‘When?’ He was suddenly on his feet again. ‘When did you give me this chance?’
‘When you threw me out of your embassy eight years ago!’
‘You knew then and said nothing?’
Melanie laughed. ‘You were the man who told me it was no use my saying a single word because you wouldn’t believe me anyway!’
‘And you could not bring yourself to stand your ground and insist I listen to you?’
Chin up, eyes bright, face white and body trembling, she still held her ground. ‘For what purpose?’ she demanded. ‘You would have still called me a liar.’
A flick of a hand brought contempt back into the fight. ‘You were sleeping with your step-cousin. Of course I would have questioned the boy’s parentage!’
If Melanie had still had the poker in her hand she would have hit him with it. Who did he think he was, standing here trying to lay all the blame on her? ‘What if I had come to you with your son in my arms, Rafiq?’ she challenged. ‘What if I’d said, Look, Rafiq, see for yourself that this child belongs to you?’ She released a bitter little laugh. ‘I’ll tell you what you would have done. You would have taken him away from me. You would have used your filthy billions to split me from my child!’
‘I would not!’ He actually dared to look shocked.
Melanie wasn’t impressed. ‘Yes, you would,’ she insisted. ‘You believed I was a cheap little slut and a gold-digger who had made an utter fool out of you. You would have wanted revenge—probably still want it!’ she flashed. ‘But I have my own money with which to fight you now. I also have Robbie, who loves me, Rafiq. He loves me, as his mother, and he’s old enough and wise enough to hate anyone who might dare to try and pull us apart!’
He went paler with every bitter word she tossed at him, until a white ring circled his taut mouth. ‘If you feel like this, why have you decided to bring me into his life?’
‘Because he needs you,’ she whispered.
‘And did not need me before?’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Before, he had William.’
CHAPTER FOUR
RAFIQ turned away as if her answer had cut him. His action more or less said it all for Melanie. Her anger fle
d, leaving her feeling weak and shaken, and she too turned away, putting a hand up to cover her trembling mouth, and waited for him recover from what she’d thrown at him. Because she knew it wasn’t over, not by a long way.
Neither moved nor tried to speak again. In the drumming silence Rafiq was trying to decide how he felt about these latest revelations, and realised he was in no fit state to attempt the problem. Or was he being a coward and delaying the ugliness of truth?
And what was that truth? he asked himself. The truth was that Melanie had accused him of things he couldn’t argue with. He would not have believed her son was his, unless presented with positive evidence. He would certainly have moved heaven and earth to remove his son from the clutches of a woman he believed unfit to rear his child.
He still believed it, which only helped to make the situation that bit uglier.
‘I think I should leave,’ he heard himself murmur.
‘Yes,’ she agreed.
‘I think we should defer the rest until another time when we are both…calmer.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed again.
Yet he didn’t move—he wanted to move but something was stopping him. A need to stay? To be here where his son was? Or was it Melanie who was holding him? He turned to look at her, at the fall of her pale hair against slender shoulders that were no longer straight with defiance but hunched and heavy. Her black woollen top clung to the gentle curves of her body and the jeans followed the lines of her hips and thighs. She held a hand to her mouth, he saw, which explained why her answers had sounded muffled, and the other hand was wrapped around her body, the fingernails trembling where they dug deep into black wool.
He turned away again, and looked at the room for the first time since he’d entered it. It came as a small surprise. The décor was old-fashioned, the furniture the same, mostly heavy dark pieces that spoke of another era, like the patterned red carpet that covered the floor and the dark red velvet curtain fabric that matched the upholstery covering the sofas and chairs. It was a man’s kind of room, warm and solid, with the odd female touch, such as the jewel-coloured silk cushions heaped on the sofas and chairs.
He liked it, which further surprised him because he was so predisposed to dislike anything to do with Melanie right now.
Or was it William Portreath’s taste he was reluctantly admiring? he then wondered suddenly, and felt the bitterness well up again, felt the hard cut of envy for a man who had loved another man’s child enough to present him with his own name.
He didn’t want to leave. Melanie could feel his reluctance wrapping round the room like a heavy dark cloud that stole all the oxygen. He was still steeped in shock. His son was here in this very house. He needed to see him, see the truth for himself. She understood that, and wished so much that things had worked out differently this morning, because they could have got all the fighting out of the way then and he could have happily met Robbie and have seen what a wonderful child they had made together. More importantly, Robbie would have met his father and would have known that he was no longer in danger of being left alone in this world if anything should happen to her.
Should she say something—hold out yet another olive branch? Should she tell him that she understood how he was feeling, but that she had to protect both herself and her son?