objection to him taking your sister out to dinner. It might take him another month to work up the courage. He’s very shy with women…why do you think he’s still single?’

  ‘I know Hilary likes working with him,’ Lily conceded with a reflective frown. ‘But she doesn’t seem to have the slightest interest in meeting another man.’

  ‘Serhan may be shy but he’s also very determined when he sets his sights on something. If he’s got anything to do with it, they’ll be married within the year,’ Rauf forecast with brazen confidence.

  Lily had been overjoyed when Rauf’s optimistic conviction had come true, although it had taken a little longer than a year for Serhan to get Hilary as far as the altar. His virtually proposing on the first date had been more of a hindrance than a help to his own cause. Just a month ago, however, Rauf and Lily had flown over to their wedding and had brought Penny, Gemma and Joy back home with them while the bridal couple had gone off on their honeymoon. Harris Travel had been sold and Hilary was planning to set up business again in Istanbul. Hilary had at last found the happiness she deserved and Lily was delighted that her sister and her daughters were now living nearby. Although pressed to take up residence with Serhan and Hilary in Turkey, Douglas Harris had decided to remain in England with his friends and all that was familiar and had moved into a comfortable flat in a retirement home.

  Lily and Rauf came to Sonngul to unwind in peace and privacy whenever they could. Rauf strolled into their bedroom, his jacket slung over one broad shoulder, tie already loosened, and his dark golden eyes glittered with appreciation over the picture Lily made in her aqua-coloured nightdress. ‘You look ravishing.’

  ‘You’re easily impressed,’ Lily teased, but then if that was true she was a pushover on the same score: his lean, dark features and the lithe flow of his well-built physique set her heart jumping too.

  ‘No, anything but. Every time I look at you, I know how lucky I am,’ Rauf quipped as he went into the adjoining room, where Themsi always slept when they stayed at Sonngul, to have a look at his sleeping son. ‘He’s practically growing in front of our eyes,’ he said fondly. ‘He’s going to be tall like me.’

  Lily watched him from the doorway with amusement.

  Rauf swung round. ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘I doubt that Themsi’s had a growth spurt since you flew out of here this morning!’

  Her tall, dark, handsome husband just closed his arms round her and lifted her right off her feet. ‘He just might have had,’ he told her stubbornly, and then he kissed her with passionate hunger, making her senses sing before conceding, ‘but I suppose it’s unlikely.’

  Lying back on their bed, Lily reached up to tug him down to her again and smiled up into his clear golden eyes, loving every angle of his lean, strong face, rejoicing in their closeness and contentment.

  ‘I hate being dragged away from you and Themsi when I’m here,’ Rauf confided huskily. ‘I’m going to set up a better office so that I can handle more on the spot.’

  ‘Brilliant idea,’ Lily told him.

  A slashing smile curved his handsome mouth. ‘I have my moments, güzelim.’

  Lily gave him a mischievous look. ‘Most days…why do you think I love you so much?’

  He gazed down at her with amusement and love mingled in his possessive gaze. ‘I adore you and you know it.’

  And she did know that she was loved and, more than anything else, that security and confidence had added to her contentment. She found his mouth for herself and surrendered to the pleasure of their loving.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-8323-1

  A MEDITERRANEAN MARRIAGE

  First North American Publication 2003.

  Copyright © 2002 by Lynne Graham.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  ® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

  Visit us at www.eHarlequin.com