A rush of nerves suddenly washed through her, sending her heart down to her neat blue shoes. ‘I don’t think—’
Robbie came running down the landing ‘Can we can go now—please?’ he begged.
‘You’re not wearing something old,’ Sophia murmured as they moved down the landing.
Melanie wriggled her diamond ring at her.
‘Something borrowed?’
The hesitation was only slight before Melanie wriggled the self-same ring. Which said a lot as to how long she expected this marriage to last.
‘Who was on the phone, Robbie?’ she asked her son as they hit the downstairs hallway.
‘Uncle Jamie,’ he replied. ‘I told him you were getting married to my daddy today and he rang off without saying goodbye.’
Melanie’s footsteps stilled on the polished wood floor. But Robbie’s moved him onwards to pull open the front door. Ice-cold air rushed into the house and she shivered. A man wearing a dark overcoat stood just outside, holding up a huge black umbrella. He saw Robbie and Sophia into the car and out of the pouring rain first. As Melanie stood there on the doorstep, waiting for him to return for her, she experienced the only real moment where she actually thought she was going to change her mind. Then the driver came back to offer her shelter; his smile was warm. She stepped out of the house, closing the door behind her.
Rafiq was standing with Kadir in the elegant foyer belonging to one of London’s local government town halls when the entrance doors suddenly opened and his son, Melanie and her friend appeared. His son ran straight towards him. Miss Elliot became busy brushing away the few raindrops that had caught her clothes; Melanie looked at him and went perfectly still.
His heart began to pound against his ribcage; his legs suddenly felt heavy and weak. His son was talking away to him but he did not hear a single word. She was so lovely she tore at his senses, enchanting, shy and uncertain, like the younger woman he’d used to know.
‘Stay here, Robert,’ he instructed, and made himself walk towards Melanie. As he came to a halt in front of her he saw her eyelashes flicker just before she looked up at him. ‘So this is it,’ he said with a smile that did not quite make it.
‘Yes.’ The single word whispered nervously from her. Her gaze drifted away. Her cheeks were pale and her fingers were tre
mbling.
‘I’m sorry we’re a few minutes late,’ she said in a little rush. ‘The rain…’
The words became muffled by a smothering breathlessness as she picked up the aroma of his scent. He was wearing another midnight-blue suit made of a crease-free touch-temptingly smooth fabric. His shirt was so white it made his skin look darker and temptingly smooth like the suit. Her fingers twitched nervously against the little blue purse she was holding, and she kept her eyes averted in case she did something stupid like come jolting to her senses.
Was she really about to marry this tall dark beautiful man? ‘W-where do we go?’
It was all she could think to say in the circumstances.
‘Up the stairs.’ He offered his hand to her. ‘Shall we go?’ he said.
There was another moment of complete stillness while Melanie stared at his hand. They never touched, unless compelled to do so by that awful sexual force. Did he know that? Was he aware that his outstretched hand was breaking new ground here? Her mouth ran dry; she tried to swallow. From the sidelines she caught sight of Sophia, watching them. Her friend too had noticed her hesitation and was probably making her own deductions as to what it meant.
The fact that Rafiq had noticed Sophia studying him showed when he turned his head to flash her a look. Sophia dared to cock a mocking eyebrow. Hostility sparked into life. Melanie responded by lifting up a hand and placing it in his. The gesture brought his gaze flashing back her way, and his fingers closed gently round hers. Warm strength enclosed icy frailty; something very dramatic began to build in the air. As he turned them towards the elegant stairway that led to an upper foyer she noticed Kadir Al-Kadir standing quietly to one side, with his dark gaze fixed on Robbie as if he could not quite believe what his eyes were telling him.
By necessity Rafiq made the polite introduction, though Melanie suspected he did not want to speak at all. He was tense; she was tense. They moved up the stairs together, with Robbie dancing behind them, his hand tucked into Sophia’s, blissfully unaware of the stress-load weighing down everyone else’s shoulders.
Not twenty minutes later they were walking down those same stairs again. It had all been so quick, so efficient—so impersonal. But in those few minutes she had changed her name to Al-Qadim and was now wearing a wedding band on her finger. Even more disturbing was the ring Rafiq had given her to slide on his long brown finger.
That hand now rested at the base of her spine, and remained there until they stepped outside. The rain was still bouncing off the pavements. Three cars now stood in a row at the kerb, with three black-coated men standing beside them holding black umbrellas over their heads.
With a click of his fingers Rafiq brought one man running. With a brief word of thanks he sent Kadir on his way. Next came Melanie’s first shock, when the second man was brought running and she found herself being hugged by Sophia, who murmured, ‘Surprise, surprise. I am taking your son off your hands until tomorrow.’
‘But I don’t want—’
‘Not your choice any more, little sacrificial lamb,’ Sophia informed her dryly, only to be replaced by Robbie, who was demanding a hug from his mother and excitedly explaining all the things he and Sophia had planned for the day, before he was ushered beneath the umbrella and hurried away.
Standing there, shell-shocked beyond speech, Melanie found herself left alone with the man she had just married, watching another car move off, which left only one—a long, low-squatting animal thing with darkened glass and a distinct air of menace about it.
The snap of Rafiq’s fingers set her blinking; the return of his hand to the base of her spine had her tensing jerkily. The last black-coated man came running with an umbrella. She was directed beneath it and into the warm soft depths of black-leather car seats. Rafiq followed, the car door closed with a smooth soft thud and they were alone—really alone—encased in dark glass and hidden, even from the driver.
Silence arrived. It hummed between them. The car began moving away from the kerb. She turned to look at Rafiq and found him looking back at her. His wide shoulders hugged the upholstered corner of the car and one ankle rested easily across the other knee with a set of long fingers lightly clasping the ankle. He looked relaxed, at ease, like a lazy cat contentedly at peace. Indeed, slumberous lashes barely flickered as he studied her face. But there was nothing relaxed about those devil-dark eyes hiding behind the lashes. They glinted in a way that sent tiny hot frissons chasing down her spine.