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‘We didn’t share a room,’ Rafiq ground out.
Disconcerted by that admission, Izzy swivelled back to the sofa by the wall that she had been considering for what remained of the night hours. With a sigh, she curled up on it and closed her eyes. ‘What sort of a marriage was it in which you didn’t even share a room?’ she prompted with helpless curiosity.
‘I will not discuss that.’
Rafiq swore in his own language and sprang out of bed. Izzy opened her eyes again on over six feet of angry naked masculinity stooping over her and snatching her up off the sofa to settle her firmly back down on the bed. ‘You are not sleeping any place else butthisbed!’ he thundered down at her.
‘Rafiq...the domestic tyrant,’ Izzy murmured softly. ‘It’s kind of sexy.’
Seriously perturbed by that unexpected comeback, Rafiq froze, for that was one word he would never have applied to himself. He shook off the label again. It was a superficial, silly comment, not intended to mean anything, certainly not any kind of invitation when she was so angry with him. ‘We’ll talk over breakfast,’ he breathed in a driven undertone.
He would lay the facts out for her then. After all, the woman he remembered had been reasonable and rational. Presumably she retained those traits, even if she wasn’t displaying them at the moment. Of course, he reminded himself ruefully, just like him she was struggling to deal with a situation she had not foreseen and the sudden destruction of her immediate plans for the future. If he made it clear that she could still walk away andhavethat future, he would be offering her a practical solution.
Izzy wakened and, finding herself alone in the bed, wasted no time in taking advantage of the privacy. Showering and washing her hair, she chose capri pants and a tee to wear, her small case and even smaller wardrobe for a hot climate not offering much of a choice. Her brain felt clear again and her anxiety level soothed, leaving her feeling equipped to deal with whatever Rafiq had to throw at her over breakfast.
The quiet little maid was waiting in the bedroom to escort her out into a long stone corridor and through a doorway into very bright light. The heat engulfed her like a blanket, disconcerting her after the air-conditioned cool of the interior of the building. She was ushered down a flight of steps and into the merciful shade of palm trees to find herself standing in a very pretty courtyard, crammed with lush tropical plants.
‘I didn’t realise how hot it would be,’ she muttered, suddenly plunged back into awkwardness as Rafiq, immaculate in yet another designer-cut suit, sprang up from the table set beneath the trees. ‘I haven’t been abroad very often. Well, we only ever had one foreign holiday,’ she told him reluctantly, not wanting to sound like a deprived child because she loved her parents very much and did not want to sound in any way critical of them.
No way was she about to tell Rafiq, with the kind of wealth she assumed he had, that money hadalwaysbeen a problem in her family and that the single holiday to more exotic climes she had enjoyed only a couple of years earlier had occurred when one of her father’s business ventures unexpectedly did well. Of course, the doing well hadn’t lasted—it never did—and the business had eventually gone down in a torrent of debt, plunging them back into the normality of being a family for whom a holiday was a dream luxury.
‘Where did the holiday take you?’ Rafiq murmured easily, accustomed to setting people at ease in his presence, watching her settle nervously into the chair tugged out by one of the servants hovering.
‘Spain. Matt was able to get down in the sand and act like a little boy for a change,’ she recalled fondly of her little brother, whose need for a wheelchair prevented him from enjoying many of the pursuits available to an able-bodied child.
‘You are close to your family,’ Rafiq gathered, having watched her expressive face light up. ‘I am very fond of my brother. I will introduce you to him soon. He is at school right now.’
‘School’s not something I miss,’ Izzy muttered in what she knew had to sound like a gabbling rush but, really, continuing to look across the table at a guy who took your every single breath away at one glance was challenging. ‘Maya was horribly bullied because she was so beautiful and clever. I was average.’
‘I don’t see you as average,’ Rafiq cut in.
Izzy shrugged a tiny thin shoulder and ignored that pointed remark. ‘You said we were going to talk. You don’t need to work through this getting-to-know-you stuff to be polite with me.’
Rafiq breathed in deep and slow. ‘Our children can only be recognised here if their parents are married. Obviously I want the children to have that option, to be able to take their place in Zenara as royals if they wish.’
Izzy had tensed and she sipped at her tea. ‘But when you were talking yesterday, you didn’t make it sound like being royal in Zenara was really that enjoyable,’ she reminded him drily.
‘I was raised in a totally different way from the way I will raise my own children. It was a different time in my country’s history and a different set of circumstances. But neither of us can know what our children will want when they are grown up,’ Rafiq reasoned. ‘Don’t you want them to have a free choice?’
Grudgingly, Izzy nodded because she hadn’t thought through the royal connection. ‘You’re referring to titles, like you being a prince.’
‘No, Izzy. I’m talking about much more. The firstborn of those twins will be my heir to the throne. I will be King when I reach my thirtieth birthday in eighteen months and my child will be the next in line, which is a very important role. If you don’t marry me, both our children will be automatically excluded by law from an official role in Zenara. Yet they need to be living here to learn our language, our culture and to get to know their people.’
Izzy released her breath in a long sigh because she hadn’t grasped just how deep that royal connection could go. Rafiq was going to be aking? Yes, she had already known that. So, how on earth had she contrived, even briefly, to forget such a fact? There she had been squabbling with him last night in bed as though he were just any ordinary Joe, when really he was anything but!
‘In the light of that reality, I have a suggestion to make,’ Rafiq murmured levelly.
Izzy looked up from the piece of fruit she was slicing and let herself greedily focus on him, only for a few seconds, she bargained with her conscience. He had the same effect on her, she reckoned, as a major crush would have on a teenager. Only she had never experienced one of those crushes. During the teen years, she and her sibling had been far too busy handling family problems like bailiffs and debt collectors and keeping food on the table with part-time work as shop assistants. It was just there was something so ravishingly perfect about those lean dark, chiselled features and those eyes,stunning, gleaming with gold highlights, and then there were the lashes: inky, lush and curling. Her body heated to such an extent that she thought she might expire.
‘A suggestion?’ she said jerkily, dredging her attention off him again to concentrate on eating the fruit, which was much safer and more sensible, she told herself fiercely, exasperated by the manner in which her brain kept on wandering around him.
‘That we marry now to legitimise our children and stay together until they are born,’ Rafiq outlined with clarity. ‘I need to be with you until the birth to support you, to be aresponsiblefather.’
‘You’re a literal throwback to the Dark Ages,’ Izzy muttered helplessly. ‘But in an odd way, it’s kind of sweet.’
‘Sweet?’Rafiq growled.
‘Most of the men I meet would run away from that level of responsibility,’ she extended, reluctant to offend him. ‘You’re the opposite. Sorry, I interrupted you. You were suggesting that we stay together until after the birth...and then?’
