‘Where did you go?’ He sounded husky.
‘To stay with friends in Winchester,’ she answered, her fingers pressing at the wet patch again. ‘I managed to get a job there, working in a factory. But they laid me off when it became obvious that I was pregnant. So I came up to London to try you again…’
‘Hassan told me you had been trying to contact me,’ he inserted. ‘I was at home in Rahman. I asked Hassan to meet with you but you had not left a contact number. He did attempt to find you but was unsuccessful…’
Sitting back on her heels, Melanie looked up at his tall dark shape standing by the deep purple curtains, and felt something painful slice across her chest. So his brother hadn’t even told him he’d spoken to her.
Neat, she thought ruefully. Tidy and slick.
‘He merely said that he had heard you were living with another man.’
Pressing her trembling lips together, she refused to say anything. There was enough bitterness flying around this room without her adding his brother into the mix.
He moved, shifting his tense frame to look at her. ‘What happened to Jamie?’
‘He left home too, went up north. I didn’t hear from him again until his father died.’ She stood up; her fingers were sticky and covered in fine fibres from the carpet. ‘He’s married now, has two beautiful children and a lovely wife he adores. He works with her father on a farm in Cumbria and would have been perfectly content to live the rest of his life milking cows for a living if the recent foot-and-mouth epidemic hadn’t devastated the herd.’
‘So he came to you for help?’
‘Financial help.’ Melanie nodded. ‘They want to go organic, but it takes time to clear the land of chemicals, disease and…whatever else.’ She shrugged. ‘They still have to live while they are achieving all this. Then they have to restock their herd. They want to specialise, so I am investing half a million pounds into their project.’
‘With no real hope of any return,’ Rafiq added, ‘because you still care for him.’
‘Of course I still care for him!’ she cried. ‘He was sorry for what he’d done. What use is there in bearing grudges? He is my only living relative besides Robbie!’
‘Not a blood relative.’
‘Does that matter? Who are you to criticise?’
‘I have a father and a half-brother.’
‘Would you turn your back on your brother’s wife if she came to you for help?’
No, he wouldn’t. She could see that in the sudden frown on his face.
‘We have wandered from the subject,’ he said tensely.
‘I’ve finished with the subject,’ she replied. ‘You believed what your eyes told you, and as far as you were concerned I did not warrant a single word in my defence. I gave birth to your son and with William’s help brought him up. When I thought it would be safe to do it I introduced you to your son, and ended up—here.’ She glanced around the Gothic bedroom. ‘Married to a man who can’t even look at me without seeing a slut.’
‘I do not think you are a slut.’
‘Poison, then.’
He released a harsh sigh. ‘I was angry when I said that.’
‘So was I. But do you want to know something really funny, Rafiq?’ She lifted cool gold eyes to him. ‘I really thought that you cared about me. Right up until you placed this ring on my finger I thought that, deep inside, beneath the rock you would call a heart, you still cared enough to want to make a success out of this marriage. But now?’ She turned away. ‘I think we’ve both made a terrible mistake.’
He didn’t protest it, which more or less said the rest for her. ‘Where is the bathroom?’ she asked, holding up her sticky fingers.
He turned to open a door she hadn’t noticed on the other side of the four-poster bed. And with her expression as closed as she could make it she walked past him into a rather startlingly decadent oak-panelled room with a huge free-standing bath tub overhung by a big brass shower head and a purple silk curtain that would circle the whole thing when closed. The rest of the fittings were antique porcelain. She walked over to the pedestal-mounted washbasin, then stood grimacing at her fingers before reaching for the taps.
Another pair of hands beat her to it. She was suddenly surrounded by Rafiq. Her body stiffened, her mouth ran dry. Water gushed into white porcelain, swirling around its curving bowl before spiralling its way down the drain. He took her hands and began to gently wash them.
Move back, she wanted to say, but found she couldn’t. It just wasn’t fair that after everything they’d just said he could still affect her like this!
‘Mistakes, even terrible mistakes, can be rectified. You proved this yourself when you came to tell me about the wonderful child we had made. If I made a similar terrible mistake eight years ago then you must, in all fairness, give me the opportunity to make it up to you.’
Grave words, reasonable words, words that pulsated with the promise of a different kind. ‘I can do this for myself.’ She tried to defer offering an answer.
‘But when I do it you know there is more to the chore than a simple washing of hands.’
Oh, dear God, he was oh, so right. She closed her eyes and tried very hard to stop a sigh of pleasure from developing. But, as with everything else about this extraordinary man, whether it be with anger or hate or sensuality, he moved her so deeply she really did not stand a chance.
His mouth found the pulse just below her ear lobe and his thumbs gently circled her wet palms. She was lost and she knew it. On a helpless groan she turned to capture his ready mouth. It was, she supposed, already written that they would drown their problems in the long deep warmth of the kiss.
A telephone started ringing somewhere. No one answered it. Was there anyone else here? Melanie tried to ignore it, wanted to stay just where she was in this man’s arms, with his kiss filling her up from the inside.
The telephone went on and on until, on a rasping sigh of impatience, he broke away, muttered a curse and an apology, then went to answer it. The nearest land-line extension was downstairs in the study. As he strode into that room Rafiq made a mental note to get some extra extensions put into the house.
He knew so little about its minor details, having only taken possession of it yesterday. He had wanted somewhere special to bring them while William’s town house was being attended to. He had viewed many properties, but this house he had liked on sight—had seen Melanie and his son fitting into it with ease. The master bedroom up there had seemed the perfect place to take a bride on her wedding night. Though now he had pre-empted that idea by a few hours, he mused grimly, as he stretched across the big dark antique oak desk to lift up the telephone.
‘This had better be good, Kadir,’ he barked at the only person who knew this telephone number.
What Kadir had to say to him set him cursing. By the time he put down the phone he was different man. He strode up the stairs and back into the bedroom to find Melanie standing by the bed—waiting for him.
For a moment, a short sweet tantalising moment, he considered forgetting everything except what this beautiful woman and the bed were offering him. Then reality hit.
‘Get dressed again,’ he instructed grimly. ‘We must leave immediately.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘WHY—what’s happened?’ Melanie demanded. He could see from her eyes that she was already thinking of their son and conjuring up some terrible accident.
‘No, not Robert.’ He quickly squashed that anxiety, though the one threatening to strike at him was almost as bad. ‘Kadir has just received a call from my father,’ he explained.
‘He’s taken ill again?’
He gave a shake of his head. ‘It is such a rare occurrence for my father to speak to anyone outside his family that on hearing his voice Kadir went to pieces and told him about you and Robert and our marriage today.’
‘You mean, he didn’t know?’
‘No,’ he answered. ‘No one in my family knows,’ he added as he walked toward
s the bathroom. ‘Now my father is shocked and angry. We have to go to him.’
There was a strangled gasp he recognised as anger. ‘What were you intending to do—keep Robbie and me a dark secret for the rest of our lives?’
He paused in his stride. ‘I am not quite that ruthless,’ he countered grimly. ‘But our marriage and the fact that we have a seven-year-old son is something I preferred to tell my father to his face. It is—complicated.’ That seemed to be the word to describe the situation.
Not for Melanie, it seemed. ‘Explain complicated,’ she commanded, following him as he moved on into the bathroom.
His mouth flattened. He did not want to say this! ‘He knew about our relationship eight years ago and is therefore against you before he even sets his eyes on you.’ 172
She did not say a word, but simply turned and walked away. In a mood that hung somewhere between fury and frustration, Rafiq closed the door, shrugged off his robe and stepped beneath the shower.
By the time they met up again Rafiq knew hostilities were back with a vengeance. They met on the landing. Melanie had clearly used another room to dress and was now wearing a suit from the selection he had bought for her. It was long and slinky, in a shade of rich moss-green that did wonderful things for her sparking eyes.
By the way she pursed her beautiful mouth as she ran her gaze over him he did not impress, he noted heavily. ‘It is expected of me.’ He felt compelled to defend the long white tunic, dark red top-robe and chequered gut rah which was covering his head.
It was only when she walked down the stairs without saying a word that he remembered another time she had seen him dressed like this: he had been throwing her out of his life. A silent curse rattled around inside him. Once again he considered leaving his father to wait while he seduced this woman of his into a sweeter temper.
But shocks were bad for his father’s health. Rafiq would never forgive himself if the old sheikh took a turn for the worse while Rafiq was lost in the act of lovemaking.
As they stepped outside the car was waiting with its engine running. As soon as they were on their way he offered his mobile phone to Melanie. ‘Ring your friend,’ he said, ‘and warn her that we are coming to collect Robert.’
Without comment she made the connection with Sophia’s mobile phone. ‘We have to go to Rahman,’ she explained. ‘Can you have Robbie ready to travel by the time we arrive to pick him up?’
Whatever her friend said to her, Melanie’s expression was rueful. ‘No. But you had better prepare him for a bit of a shock. His father has turned himself into an Arab, so if he knows beforehand he might not find himself looking at a total stranger.’
With that, she gave him back his phone.
‘Was that necessary?’ he asked.
She turned an icy stare on him. ‘Yes,’ she said.
He released a sigh. ‘It was not my intention for this to happen.’
‘Keep your excuses,’ she told him. ‘And just so that you know,’ she added, ‘I am coming with you only because I have made that decision. Your father deserves to meet his grandson. But let one person look upon him like a leper, Rafiq, just one—!’
‘And you will do what?’ he questioned curiously.
‘I am relying on Rahman’s reputation for being a free and equal society,’ she said. ‘If I don’t like what we meet there then Robbie and I are coming home to England.’
‘With or without me?’
‘Without.’
He sighed and said nothing more. For what could he say other than to offer yet another apology? But he suspected it would not be enough for a woman looking at her ruined wedding day.
The rest of the journey was achieved in silence. The meeting with his son did not take place with shock but with awe. ‘Will I have to dress like that?’ Robbie asked dubiously.
‘Not unless you want to,’ Rafiq answered smoothly, while Sophia Elliot looked on in complete silence. No mocking tilt to a sleek black eyebrow, no glowering frown of disapproval.
They made their farewells and within the hour were boarding the Al-Qadim private jet to Rahman.
Within the next hour, his son was fast asleep in one of the cabins and Melanie was curled up on a soft cream leather sofa, clearly unimpressed by her luxury surroundings.
Rafiq decided that he had taken enough of her cold shoulder. Picking her up as she was, he sat himself down and placed her on his lap, then lifted up a hand to remove his headgear and toss it aside. ‘There—is that better?’ Dark eyes mockingly quizzed her. ‘Can you bring yourself to look at me now?’
What he didn’t expect from his bit of sarcasm were the tears that filled her lovely eyes.
‘You’re ashamed of me,’ she said.
‘No,’ he denied.
‘If I had let you do it you would have brought Robbie with you and left me behind in London.’
‘No.’ He denied that too.
‘You ruined my wedding day.’
‘I will make it up to you.’
‘You—’
It was no use carrying this conversation any further. So he kissed her. Why not? She needed kissing. So he kissed her until the tears went away. And kissed her some more until she slowly relaxed into a quiet slumber on his lap. He waved away the attendants when they walked down the cabin, and did not bother to move her to a bed because…he liked to have her just where she was.
Which meant…what? he asked himself as the air miles flew by them.
Hell, he knew what it meant. He had known it for a long time. A week—eight years—it mattered little how long he had known it.
They came in to land at dawn, circling around the perimeter of a great modern city which glinted in the early-morning sun. From the jet they transferred to a small Cessna, drawing curious glances from dark-eyed Arabs as they moved from plane to plane.
Rafiq flew them himself, leaving Melanie and Robbie to drink in the dramatic landscape panning out beneath them, with its silver thread of a river winding through a lush valley surrounded by high, lurking dunes and miles of sand. It took only twenty minutes before they were landing again. A four-wheel drive waited to receive them. Rafiq placed himself behind the wheel of this, and began driving them over tarmac towards a sandstone fortress backed by the fertile oasis of Al-Qadim.
Melanie knew all of this because Robbie had maintained a running commentary throughout both the short flight and this short drive towards his father’s home. The child’s grasp of this part of his heritage was so intense that even Rafiq allowed himself a couple of grimaces as he listened to him. But other than grimaces he offered nothing; his expression was sombre, the harsh lines of his profile telling her that he was lost in grim places of his own.
A pair of thick wooden gates swung inwards as they approached them, then closed behind them as they passed through into a beautiful courtyard laid with tropical plants and sparkling fountains. They came to a stop in front of a rich blue dome suspended on sandstone pillars. Rafiq got out of the car and strode round to the other side to open the other door. In silence he offered Melanie his hand to assist her to alight. Robbie scrambled out of his own accord, then stood gazing about him with dark eyes that greedily drank in every detail they could.
Then his father was quietly calling him to heel, and the small boy came with his dark head still twisting in frowning curiosity. ‘Are we going to live here now?’ he asked.
‘No, we will continue to live in London,’ his father assured him. ‘And come here to visit during the school holidays, if you like.’
Nodding his head in approval, Robbie cleared the small frown from his brow, and walked happily beside his father into a vast entrance hall with a beautiful lapis-blue and white domed ceiling and pale sand marble covering the floor.
The first person Melanie saw was Sheikh Hassan Al-Qadim, and her heart slithered to her stomach. Dressed like Rafiq, he was standing straight and still beside a beautiful creature with dark red hair and perfect porcelain skin. She was quite heavily pregnant beneath the sle
nder white tunic she was wearing.
Both of them fixed their eyes on Robbie. Both looked shocked, if not dismayed. Melanie’s fingers twitched within Rafiq’s. He glanced down at her and she glanced upwards, the anxiety in her eyes making his grim mouth flatten as he looked away again.
Sheikh Hassan was looking at her now. One glimpse at his expression and Melanie knew what he was going to say. Her heart leapt from her stomach to lodge in her throat. He took a step towards her. ‘Miss Leggett,’ he murmured deeply, ‘I must beg—’
‘Mrs Portreath,’ she corrected, leaping on anything just to silence him. His dark eyes narrowed and sharpened. With a minuscule shake of her head she tried to relay a message to him.
‘Al-Qadim,’ Rafiq corrected both of them. ‘We married yesterday as you no doubt know by now, Hassan.’
‘Of course. Rafiq, if you had only explained why you wanted me to be in London I would have been there. You know that.’ Sheikh Hassan begged his understanding, taking the diversion Rafiq had unwittingly offered to him.
But Melanie could see he was not happy about remaining silent over their last meeting. As the two brothers greeted with an embrace and words spoken in Arabic those dark eyes so like Rafiq’s remained fixed upon her over his brother’s shoulder. She looked away, found herself gazing at the other woman, who had witnessed the exchange and was now looking very concerned.
She stepped forward with a smile, though. ‘Welcome to our family,’ she greeted warmly, and surprised Melanie by brushing a kiss to each of her cheeks. ‘My name is Leona and I am married to Rafiq’s brother,’ she explained. ‘Our child is due in two months—just in case you did not like to ask me. And this…’ she turned to smile at Robbie ‘…has to be the most handsome Al-Qadim of the three.’
It was all very light, very eager to please, but Melanie could sense the other woman’s tension and she could see it repeated in Sheikh Hassan. She could feel it pulsing in Rafiq. When she added her own tension into it all the vast hall almost sparked with it.
‘My name is Robert Portreath,’ Robbie corrected with a faintly puzzled frown. The business of names was going to take some explaining later, Melanie realised as she watched Leona Al-Qadim dip down to his level to offer Robbie her hand.
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