A Mediterranean Marriage

‘Oh, no, of course not…I wouldn’t expect that at this point,’ Lily hastened to assure him, almost sick with relief at his change of heart and certain that he would be more sympathetic once he had gone over those papers.

‘But the amount of time that this tangled affair will consume only comes at a price.’ Rauf moved in for the kill, knowing just how much he would revel in making Lily dance to his tune while he kept her in suspense. Hadn’t she once done the same to him in a much more primitive way? With raw contempt, he recalled the pseudo-nervous squeaks he had been made to suffer that summer while she had swerved between brief bouts of melting enthusiasm to keep him hooked and sudden attacks of timidity. She had played him like a violin virtuoso, convincing him one hundred per cent that he’d been dealing with a very nervous virgin. But on this occasion, he had the whip hand.

‘A…price?’ In confusion, Lily frowned, her heart hammering as she noted the gleam of gold in his arresting gaze.

Rauf angled his arrogant dark head back with the measured and confident timing of a hunter about to spring a trap. ‘In this world everything comes at a price…haven’t you learnt that yet?’

‘I’m not sure I follow…’ Her oval face taut, a frown marked her smooth brow.

A faint sardonic smile lightened Rauf’s lean, dark features. ‘It’s very simple. If I have to go through these documents in detail, I need your help.’

Her frown evaporating at that statement, Lily sat forward with an air of eagerness, soft blue eyes brightening. ‘Certainly…that’s not a problem. How could you think it would be?’

‘I’m only here in Bodrum for a few hours. Since I have a board meeting in Istanbul tomorrow, I’ll be flying back there this evening. Later tomorrow, however, I’m going to my country estate and I suggest that you join me there and stay for a few days,’ Rauf murmured levelly. ‘It would be more convenient to have you on hand to answer any queries I might have and assist in my inquiries.’

As Rauf delivered that bombshell Lily had parted her lips several times as if she’d been about to speak, but on each occasion caution had made her bite her tongue. She was unnerved by the prospect of staying as a guest in Rauf’s country home. However, in the circumstances, his request was a reasonable one. She could hardly expect him to fly back to the coast just for her benefit.

‘Yes, all right,’ Lily conceded tautly.

Rauf had had no doubt that she would agree and her obvious discomfiture surprised him not at all. Naturally, she could not refuse the opportunity to keep an eye on the course of his inquiries because she would be afraid that he might turn up evidence that would incriminate her and might even be hoping for the chance to bury it again. At the same time, however, she had to continue to play the innocent. Before he took her to Sonngul, he would ensure that they made an unannounced detour to view the ‘villas’ she had proffered as assets. Even the cleverest liar could not hope to lie her way out of what he intended to confront her with!

‘When would you like me to come to your home?’ Lily prompted uncomfortably. ‘Is it far from here?’

‘Quite some distance. I’ll make arrangements for you to be picked up at your hotel tomorrow morning at eleven. I’ll meet you at the airport, so that we can travel on to Sonngul together.’ Studying the soft pink fullness of her lips, Rauf was picturing her splayed like a wanton temptress across his magnificent bed at the old house where he had, out of respect for his family, never taken a woman. Would he…or wouldn’t he take advantage of her present eagerness to please? No, he decided with fierce determination, he would not. He would take no woman to his bed on such sordid terms.

‘Thank you. I appreciate your kindness in making time for this.’ Lily felt her lips tingle from his glinting scrutiny and a wave of slow, painful colour warmed her fair complexion. In the pulsing atmosphere, her mouth ran dry and her breathing pattern quickened. She recognised her own excitement, her longing for him to touch her, was shamed by it but not to the degree she had once been when her own contrary physical responses had scared and confused her. But that had not been Rauf’s fault or, indeed, even her own fault, she conceded with pained regret.

Rauf was offended by that unsought and forbidden image of Lily ornamenting his bed, and his lean, strong face was grim. He could not give credence to the smallest doubt of her guilt now: she had played her part in defrauding him. Once he had assembled the necessary evidence, he would hand her over to the police. He would do what was right and would not be swayed by her desirability or his own lust into compromising either his own ethical code or the honour of the Kasabian family. There should be no distinction between his treatment of Lily and any other wrongdoer. In daring to approach him with her lies and invite his investigation of the facts, she would discover that she had merely precipitated her own punishment and, even worse, had done so in a country with a judicial system far less liberal than that of her own.

That decision etched in stone on his soul, Rauf rose upright, his brilliant dark eyes cool and bright as a mountain spring. ‘I’m afraid I must close our meeting here—I have a lunch engagement to keep.’

Disconcerted by that sudden conclusion to their meeting, Lily scrambled up in even greater haste, but by then she had already lost Rauf’s attention. Following his frowning gaze, she saw a tiny silver-haired old lady with a stick moving towards them, a helpful young man by her side.

Rauf ground his teeth together as his great-grandmother approached with all the unstoppable determination of a stick-propelled missile. One of the hotel staff must have let drop that his appointment was with a young and beautiful foreigner. That exciting disclosure would have been all it would have taken to shoot Nelispah Kasabian into the penthouse lift and down to the ground floor to satisfy her lively curiosity.

‘Mrs Kasabian says…’ The hotel executive acting as Nelispah’s guide and translator skimmed Rauf a strained glance of apology before turning to address Lily. ‘Mrs Kasabian says…what a lovely dress you are wearing!’

Rauf blinked and then scrutinised the billowing folds of Lily’s shroud. Yes, he supposed a dress that only hinted that an actual female body existed beneath it was right down his very modest great-grandmother’s street. The entire family and their staff conspired to ensure that Nelispah’s delicate sensibilities were protected from the shocking moral laxity of a world that would distress her for her heart was weak. Fortunately, she did not watch television or even read the family newspapers because she believed that her late husband would not have approved of her engaging in either activity.

‘I have the honour of introducing you to my great-grandmother, Nelispah Kasabian…Lily Harris.’ Rauf performed the introduction with gritty reluctance but spoke in soft, gentle Turkish to the little woman, who barely reached his chest in height.

‘Please tell her how very happy I am to meet her.’ Lily returned Mrs Kasabian’s big, beaming smile with warm appreciation.

Resting a frail hand on Rauf’s supportive arm, Nelispah chattered on in Turkish while Rauf employed a fast covert signal to send her translator into silenced retreat. ‘Lily hanim has a sweet smile. I like what I see in this young woman’s face,’ his great-grandmother confided with alarming enthusiasm. ‘Would she like to join us for lunch and tell us about herself and her family?’

Striving not to wince at the threat of what might emerge were Lily to come into contact with the matriarchal inter-rogation team, Rauf depressed that hope and, with a quiet word of apology to Lily, he walked the old lady back towards the lift. Seeing the affection that had softened his stunning eyes, Lily glanced away again, pained by that contrast to Rauf’s abrasive treatment of her.

But then this was a business matter, not a personal one, she reminded herself doggedly. Evidently, Harris Travel had messed up big time when it came to that contract. Had Brett been responsible for that? Although Lily loathed her sister’s ex-husband, she knew that both Hilary and her father had been very impressed, not only by the efficient way in which Brett had run the family business, but also by the long hours he had worked. Profits might have sunk to a dismal level but nobody had blamed Brett for that reality. After all, it was hardly his fault that another travel agency had opened up in competition in the same town.

Whatever, Lily was uneasily aware that Rauf had only been willing to relent after she had mentioned the villas that were to be sold. What was going to happen if those payments made into the wrong account could not be tracked down and retrieved? And if the cash from the sale of the villas had to go to Rauf rather than Harris Travel, would Hilary still be able to stay in business? Deciding to wait until she had concrete facts at her disposal before passing on any bad news to her sister, Lily tensed as Rauf returned to her side.

‘My limo will take you back to your hotel,’ Rauf imparted, shortening his long, fluid stride to her slower pace to walk her outside.

On the pavement, she hovered and stole a strained glance up at him, intimidated and troubled by his continuing detachment. ‘This business stuff aside…can’t we still be friends?’ she heard herself ask in a rush.

As he met her beautiful blue eyes seething derision at that appeal flamed through Rauf’s big, powerful frame, hardening his superb bone structure, firing his fantastic eyes to raw, shimmering gold. It infuriated him that once upon a time he had swallowed her every mushy sentence. ‘I’m not five years old and neither are you.’

Lily flushed in embarrassment and cringed for her own impulsive tongue.

‘On the other hand, güzelim,’ Rauf growled soft and low as he reached for her with two lean, purposeful hands and pulled her to him on a surge of anger so strong he did not even question what he was doing, ‘I hate to disappoint a woman.’

Pinned into startling connection with six feet four inches of hard, masculine muscle and power, her heart pounding like crazy, Lily gasped, ‘Rauf—?’

His wide, sensual mouth came down on hers with explosive force, all the passion of the volatile nature he usually kept in check powering to the surface to drive that kiss. For an instant Lily froze in total shock and then, without any mental prompting she recognised, she stretched up on tiptoe and wrapped her slim arms round his neck. As the first wild wave of response rocked through her trembling length, she loosed a low moan, angling her head back, letting the erotic plunge of his tongue feed from the sweetness of her mouth.

With an abruptness that left Lily in a turmoil of confusion, Rauf set her free again. A dark line of febrile colour scoring his taut cheekbones, he was appalled both by his own reckless disregard of his surroundings and by her unexpected encouragement. Trust Lily to change her game plan when he could least afford her to do so! Such public displays were frowned on by his people. What the hell had come over him?

Her lush mouth reddened from the fiery imprint of his, Lily focused on Rauf with dazed eyes and a helpless surge of pride in herself. She had stayed in his arms without succumbing to an attack of unreasonable fear. Finally making herself acknowledge those disturbing feelings and openly discuss what had caused them with a counsellor the previous year had worked.

‘That will not be repeated,’ Rauf breathed with icy emphasis, yanking open the door of the long silver limo waiting by the kerb with his own hand. ‘There is nothing between us now.’

Then why had he touched her in the first place? Stiff with hurt bewilderment, Lily climbed into the opulent car. She wished she had pushed him away, indeed done anything other than thrown her arms round him in encouragement. She was furious with herself. Here she was almost twenty-four years old, still a virgin and still, it seemed, as immature as an adolescent. Obviously Rauf had reacted to the willing signals that she must have been putting out! On the strength of that demeaning conviction, Lily stopped being angry and felt that she had asked to be humiliated.

But then who would ever have forecast that she of all women might ever be guilty of forward behaviour around a male of the species? As Rauf’s limousine drove Lily back to her hotel in Gumbet she was pale and taut and already mental miles away from their recent meeting. Memories that she only rarely allowed herself to take out and examine had engulfed her…

Hilary had married Brett when Lily had been only twelve. Delighted to be their bridesmaid, Lily had been thrilled that Hilary had been so much in love and even happier that Brett had been willing to move into their family home rather than take Hilary to live somewhere else. Their father had been equally impressed with Hilary’s bridegroom for Brett had always awarded the older man pronounced respect and deference. A year later, Douglas Harris had signed his house over to his daughter and son-in-law.

Just two years after that, when she’d been only fifteen, Lily had had her first sight of Brett with another woman. Heading home from a friend’s house, she had cut across a car park on the outskirts of town. Seeing Brett’s sports car parked there and the shadow of movement within, she had hurried towards it thinking that she would get a lift with him. Instead she had seen her brother-in-law locked in a passionate embrace with a stranger. Devastated by that sight but grateful that the guilty couple hadn’t noticed her, she had been so upset that she had wandered round town for several hours before she’d been able to face going home.

All her life up until that point, Lily had told Hilary virtually everything. But what she had seen that day had deprived her of her only true confidante for she had been painfully conscious that her big sister had worshipped the ground her handsome husband had walked on and had also been heavily pregnant with their second child. Lily had agonised for weeks over what she ought to have done before finally deciding to confide in her father and put the responsibility of that knowledge in his hands.

But in no way had Douglas Harris reacted as his teenage daughter had imagined he might have done. ‘You were mistaken,’ her father told her in instant angry rebuttal.

‘But I saw them…it was Brett and it was his car!’ Lily protested.

‘Don’t you ever mention this again and don’t you breathe a word of this nonsense to your sister!’ the older man censured in even greater fury. ‘Brett and Hilary have a very happy marriage. What’s got into you that you can make up such a wicked and dangerous story about your own brother-in-law?’

In her turn, Lily was shattered that her usually mild-mannered father could react in such a disbelieving and unjust way to her trusting confession. She had to get older before she could appreciate that her unfortunate parent had too much invested in the stability of Hilary’s marriage to easily face the threat that Brett might not be the fine, upstanding young man he had believed him to be. And how could she have foreseen that worry over what she had told him would eventually drive her father to make the very great mistake of warning Brett that he had been seen in that car park?

Faster than the speed of light, for there was nothing slow about Brett’s survival instincts, Brett added two and two together and worked out who had seen him. That same afternoon he picked Lily up from school and frightened the living daylights out of her with his rage and his threats. Then and there Lily’s happy home life and her faith in the adults around her came to a harsh and final end.

‘You sneaky little bitch!’ Brett roared at her, after shooting his car into the same car park in an act of intimidation that she soon learned was pure Brett Gilman. ‘From here on in, you’d better mind your own bloody business. Haven’t you ever heard of the three wise monkeys? Speak no evil, hear no evil and see no evil. Tell tales on me again and you won’t have a home any more…I’ll tell Hilary that her precocious little sister has been trying it on with me and she’ll believe me long before she’ll believe you!’

Lily then learnt what it was to live in fear. Resenting her, and determined to punish her for exposing his womanising ways to Douglas Harris, Brett gloried in his power over Lily and soon worked out the kind of treatment that would make her feel most threatened. Out of her sister’s sight and hearing, he began to look at Lily’s developing curves in a way that made her skin crawl and taunt her with crude familiar comments. He never actually touched her but she lived in terror that some day he might.

By the time Lily escaped her home to start her teacher-training course at a college a long way away, Brett had turned Lily into a silent, secretive and timid teenager, who covered every possible inch of her body and who went in genuine fear of male aggression and sexuality.

Surfacing from her recollections of that traumatic period of her life, Lily found a sheen of perspiration on her skin. When she went for a shower in her room, she reminded herself that that nightmare was in the past. Yet her most bitter regret was still that the damage Brett had inflicted had almost inevitably destroyed any hope of her having a normal relationship with Rauf Kasabian when she had first met him.