Exotic Affairs: The Mistress Bride\The Spanish Husband\The Bellini Bride (10 page)

‘This really isn’t the time for this.’ Evie made a halfhearted attempt to stem what was already rushing through both of them.

‘I blame you,’ he informed her arrogantly. ‘Seeing you lying here looking so vulnerable and knowing you nurture my child inside you has made me feel most disgustingly macho.’

‘I can tell,’ she drawled in mocking acknowledgement as her hand slid down the flat plane of her stomach to cover the warm, tight evidence of his feelings.

A shiver ripped through him, the kind of shiver that was always his response to her initial touch of him. ‘Then you tell me,’ he murmured in sudden seriousness, ‘how we give this up when we can’t even control it while the world falls in on us.’

‘I don’t know,’ Evie sighed heavily.

‘Well, I do,’ he said as he pushed her on to her back then carefully placed her bandaged arm out of harm’s way before he came to lean over her. ‘We stay together. Somehow, some way, I will make it happen,’ he vowed. ‘You are mine. This child you carry is mine. I will lay claim to you both with pride and with honour. And that, my darling, is my promise to you.’

Fine words, wonderful words. But could he bring them
to fruition? And if he could, at what cost to all of those other things in his life he held so dear to him?

Evie let herself be drawn down into that deep well of sensuality where Raschid’s loving always took her, but her mind didn’t follow; that remained locked in the tight coil of their problems even as they flew.

E
VIE
came swimming up from the deep dark slumber she had escaped into after Raschid had moved away from her, and frowned as her ears picked up on the muffled sound of voices raised in anger.

One was Raschid, sounding cold and cutting. The other was…

‘Oh, no.’ Her mother.

Groaning, she pulled herself up and out of the bed.

In a flurry of urgency she grabbed the first thing that came to hand—a raspberry-coloured long silk wrap that Raschid must have left out for her, which she dragged on and began tying around her as she hurried, barefoot, towards the bedroom door.

The moment she was out in the hallway she could hear clearly what was being said.

‘Love?’ her mother was deriding icily. ‘Love doesn’t take and take without giving back! What have you given back during this affair, Sheikh Raschid?’ she demanded. ‘For
I
don’t see your reputation lying in shreds at your feet, or you becoming the object of everyone’s pity!’

Pity? White-faced and shaken to the roots by the very sound of the word, Evie pulled to a halt beneath the open archway that connected the sumptuous living room with the hallway which led to all the other rooms in Raschid’s vast apartment.

Her mother was standing there wearing a snow-white suit that was so dramatically effective against her milk-white skin and pale blonde hair—while Raschid was draped from neck to ankles in the flowing dark blue robes of his native culture.

And the two of them were facing up to each other like two very dangerous substances that should never, ever be allowed to mix. Mutual hostility and dislike was rife.

‘Yesterday was supposed to be a very special day for my family,’ Lucinda Delahaye continued angrily. ‘And, to give Evie her due, she tried her level best to make it that! But you had to come. You had to upstage the bride and groom by getting yourself in the papers as usual. You calmly danced with my daughter while the rumours flew thick and fast about your coming marriage to another woman. And if that wasn’t enough your own father had made sure the whole world knew what a gullible little fool Evie is where you are concerned!’

‘Try trusting her judgement for a change,’ Raschid coolly suggested. ‘You never know, you may find that Evie can pleasantly surprise you.’

‘Not while she continues this shameful affair with you, she won’t.’

‘Our shameful affair is none of your business.’

‘Why don’t you just go home to your oil-rich desert—marry your cousin of a cousin and leave my daughter alone?’ her mother cried.

To Evie’s horror, Raschid laughed. ‘If only you knew,’ Raschid murmured dryly.

‘Frankly, I don’t want to know,’ her mother said dismissively. ‘All I want to do is speak to my daughter.’

‘Evie is resting.’ Raschid refused. ‘She was feeling—unwell,’ he explained. ‘She—’

‘I’m here,’ Evie said, quickly cutting off whatever Raschid might have been going to say by stepping into the room.

They turned together—and slid their gazes over her together, the cold blue eyes in stinging condemnation, while the gold ones were carefully hooded so she couldn’t read what they were seeing as they checked her out.

Still, it was like being scrutinised by two tough critics.

So much so that one hand went up to clutch at the gaping lapels of her robe while the other hand ran self-conscious fingers through her tumbled hair.

‘What’s supposed to be wrong with you?’ her mother demanded with deep suspicion.

‘N-nothing,’ Evie replied, carefully avoiding Raschid’s gaze as she stepped further into the room. ‘I w-was tired, that’s all. Wh-what do you want, Mother?’ she asked.

‘What do I want?’ Lucinda repeated. ‘I want to know what you think you are doing, lying in this man’s bed while he plans his wedding to another woman! Have you no pride—no shame? Have you even bothered to consider what it has done to your reputation to have openly come here with him today knowing full well what he intends to do?’

‘Your tone, Lady Delahaye, leaves a lot to be desired,’ Raschid inserted grimly.

‘My tone, young man,’ Evie’s mother countered haughtily, ‘is none of your business. I was talking to my daughter, not to you.’

If the antagonism between the two of them got any worse, Evie had a horrible feeling they would start telling each other what they really thought, and she didn’t think she could cope with that right now.

‘Raschid…’ It was to him that she turned to plead anxiously. ‘Would you mind giving us a few minutes alone—please?’

He didn’t look happy. In fact, he didn’t look anything but hard and cold and utterly offended by the request. But Evie couldn’t let herself be moved by that look. She might not have the perfect relationship with her mother, but she had no wish to see her demolished by him, which Lucinda certainly would be if Raschid decided to take her on.

‘If you wish.’ He agreed to her request with an icy politeness that made Evie shiver. And with a stiff bow of his head in her mother’s direction he strode from the room,
leaving the kind of tension behind him that threatened to suffocate.

‘That man is so arrogant, he makes my blood boil,’ Lucinda said tightly.

‘Your own arrogance wouldn’t pass scrutiny,’ Evie returned heavily. ‘This is Raschid’s home,’ she pointed out. ‘Yet you treated him as if he were the intruder here.’

Stiffening slightly, her mother had the grace to take the criticism without defending herself. ‘I don’t like him,’ was all she said.

And the feeling, Evie thought, is entirely mutual.

‘He treats you terribly and you let him get away with it.’

‘He treats me beautifully,’ Evie declared. ‘It’s just that you choose not to see it.’

Sighing because this encounter had no hope of being anything but hostile as things presently stood, Evie moved off towards the well-equipped drinks bar and bent to open the chiller door to extract a bottle of still water for herself.

‘Can I get you anything, Mother?’ she asked as she straightened.

‘No, thank you,’ her mother replied. Then, on a heavy sigh of her own, Lucinda unbent a little and tossed her white clutch purse to one side before deciding to take an interest in her surroundings.

There was nothing in the room that could be called brash, excessive or lacking taste. The floors were polished maple scattered with beautiful Persian rugs, the furniture a clever mix of off-white fabric and polished stone that was gentle on the eye. And the plain-papered oatmeal walls were hung with a rich display of original oils, mostly depicting sights and scenes from Raschid’s own country.

Walking over to one of these paintings, her mother studied it carefully while Evie poured the water into a glass.

‘Is this his palace?’ Lucinda enquired curiously.

‘Yes,’ Evie confirmed. ‘Or one of them,’ she then added.

The Al Kadah family owned several impressive-looking homes similar to the one her mother was studying. But that particular one belonged exclusively to Raschid.

‘It possesses a rather dramatic beauty, doesn’t it?’ her mother opined—a trifle reluctantly. ‘All those different shades of gold set against the blue of the ocean and the sky while the place itself seems to rise quite naturally out of the desert as if it has been put there by a force more powerful than man…’

Evie was staring down at the glass. Her mouth felt parched, but her stomach was still queasy enough to make the act of actually swallowing the water a thing she had to convince herself she needed to do.

But she looked up in surprise at her mother’s words. ‘Raschid designed it himself,’ she said, smiling slightly at her mother’s sudden start. It didn’t particularly please her to discover she had been unwittingly complimenting the enemy. ‘He had it built to his own design several years before I met him,’ she explained. ‘It nestles in the foothills of their mountains where the desert crowds in on two sides and the Persian Gulf on the other…’

‘Oh,’ was all her mother could think of replying to that. ‘The man must have hidden talents.’

More hidden talents than you know, Evie thought wryly, and lifted the glass to her lips. The water went down without causing too much commotion, she noted with relief.

‘Come home with me, Evie.’

Glancing up, she saw that her mother had turned to face her and was looking at her with something close to sympathy in her cool lavender eyes.

‘To be utterly blunt, darling, you look awful,’ Lucinda grimly continued. ‘Everyone is worried about you. Julian called me from the airport, he was so concerned when he read about this latest development in this morning’s paper, and even Lord Beverley is thoroughly shocked and appalled at the way Sheikh Raschid is using you.’

‘Raschid isn’t using me,’ Evie denied. ‘He loves me.’

‘Love!’ her mother derided in the same way she had derided the word to Raschid’s face a few minutes ago. ‘The man doesn’t know the meaning of the word or he wouldn’t be planning to betray you like this!’

‘In this case, it isn’t me who’s been betrayed,’ Evie said. ‘His father placed that announcement without Raschid’s approval.’

‘Is that what he told you?’ Her mother’s scepticism was clear.

But Evie lifted her chin to look right into her mother’s disbelieving eyes when she said, ‘It’s the truth. Raschid wouldn’t lie—especially to me.’

‘Oh, good grief!’ Lucinda Delahaye exclaimed. ‘I can’t believe you can be so gullible!’

‘It has nothing to do with gullibility,’ Evie countered. ‘But it has everything to do with trust. I trust Raschid to be truthful with me.’

‘All right, let us suppose that he does speak the truth,’ her mother clipped, deciding to change tack when she saw that stubborn tilt to her daughter’s chin that she knew so well. ‘What does he intend to do about it?’

Ah, Evie thought, the big question, and she lowered her eyes because she had no clear answer to it.

‘Lord Beverley informs me there is no way Raschid can pull out of this marriage now it has been made public,’ her mother pushed on. ‘Which means that you are out in the cold no matter what Raschid would prefer. His future bride’s family will insist upon it as any family would having followed your relationship over the last two years.’

‘Do you honestly think I would want to continue our relationship if he did marry someone else?’ Evie questioned coolly.

Lucinda didn’t answer, but the look on her face certainly said it all for her, and it came as a horrible shock to realise
that even her own mother believed she was prepared to sink that low for her love of Raschid.

‘Well, I wouldn’t,’ she snapped, turning away to rid herself of the glass because all of a sudden her stomach was acting up again. But this time it had nothing to do with overwrought hormones.

‘Then prove it,’ her mother said. ‘Put a stop to this now before you lose what is left of your pride! We can go down to Westhaven together,’ she suggested, pouncing on the flicker of pain she had caught in Evie’s eyes before she turned her back to her. ‘Hide away there until all of this blows over!’

‘I can’t,’ Evie whispered, lifting a hand to cover her aching eyes. ‘I can’t leave him until I know for sure that there is no future for us.’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Evie!’ her mother cried out in angry frustration. Stepping forward, she grabbed hold of Evie’s arm so she could spin her round to face her. ‘When are you going to—?’

‘Aagh!’ Evie’s strangled shriek of agony slicing through the air utterly silenced her mother.

Where he came from, Evie had no conception, but suddenly Asim was standing right there beside them, and was taking hold of her mother’s wrist in a grip that grimly prised her fingers from Evie’s arm.

‘What on earth…?’ Lucinda choked in shocked incredulity.

‘Your daughter has an injury to the arm you hold,’ Asim answered as he let go of her mother.

‘An injury?’ Lucinda gasped. ‘What kind of injury? What have you people been doing to her?’

‘It was an accident.’ Raschid’s tight voice entered the tension. ‘Evie scalded herself this morning.’

‘You scalded yourself?’ her mother repeated, aiming the stunned question at Evie.

But Evie couldn’t answer. She was too busy cradling
her arm where the burning pain was making her feel weak and dizzy. Her face had gone white and her body was trembling with aftershocks of an unbelievable agony.

‘Sit down, for goodness’ sake!’ Raschid raked angrily at her. And before she knew it Evie was being unceremoniously dumped into the nearest chair. ‘Asim!’ He turned that anger on the servant next. ‘Do something!’

With his usual calm, Asim was already squatting down beside Evie and gently taking hold of her arm while Evie just sat, eyes closed, face drained, and shook violently.

‘What does he know about burns?’ Lucinda put in shrilly.

‘More than most,’ Raschid gratingly replied.

‘But she needs to see a damned doctor!’ Lucinda declared in protest as she stood by watching in pulsing horror while Asim began to gently unwrap Evie’s injured arm.

In a paper-dry tone that scraped over everyone, Raschid drawled, ‘She is seeing one right now.’

It was shocking enough news to bring Evie’s eyes open to stare at the servant in dumb disbelief. Asim caught the look and smiled briefly. ‘I have been Sheikh Raschid’s personal physician since the day he was born,’ he quietly explained.

‘Well, you old fraud,’ she breathed. ‘You’ve let me believe you were nothing more than chief cook and bottle-washer here for the last two years!’

‘As you know,’ he replied dryly, ‘he is rarely ill.’

‘Ouch!’ she gasped when he touched a particularly tender spot on her arm.

Looking down, she saw that the skin had blistered. Over her head, she heard Raschid mutter something. Her mother, it seemed, had been struck totally speechless.

‘A burns specialist, Asim?’ Raschid demanded harshly.

‘No, sir,’ the other man replied. ‘But I will need my bag,’ he said, getting up. ‘If you will excuse me for a moment.’

Walking away, he left an atmosphere behind him that would have split atoms. Raschid stood to one side of Evie, her mother on the other. And Evie herself kept her face lowered because she just didn’t feel up to dealing with either of them right now.