Which makes me the consolation prize.
She caught the sound of a key in the front door then. Only one person beside herself had a key to this house. Her insides became a mess of misery as she listened to Rafiq call out her name. Sophia straightened in her chair, her eyes growing wide and dark and curious. Footsteps sounded on the polished wood floor as he strode towards the kitchen, then arrived to fill its doorway. Melanie tried focusing on his face, but all she saw was the shadowy outline of his whole dark bulk. Weakness feathered its way through the misery, because he did not fill the doorway with just his size, but with—everything. The darkness of his hair, his skin and his clothes said so much about him
, and the stillness of every perfectly formed feature warned of the inner strength that so matched the outer shell.
His gaze flicked from her face to Sophia’s face, then remained there. Melanie glanced at Sophia too, and was suddenly struck very hard by her friend’s likeness to Serena Cordero. Another wave of nausea lodged in her throat, because he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her.
Rafiq had not expected to find Melanie with a visitor. For a moment he was struck numb by the thought that it was Serena herself, come to cause yet more trouble. Then the likeness faded and he glanced back at Melanie to find that she was looking down at the table. He saw the newspaper, felt his fingers clench around his own, and knew what Melanie was going to say before she even spoke.
‘You have a mistress.’
‘I had a mistress,’ he corrected, coming further into the room as Sophia rose from her seat.
‘I think I’ll leave you both to it,’ she murmured, and went to pick up the newspaper.
It was a gesture that did not pass by Rafiq. ‘If the newspaper is yours, then I must assume you enjoy playing devil’s advocate,’ he drawled icily.
Sophia being Sophia, she took up the challenge in his tone. ‘I don’t like whatever it is you are trying to do here,’ she informed him coolly.
Sparks began to fly. ‘You believe I care one way or another what you like or dislike?’
The dark beauty’s chin lifted, sending ripples of raven hair flying over her shoulders. ‘I don’t think you care about anyone’s feelings so long as you get your own way.’
‘Well, I did not get my own way here,’ he said, stabbing a long finger at the damning newspaper article.
It was then that he realised what it was he was stabbing at, and began to frown in confusion. While he was doing that Melanie got up and on a soft choke, rushed from the room. The urge to stop her was halted by his curiosity about this other woman.
His eyes narrowed. ‘How did you get hold of this?’ he demanded.
She shrugged. ‘I am Spanish on my mother’s side,’ she explained. ‘My grandmother sends me her newspapers once a week.’
‘Industrious lady.’
‘Very.’
‘You have a point in hurting Melanie with this?’
‘You are the one playing hurtful games with her feelings,’ Sophia responded. ‘I didn’t like it from the beginning.’ She let her glance fall to the newspaper. ‘This tells me why I don’t like it.’
And I do not like you, Rafiq thought as he looked into her face and saw a different face once again. She was so like Serena it could be the dancer standing there.
‘You are on a face-saving exercise,’ she dared to accuse him.
‘What is your name?’ he demanded.
‘Sophia Elliot,’ she announced, making his gaze narrow even further, because he had heard that name before. ‘I am the next-door-neighbour from hell, Mr Al-Qadim,’ she informed him, with a cool humour that confirmed the impression he had gained from his son that this woman was as tough as she was beautiful. ‘I am also a pretty good lawyer,’ she added. ‘So if you are thinking of trying to bully Melanie into accepting a situation she doesn’t really want, then try thinking again,’ she advised. ‘Because it is my belief you don’t give a fig for her feelings, and Melanie and Robbie have taken enough over this last year without you using them as a method of deflecting your little embarrassment with the—’
‘Name of the law firm you work for?’ he cut in coolly.
She told him.
With a curt nod he stepped up to open the back door. ‘You come and go via this route, I believe?’
‘How did you know that?’
Because his son had been as admiringly vocal about his aunt Sophia as he was about William Portreath. ‘Trouble rarely enters by conventional means, Miss Elliot,’ he replied, knowing that she would work out his source later. But for now she was simply too busy bristling.
‘I don’t think you have the right to—’