‘We have wandered from the subject,’ he said tensely.
‘I’ve finished with the subject,’ she replied. ‘You believed what your eyes told you, and as far as you were concerned I did not warrant a single word in my defence. I gave birth to your son and with William’s help brought him up. When I thought it would be safe to do it I introduced you to your son, and ended up—here.’ She glanced around the Gothic bedroom. ‘Married to a man who can’t even look at me without seeing a slut.’
‘I do not think you are a slut.’
‘Poison, then.’
He released a harsh sigh. ‘I was angry when I said that.’
‘So was I. But do you want to know something really funny, Rafiq?’ She lifted cool gold eyes to him. ‘I really thought that you cared about me. Right up until you placed this ring on my finger I thought that, deep inside, beneath the rock you would call a heart, you still cared enough to want to make a success out of this marriage. But now?’ She turned away. ‘I think we’ve both made a terrible mistake.’
He didn’t protest it, which more or less said the rest for her. ‘Where is the bathroom?’ she asked, holding up her sticky fingers.
He turned to open a door she hadn’t noticed on the other side of the four-poster bed. And with her expression as closed as she could make it she walked past him into a rather startlingly decadent oak-panelled room with a huge free-standing bath tub overhung by a big brass shower head and a purple silk curtain that would circle the whole thing when closed. The rest of the fittings were antique porcelain. She walked over to the pedestal-mounted washbasin, then stood grimacing at her fingers before reaching for the taps.
Another pair of hands beat her to it. She was suddenly surrounded by Rafiq. Her body stiffened, her mouth ran dry. Water gushed into white porcelain, swirling around its curving bowl before spiralling its way down the drain. He took her hands and began to gently wash them.
Move back, she wanted to say, but found she couldn’t. It just wasn’t fair that after everything they’d just said he could still affect her like this!
‘Mistakes, even terrible mistakes, can be rectified. You proved this yourself when you came to tell me about the wonderful child we had made. If I made a similar terrible mistake eight years ago then you must, in all fairness, give me the opportunity to make it up to you.’
Grave words, reasonable words, words that pulsated with the promise of a different kind. ‘I can do this for myself.’ She tried to defer offering an answer.
‘But when I do it you know there is more to the chore than a simple washing of hands.’
Oh, dear God, he was oh, so right. She closed her eyes and tried very hard to stop a sigh of pleasure from developing. But, as with everything else about this extraordinary man, whether it be with anger or hate or sensuality, he moved her so deeply she really did not stand a chance.
His mouth found the pulse just below her ear lobe and his thumbs gently circled her wet palms. She was lost and she knew it. On a helpless groan she turned to capture his ready mouth. It was, she supposed, already written that they would drown their problems in the long deep warmth of the kiss.
A telephone started ringing somewhere. No one answered it. Was there anyone else here? Melanie tried to ignore it, wanted to stay just where she was in this man’s arms, with his kiss filling her up from the inside.
The telephone went on and on until, on a rasping sigh of impatience, he broke away, muttered a curse and an apology, then went to answer it. The nearest land-line extension was downstairs in the study. As he strode into that room Rafiq made a mental note to get some extra extensions put into the house.
He knew so little about its minor details, having only taken possession of it yesterday. He had wanted somewhere special to bring them while William’s town house was being attended to. He had viewed many properties, but this house he had liked on sight—had seen Melanie and his son fitting into it with ease. The master bedroom up there had seemed the perfect place to take a bride on her wedding night. Though now he had pre-empted that idea by a few hours, he mused grimly, as he stretched across the big dark antique oak desk to lift up the telephone.
‘This had better be good, Kadir,’ he barked at the only person who knew this telephone number.
What Kadir had to say to him set him cursing. By the time he put down the phone he was different man. He strode up the stairs and back into the bedroom to find Melanie standing by the bed—waiting for him.
For a moment, a short sweet tantalising moment, he considered forgetting everything except what this beautiful woman and the bed were offering him. Then reality hit.
‘Get dressed again,’ he instructed grimly. ‘We must leave immediately.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘WHY—what’s happened?’ Melanie demanded. He could see from her eyes that she was already thinking of their son and conjuring up some terrible accident.
‘No, not Robert.’ He quickly squashed that anxiety, though the one threatening to strike at him was almost as bad. ‘Kadir has just received a call from my father,’ he explained.
‘He’s taken ill again?’
He gave a shake of his head. ‘It is such a rare occurrence for my father to speak to anyone outside his family that on hearing his voice Kadir went to pieces and told him about you and Robert and our marriage today.’
‘You mean, he didn’t know?’
‘No,’ he answered. ‘No one in my family knows,’ he added as he walked toward
s the bathroom. ‘Now my father is shocked and angry. We have to go to him.’