Exotic Affairs: The Mistress Bride / The Spanish Husband / The Bellini Bride

The cottage wasn’t big, just one long room really, split into two by a breakfast bar that separated the kitchen from the living room. The living-room window looked out on the cobbled street at the front of the cottage, the rear window on a tiny walled garden. It was nothing more than an old-fashioned back yard, alive at the moment with summer blooms planted by herself in hanging baskets and an array of terracotta tubs.

It was to that rear window that Evie went, leaning her slender hips against the built-in unit and folding her arms across her front while she stared out at the flower-filled little garden with absolutely no pleasure whatsoever.

The reason why she was feeling no pleasure in what was on show outside was that she was feeling no pleasure in anything right now.

‘Liar.’ Raschid’s smooth voice dripped with a dry lazy confidence.

Evie grimaced, not in the least bit surprised that it had taken him mere seconds to work that one out. Turning round, she found him standing in the opening between the kitchen and living room.

His jacket had gone, his casual stance as he leaned a broad shoulder against the wall beside him a masterpiece in long, fluid, muscular lines. Nothing about him was left wanting. Not the cut of his silky dark hair or the colour of his beautiful skin or even the casual clothes that covered a body built to god-like proportions.

He was Man personified—to Evie at least. And the real point here was that he knew it. Which was why he could call her a liar so confidently.

‘Rumour has it,’ she continued, ‘that marriage to the cousin of a cousin looms large upon your horizon.’

That made his eyes narrow slightly, fixed his attention on her cool expression that was challenging him to dare deny the charge.

Of course, he didn’t deny it. ‘Marriage to Aisha has always loomed large on my horizon, Evie; you know that,’ he answered levelly. ‘I have never tried to hide it from you.’

‘Until last night,’ Evie said bitterly.

‘Is that why you ran away with the Marquis this morning?’ he demanded. ‘Because you heard a rumour that may or may not have been true?’

He wasn’t denying it, though. ‘I ran away because I didn’t want another ugly scene with you.’

He sighed—which was something, she supposed, and at last began to look as weary as she felt. ‘But we have to talk this through, and you know that, Evie.’

Oh, yes, she thought heavily. She knew that. But Raschid’s idea of talking was to give orders that she was supposed to obey.

‘I need time to myself, to decide what I want to do,’ she told him huskily.

‘Time is something I don’t have,’ he countered very grimly.

‘Because your father has issued you with an ultimatum?’ she asked.

His shrug was eloquent, his indifference to the question more so. ‘As I am going to marry you, the question of my marrying anyone else is therefore rendered useless.’

Given just who and what he was, Evie wasn’t so sure about that.

Turning away again, she went back to filling and plugging in the kettle. Behind her she could feel Raschid watching her, trying to calculate her mood and what she was thinking. It didn’t take much perception to see that, despite his reaffirmation about marriage, Evie was still not accepting it as the natural solution.

‘They say your father is ill again,’ she remarked, reaching into the cupboard for the caddy of his favourite mint tea without really knowing she was doing it.

‘He has to undergo some open heart surgery,’ Raschid confirmed. ‘But he is refusing to do so until I am safely married and settled in his seat of power.’

‘Which you won’t be if you marry me.’

‘I cannot lie and say that people are going to be delighted,’ Raschid sombrely acknowledged. ‘But given time they will become used to the idea. We all will,’ he added carefully.

Meaning her, Evie supposed.

The teapot was special, more a tiny silver urn that Asim had given her as a gift last year when she had got him to show her how to prepare the mint tea the way Raschid liked it.

It had been a nice thought—a caring thought. But even Asim, whom she was perhaps closer to than anyone else attached to Raschid, would stare in horror at his master actually marrying her.

‘I won’t marry you, Raschid,’ she said, spooning the pale green coarse-cut leaves into the urn. ‘It would be wrong for me and disastrous for you.’

‘Define disastrous,’ he requested.

One of those weary sighs whispered from her. ‘Your country’s stability depends upon its Muslim roots,’ she explained. ‘Marrying a Christian would weaken those roots. Which is why the cousin of a cousin has always hovered in the shadows throughout the time we’ve been together.’

He didn’t bother to argue the point, which made her want to weep. ‘Now explain why it would be wrong for you?’ he prompted instead.

Another sigh—one that was caught back before it was uttered this time, but her heart lay heavy in her breast as she stood there watching the kettle come slowly to the boil. ‘You would stifle me. The situation would stifle me. As our relationship stands at the moment I have the freedom to do more or less as I please. The restrictions placed on a Muslim wife are stifling enough, but for one who would be as disapproved of as I would be… I would suffocate,’ she predicted.

‘And the child you carry?’ he continued levelly. ‘What is supposed to happen to him while you protect yourself from a stifling marriage and save my country from instability?’

He was mocking her but angrily. He didn’t like the picture she was painting but couldn’t come up with a better one to paint over it.

‘The he may be a she,’ she smiled. ‘Which would not be so big a problem, would it?’

‘We are not barbarians, Evie,’ he said tightly. ‘We do not drown our female offspring at birth, I promise you.’

‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ she said, pouring boiling water into the urn. ‘Tell me… what would your people think of a half English boy child who would in effect be his father’s heir if we married?’

‘He will be my heir whether or not we marry,’ Raschid informed her with a grimness that had Evie spinning round to stare at him in horror.

‘No, Raschid!’ she cried out in protest. ‘You—’

‘Watch out!’ he rasped at her.

But it was already too late. ‘Oh, damn!’ Evie gasped as pain like nothing she had ever felt in her life before forced the air to rush from her lungs.

She hadn’t even realised she still had hold of the hot urn! The jerky way she had spun around had sent the hot tea shooting out of the spout and over her arm.

‘Here!’ Raschid was suddenly in front of her and grabbing hold of her hand to yank her over to the sink. Ice-cold water gushed over burning hot skin, sending heart-stopping shock waves shooting through her system.

Her eyes were closed, and she was shaking so badly that even her teeth chattered. If Raschid hadn’t been holding her up with his arm clamped around her waist, she would have fallen in a trembling heap to the tiled floor.

‘Did it splash you anywhere else?’ he asked harshly.

It was all she could do to shake her head. She felt sick, she felt dizzy, the shock and the pain driving her to breathe in choked whimpers.

Raschid hissed out something nasty from between violently clenched teeth. ‘You fool,’ he muttered, ruthless in his determination to keep her arm beneath the agonising coldness of the water. ‘Did I ask for tea—did I? If you’ve damaged this beautiful skin I will throttle you!’

‘Sh-shut up,’ she breathed, in too much pain to want to listen to him taking his own distress out on her.

‘I should have seen it coming!’ he railed on regardless. ‘When you play the super-controlled ice-maiden, it usually means you’re struggling to keep yourself together for one reason or another!’