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‘You and I go our separate ways,’ Rafiq framed, releasing his breath. ‘That agreement between us would leave all options open for all of us.’
Izzy nodded very slowly. Marry purely for the sake of that legal bond and then split up again? Yes, that did make sense to her. Itwouldsettle the essentials. It would give the twins their choices, whatever they might be, when they were adults and it would also leave both her and Rafiq free to continue with their lives. Even so, it certainly didn’t feel like the answer to her every prayer and she didn’t understand why it didn’t.
‘I think that would be almost perfect,’ she told Rafiq, because her brain believed that and she squashed the sense of unease already threatening to rise inside her. ‘After all, you can’t be any keener on the idea of marrying a virtual stranger than I am.’
The strong lines of his fabulous bone structure went taut, showing off the intriguing hollows, and her heart jumped behind her breastbone. ‘No...’ he conceded almost guiltily half under his breath. ‘I will always do my duty but my first marriage was not a happy one.’
Rafiq froze up even more as he felt those words slip from him because he had never once admitted to anyone what he had just admitted to her. Even so, the sky didn’t fall, and no piercing shard of disloyalty pained him because he had long since adjusted to the absence of a woman who had, in truth, been as absent in life to him while alive as she was after she passed. ‘I shouldn’t have said that!’ he breathed in a roughened undertone of discomfiture.
‘Why not, if it’s the truth?’ Izzy murmured quietly, skating a soothing finger down over the clenched fist lying within her reach. ‘All this will be easier if we try to be honest with each other.’
‘Yes,’ Rafiq conceded, censuring himself for that moment of weakness, that moment of unguarded frankness that was very unlike him. Something about Izzy encouraged him to break free of his normal reserve and self-discipline. He would have to watch himself around her and not make a habit of such vulnerability.
Women disliked weak men and only weak men revealed emotion, he reflected grimly. He had learned that as a child when his mother pushed him away and told him that boys didn’t cry and cling to their mothers. He had learned it as an adult when he tried to reason with his childless wife and referred to his own feelings and she went off into hysterics, outraged that he could dare to mentionhisside of their story and verbally abusing him for that mistake.
‘I will arrange the wedding.’
‘Wedding?’she exclaimed in dismay.
‘Not a normal one,’ Rafiq qualified. ‘A little ceremony, which will only be witnessed by a couple of people in a quiet room here in this wing of the palace.’
Izzy’s frown evaporated. ‘Because it has to be secret,’ she guessed. ‘Well, that’s lucky. I don’t have anything to wear for a proper occasion.’
‘I will have appropriate attire brought to you. My uncle will be one of the witnesses and a bride in a dress of some kind will feel more normal to him. He is a kind man, a good man but out of touch with the modern world. Our situation has troubled him deeply,’ Rafiq confided again, compressing his wide sensual lips on the suspicion that once again he was saying too much, revealing too much.
Izzy nodded agreement and made herself munch through a piece of toast very slowly because she was feeling a little queasy and hoping that something a little more solid than fruit would settle it. Unhappily, the ruse didn’t work and a few minutes later, she found herself plunging out of her seat like a madwoman and racing up the stairs and back to the bedroom again to find the bathroom.
She was genuinely horrified to glance up when she had finished being sick and discover Rafiq in the doorway. ‘This is par for the course,’ she pointed out defensively as she rinsed her mouth at the sink and reached for her toothbrush.
‘The doctor will still visit. The palace has its own medical clinic. Now,’ Rafiq breathed, suddenly at her elbow and bending down to scoop her up like a doll. ‘You should rest until you feel a little better.’
He lowered her back down on the bed.
‘But we will have to get some food into you that stays down,’ he remarked worriedly. ‘I will consult the doctor.’
And with that, Rafiq was gone, leaving her to dizzily study the space where he had been.
CHAPTER SIX
THEYWEREGOINGto marry and, by the sound of it, quickly, Izzy reflected in a daze.
It wouldn’t be a real marriage, of course, but it would enable her to build a proper foundation for her babies’ futures and she wouldn’t be fit tobea mother if she wasn’t willing to make some sort of a sacrifice, would she? After all, her own mother had given up a life of comfort and ease to live on a shoestring for the sake of the twins she’d carried and to be with the man she loved.
Rafiq was clever too because he had stripped the facts down to the basics and left her without a leg to stand on with regards to the suggestion that they marry. She rolled her eyes at recognising how he had won the concession he wanted from her.
When the maid knocked and entered with another, explaining that they had brought an outfit for her to wear to meet the Regent, she was even more impressed by Rafiq’s shrewd cover-up. Staging a secret wedding in a place stuffed with gossiping staff would have to be done with care but there could be no better excuse for her to get all dolled up than for the important occasion of meeting her husband’s uncle, the Regent and current ruler of Zenara.
Evidently, there was a need for them to marry at speed before anyone could suspect that they were actuallynotmarried. She could only assume that any kind of scandal was viewed as a major catastrophe in the Zenarian royal family and suppressed a sigh. Her mother would have understood that viewpoint better than Izzy would have, considering that becoming an unwed mother-to-be had led to her mother being thrown out of her family. That same attitude, however, struck Izzy, the child of a different generation, as prehistoric.
Even so, if that was the way it had to be in Zenara she would play along for her babies’ benefit, and in the bathroom she put on the long blue richly embroidered dress she had been brought. It was pretty but it looked like one of those national dress outfits people wore to dance in at country festivals and she smiled, returning to the bedroom to be draped in jewellery and have her hair fussed over. In the end she did her hair herself because her corkscrew curls had a mind of their own and putting them up in a more formal style took a familiar pair of hands. The jewels in the box opened for her perusal were utterly spectacular, she reflected, smoothing a reverential finger over the diamond and sapphire necklace at her collarbone, which was accompanied by matching earrings.
Rafiq strode into the bedroom and she froze because for the first time she was seeing him out of Western dress. He wore a long white tunic and cloak and a red-checked turban, the ends of which draped over his shoulder like a scarf. It was a mode of apparel that made him look very different, very...veryfantasy sexy, she decided abstractedly, studying the clean sculpted lines of his devastatingly handsome features in awe. She stood up, her knees suddenly weak.
‘You look amazing,’ he told her.
Her eyes danced with amusement at his reaction to what felt like fancy dress to her but presumably seemed much more ordinary to him.
‘Why are you laughing?’ Rafiq demanded in bewilderment.
