Exotic Affairs: The Mistress Bride / The Spanish Husband / The Bellini Bride

The beginning, not the end. Evie shuddered. ‘Sometimes I wish I’d never met you,’ she sighed.

Surprisingly he laughed, albeit ruefully. ‘Only sometimes?’ he mocked. ‘There is a chance for us yet, then.’

It was merely one of those light, throw-away remarks people made in times of trouble that really did not mean anything in particular. But still, it weighed heavily on Evie’s mind as the car swept up to the security-protected entrance to his basement car park, because she didn’t think they had a chance whichever way you looked at it.

Evie sank deeply into the rear seat when she saw the gaggle of press people standing around waiting for them, and Raschid’s arm drew her tighter against him as he clipped out a terse order to his driver to run them over if he had to.

Luckily such a dire response wasn’t necessary; as the car drove towards them the rat-pack parted, their cameras flashing against the car windows as it forged its way down into the relative sanctuary of the basement.

The car stopped and Raschid jumped out to stride around the car so he could open Evie’s door for her. The lift waited; they entered it together and travelled upwards in complete silence. It stopped and the doors slid open directly into Raschid’s private white marbled foyer.

Asim was standing there waiting for them. When he saw the way Evie was cradling her towel-wrapped arm he gasped in horror. ‘Someone has harmed you, Miss Delahaye?’ he asked sharply.

‘I did it myself,’ Evie dryly replied.

‘Hot tea,’ Raschid inserted tightly. ‘From that urn you gave to her.’

It was a rotten thing to say, especially when poor Asim suddenly looked as if he’d poured the stupid tea over her himself. ‘Stop taking your bad temper out on Asim!’ she snapped. ‘It’s not his fault your life is in such a mess!’

‘What a damned mess!’ he had rasped at her last night. And just now he had added an apt little rider to that with his, ‘This is only the beginning of it all, not the end of it.’

Without waiting for instruction, Asim quietly bade Evie to follow him into the living room where he sat her down on one of the chairs then squatted in front of her so he could gently unwrap her burned arm.

The skin looked red, but it hadn’t blistered, although when he touched a cool fingertip to it she jumped in pained response. ‘It is still hot?’ he asked.

Evie nodded her head, weak tears suddenly flooding her eyes.

‘Do something about it!’ Raschid grated from behind the older man.

‘Of course.’ As impassive as ever in the face of Raschid’s anger, Asim rose up and moved quietly away.

‘You’re horrible to him,’ Evie snapped out accusingly. ‘Ever speak to me like that and I will slap your face!’

‘Before you burst into tears or after?’ he countered. Then sighed and turned his back on her, his stance taut and angry. ‘I don’t like to see you hurting,’ he tagged on gruffly.

Well, I’m hurting in a whole lot of other places you don’t even know about, Evie thought bleakly.

Asim came back. Raschid looked relieved. Squatting down in front of her again, the older man unscrewed the top off a jar and began gently smearing a clear ointment on her scalded skin.

It was delicious, so cooling. Evie sighed softly and relaxed back in the chair to close her aching eyes. A few minutes later a moist bandage was being carefully wrapped around her arm.

‘The heat is receding?’ Asim asked her.

She nodded. ‘Thank you, Asim.’

‘We will repeat the process again later,’ he said. ‘But for now, Miss Delahaye, I really think you should lie down on the bed and rest. You are looking exceedingly pale…’

‘But—’

‘Good advice.’ Raschid was suddenly standing over her.

‘But…’ she tried again.

‘But nothing. To put it bluntly, Evie, you look dreadful.’

She felt it too—shock, she assumed, the delayed kind of shock that was making her feel ever so slightly woozy. ‘I haven’t had a single thing to eat today,’ she remembered as Raschid helped her get to her feet.

‘Then while we get you comfortable in bed Asim will prepare something—what would you like?’

It was weird, but having felt her stomach growling for want of sustenance, it was suddenly churning for an entirely different reason. ‘Oh, no,’ she choked, bringing her hand up to cover her mouth.

‘What’s the matter?’ Raschid demanded sharply.

But Evie had already broken free from him to run.

A single glass of water drunk at five-thirty that morning was no real problem to bring back up, but Evie remained leaning over the bowl in the bathroom for a long while afterwards, still feeling sick and dizzy enough not to dare to move away.

After a while, she straightened carefully and went in search of the minty mouthwash she knew Raschid kept hidden behind the large mirrored wall cupboard. Finding it, she shut the cupboard door and was just about to unscrew the cap when a reflection in the mirror caught her attention.

And it came as a shock to see that both Raschid and Asim were standing in the bathroom doorway gravely watching her.

‘Oh, go away!’ she cried out on a sudden loss of dignity. ‘Can’t a girl even be sick in private here?’

‘We were concerned,’ Raschid said.

‘Well, don’t be,’ she snapped, then sighed as her stomach made another grasping clutch at her. ‘It happens,’ she added fatalistically.

A baby… she thought dazedly. They had made a baby. Lifting her eyes, she stared at Raschid’s sober face through the mirror then turned her gaze to Asim.

He knew, she realised painfully. It had quickly hit him just what was not being said here. And the horror he was having difficulty in disguising brought the weak spill of tears washing into her eyes.

‘Oh, damn it,’ she choked, and turned away from both the mirror and the two men to tip a small quantity of mouthwash into the plastic cap. But her hand was shaking badly, and she spilled more than she caught in the cap before she had enough to warily swill her mouth with.

‘Come on…’ Raschid’s arm came around her shoulders, his voice deep and heavy as he gently turned her. ‘You may feel better if you lie down for a while.’

Quietly dismissing Asim, Raschid led her through to the bedroom, and Evie found she just didn’t have enough energy to argue with him when he began to undress her. So she simply let him get on with it, lifting a foot when required or an arm, then finally allowed him to slide her between the cool linen sheets.

‘He’s going to hate me now,’ she murmured dully as Raschid straightened away from her. ‘For messing up your life.’

‘Don’t be foolish,’ he admonished, not even pretending to wonder whom it was she was talking about. ‘Asim has great affection for you, and you know it.’

As he moved away from her, Evie let her eyes follow him. He went to touch the button on the wall that would bring the curtains swishing across the windows. The instant transformation from bright sunlight to a mellow half-light helped soothe the ache going on behind her weary eyes.

‘If he seemed upset,’ Raschid continued as he walked back to her, ‘then it is because he sees the problems facing us just as clearly as you and I do.’

‘Your father will hate me.’ Evie was in no mood to be consoled right now. ‘My mother will hate me…’

‘Shut up,’ Raschid said. ‘Or I may just decide to exert other methods to rid you of your melancholy.’

Lavender eyes that he expected to slice him in two at such an audacious threat were instead blunted by a vulnerability even Raschid had never seen in them before.

It moved him to see it, touched a painful chord deep inside him that wrenched free the impassive mask he had been wearing, and replaced it with a complexity of emotions, all of which revolved around several different kinds of frustration.

‘Oh, what the hell?’ he muttered to himself, and with a slick economy of movement his tee shirt came off over his head to reveal that wonderful polished bronze breastplate set between wide, muscled shoulders.

Evie watched him wordlessly as he stripped himself naked, let her eyes feast on every beautiful inch of him as he lifted the sheet and slid into the bed. Her arm lifted in welcome; he coiled himself around her. Their mouths touched briefly, then not so briefly.

‘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.

CHAPTER EIGHT

EVIE 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.