‘I have no wish to make it look like the others.’ This was his son’s home, the place where Robert and Melanie had found love and security. Aesthetically it must not change. Structurally, he feared it had no choice.
‘If Leona is out of action, then what if I hand the project over to my wife?’ Ethan suddenly suggested.
‘To your wife?’ Rafiq couldn’t hide his surprise.
Ethan turned a rueful grin on him. ‘Yes, I do mean the flighty piece who spent the evening flirting with you a couple of months ago,’ he confirmed lazily. ‘She has hidden talents,’ he confided. ‘One of those talents being a very impressive track record in house renovation.’
Rafiq was momentarily diverted. In the space of just a few short weeks, earlier this year, Ethan Hayes had gone from being a serious enemy of the Al-Qadim family to being a good close friend due to falling into love with Eve, the provocative granddaughter of the Greek tycoon Theron Herakleides.
‘The lovely Eve renovates old property for a living?’ Rafiq could not withhold his disbelief.
‘She shocked me with it too,’ Ethan confessed. ‘On the morning after we returned from our honeymoon, in fact, when she came to breakfast wearing overalls and put a builder’s hat down on the table. She’s been buying, renovating and selling on houses in London for years—as a hobby, apparently. Loves to get her fingernails chipped, has an affinity with dirt and grime. Give her a lump hammer and she will have that wall down in half an hour.’
His eyes were glowing with amusement. But beneath the amusement was a love and pride that made Rafiq want to sigh. At home in Rahman his brother was no doubt relaxing with the woman he adored with every breath that he took. And here stood Ethan Hayes so in love with his lovely, if highly provoking, wife, that he could not keep his feelings from showing on his face.
And here I stand, planning to marry a mere obsession, he mused heavily. A past obsession, a present obsession, but most importantly of all a sexual obsession. Upstairs their bedroom had become a place for hot and tumultuous orgies. Melanie had revealed a capacity to take eagerly whatever he chose to offer in that bed upstairs. But what really ravaged him was not knowing if she responded to any man in the same mind-blowing way.
He swung away so that Ethan Hayes could not see his expression. Sometimes he wished he had never come here, had never given in to the temptation that was Melanie Portreath. She turned him inside out, made him behave as he had never behaved in his life before. Which made him—what?
A man in love with his obsession? The words filtered like poison into his brain tissue, sending him on yet another restless swing that concluded with him frowning at his watch. Melanie was due back soon from the hours she donated to Robbie’s school several mornings a week, helping out wherever she was required to do so. He did not want her to find him here with Ethan Hayes.
‘Have you no ambition to do anything with your life?’ he had asked her one evening.
‘Should I be ashamed of wanting to be a full-time mother to my son?’ she’d bristled indignantly by return.
‘No, of course not. I just thought—’
‘Well, don’t think,’ she’d snapped. ‘I am comfortable with who I am, but if you’re not then you know what you can do.’
Leave. She never failed to let him know that the option was there for him to use if he wished to do so. He usually answered by kissing her breath away. But would she care if he did leave? Or would she heave a sigh of relief as she watched him walk away from this idea that marriage between them could work?
‘I would like work to begin while the owners are away,’ he said to Ethan with a calmness that belied what was going on inside his head. ‘It will be less painful for those concerned if they do not have to witness the initial destruction of everything they love.’
‘Who owns the house?’ Ethan questioned.
‘A—friend of mine.’ He couldn’t even say the words, My wife, as of the day after tomorrow, which angered him all the more. Was he ashamed? Was he afraid it might never happen? She was still having second thoughts despite the torrid sex; he was aware of that. Recently she had even withdrawn the sex. She had turned a cold shoulder upon him and said she had a headache.
A headache. The oldest excuse in a woman’s vocabulary. He frowned, glanced at the time again but did not register it because he was remembering that she had spent yesterday out with her cynical friend, choosing something to wear for her wedding day. Ten minutes alone with Miss Elliot would have been long enough for Melanie to begin piling on the doubts.
‘Then this house cannot be touched without her permission.’ Ethan’s voice intruded on his own dark thoughts.
The very walls seemed to move, as if William Portreath’s ghost was stirring himself to warn Rafiq to be careful how much he took for granted. I take nothing for granted, he grimly told the old ghost.
‘You said it is in danger of falling down,’ he responded.
‘Yes,’ Ethan confirmed. ‘But you will still need written permission from the owner to touch it, Rafiq,’ he advised. ‘Even my flighty wife would not dare come near it without written consent from the owner.’
‘I will obtain it.’ He nodded. By fair means or foul, he added silently, thinking of the trust with which Melanie signed any papers either he or Randal Soames placed in front of her.
Which was just another thing about Melanie that irritated him. The money she now possessed meant nothing. Her son and this house meant everything.
Where did he fit in?
The telephone in William’s study began ringing. Since he had commandeered the room for himself, Rafiq assumed the call must be for him, and excused himself, leaving Ethan to wander the house some more while he went to lean against William’s old desk and lifted the receiver to his ear.
‘Yes?’ he said brusquely.
There was a small silence, then a tentative-sounding voice. ‘Is Melanie there?’