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Lean, vibrantly handsome features taut over his superb bone structure, Rashad dealt her a resolute dark golden appraisal. ‘I know how many mistakes I have made with you, but I won’t give up trying. I refuse to accept that the past should be allowed to wreck our marriage.’
‘But that marriage is less than I deserve and I’m not settling for it,’ Tilda protested vehemently. ‘Your father is also obviously dead set against even having me in the family, although he was too well mannered to reveal those reservations to me.’
‘My father is not against you,’ Rashad asserted with assurance. ‘Did I not tell you how much he regretted his doubts when I first knew you? It seems that ever since he has been haunted by the fear that he was responsible for the end of our relationship. He is very pleased that we are married and most impressed by the way you have taken on a public role.’
Tilda shook her silvery fair head. ‘But I’m only your wife now because your revenge rebounded on you. When I saw that file, I just felt sick with anger that you had believed that rubbish…I couldn’t ever forgive you for that.’
‘But you are still my wife and it would go against my very nature to let you leave me,’ Rashad responded quietly. ‘I will do everything within my power to keep you. My bad judgement caused this. I believe that I can make our marriage what you deserve.’
The tears that she refused to shed were strangling her. Her throat ached and she could barely swallow. He was blaming himself for everything and, contrary as she was, she didn’t like that. She was conscious of how hard he worked in every corner of his life. He carried a huge load of responsibility. It seemed wrong that he should feel forced to work at his marriage, as well. It had been his father’s weakness and reluctance to be honest with his son that had created the situation. Rashad had been set up for a fall just like her and he was a warrior, born and bred, and he had responded with natural aggression.
She hated the fact that she was already making excuses for him. She felt like someone hovering indecisively while the last lifeboat was lowered from a sinking ship. That sinking ship was her image of what it would be like for her to live in a loveless marriage. In such a union, she would never feel truly necessary or special to him and she would always be forced to keep the emotional stuff low-key for fear of making him feel uncomfortable. The very knowledge that she wasn’t loved would only make her continually try harder to be the best possible wife, and the most she could ever hope for in return would be appreciation and acceptance.
Involuntarily, driven by forces stronger than her willpower, Tilda stole a glance at Rashad and it was as if her very body was screaming at the threat of having to survive without him. For once, that response had nothing to do with his dazzling sexual magnetism. He might as well have chained her to him, she acknowledged bitterly, for there was a deep abiding need within her to be with him and to grasp at whatever closeness he could offer. Even though deep down inside she was still seething with indignant pain and anger over that hateful file, she knew that she still loved him enough for both of them. Walking off into the sunset with her pride intact was only going to make her wretchedly unhappy.
In an effort to bolster her mood, Tilda reminded herself that she had seriously undervalued her importance to Rashad when he was a student. She had assumed that all he had ever been after was a good time-primarily a good time in bed-while instead he had been making plans to marry her. Energised by that tantalising information, she fixed glimmering turquoise eyes on him. ‘Were you in love with me five years ago?’
Rashad froze. He looked like a guy confronted by a firing squad without warning. ‘I…’A tiny muscle pulled taut at the edge of his wide, sensual, unsmiling mouth. ‘I liked you very much.’
It was a response that would have delighted her had they both been aged around ten years old.
Recognising that he had said the wrong thing, Rashad said abruptly, ‘If I say I loved you, will you stay with me?’
And that telling response from Rashad, who barely uttered a word without triple-checking it in moments of stress, shed blinding light on his motives for Tilda. Never had she felt more ashamed of herself. She had him over a barrel. Within twenty-four hours of the televised state wedding she had scarpered. Angry, hurt and humiliated and needing to hit back the only way she knew how, she had run away. Doubtless Rashad thought her behaviour had been very immature. He had had to follow her and try to persuade her to return to Bakhar with him. What choice did he have? If his wife abandoned him he, along with every Bakhari, would feel they had lost face because he had picked the wrong wife. It wasn’t fair to ask him if he had loved her.
‘I think we should have some breakfast. Have you eaten?’ Tilda enquired woodenly in a change of subject aimed at politely and quickly burying her stupid question and his revealing response.
His winged ebony brows drew together. She could see him struggling to master his bewilderment. ‘No. I could not eat.’
Tilda drew in an irregular breath. She trod over to the bell in the wall and pressed it. The silence swirled like a stormy sea full of dangerous depths. A manservant appeared and she ordered breakfast in slow, careful Arabic.
Shaken up by the question she had asked, Rashad had felt able to tell her anything she wanted to hear, even if it meant lying for the first time in his life. But he had only felt that way for about ten seconds, for free speech or lies struck him as extremely dangerous in the current climate. He knew exactly how he felt about her. She was his wife with all that encompassed and he wanted, quite naturally, to take her home again.
‘You are learning quickly,’ Rashad murmured a shade unevenly, stunning golden eyes screened by the thick black wedge of his lashes to a bright glimmer.
Tilda wondered whether he meant the language or how to kill stone-dead the sort of emotional scene that she knew he found excruciating. ‘I think I’d like to take the opportunity to see my mother while we’re here,’ she informed him prosaically.
‘An excellent idea.’
‘Both of us should visit,’ she added, in case he had not yet got the message she was trying to give.
‘Of course.’
The silence rushed back round them again.
‘So, are we having a honeymoon?’ Tilda heard herself ask rather loudly in the hope that he would comprehend the meaning of that less-than-subtle query.
Rashad stayed very still and then a charismatic smile flashed across his beautiful mouth, all the strain there put to flight by that query. ‘It was already planned. Why do you think I’ve been working so hard in recent weeks? I needed to free up some time.’
That smile made Tilda’s heart flip and the inside of her mouth run dry. That smile had sufficient pulling power to make her run up a mountain. She wanted to race across the room and fling herself at him like an eager puppy. She thought it fortunate that just at that moment the announcement that breakfast awaited them prevented her from embarrassing him to that extent.
When Tilda and Rashad visited her mother’s home later that day in what Tilda felt was a welcome distraction after all the drama, they found Evan Jerrold cosily enjoying afternoon tea and home-made scones. Beth was overjoyed by the arrival of her daughter and son-in-law and Evan quickly excused himself. But Rashad spoke to the older man at some length, while Tilda talked to her mother. She was very pleased when the older woman confided that Evan had persuaded her to walk out of the front door and sit in his car just a few feet away for a few minutes the previous day.
‘And you managed to do that without having a panic attack?’ Tilda was amazed, because all Beth’s children had made repeated efforts to coax their mother into trying to fight her phobia rather than totally surrendering to it.
‘Evan’s so confident. It did take me nearly two weeks to work myself up to walking out the front door. But I have to learn how to manage now that you’re married to Rashad. Aubrey will be leaving home soon, as well,’ Beth pointed out. ‘I need to be more independent.’
The older woman passed her daughter several letters that had come for her. While Beth made fresh tea, Tilda went through her post. The final envelope was addressed in unfamiliar handwriting. She tore it open and withdrew a sheet of paper. It bore a poor quality photocopied image of a blonde woman dancing in a cage. A pulse started beating very fast at the foot of Tilda’s throat. She peered at it in horror. It could have been her, or just as easily it could’ve been someone else. It was impossible to tell. Below the image, a mobile phone number was printed.
