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Rafiq gritted his teeth at that crude thought and image, particularly at experiencing it in the place most notorious for his father’s carnal transgressions. Maybe the blood in himdidrun true, only fortunately for him his clean-living uncle had contrived to have more of a sobering effect on his principles than his dysfunctional parents had. Such troubling concepts and suspicions and insecurities had haunted Rafiq since he had been a teenager. Every time he craved sex for the sake of it, every time he wondered what it would be like to be with a woman who wanted him outside those few short days when she had the greatest chance of conceiving...
As if that declaration about her separate room hadn’t punched what remained of her breath back out of her lungs, Izzy pinned a bright smile to her face since it seemed to be what Rafiq expected and she didn’t like to disappoint him. Or maybe she wanted to hang onto what remained of her pride, a more cynical inner voice suggested as she strolled over to the open doorway, and then what he had said only minutes before roused her curiosity afresh and she turned back to him and probed inquisitively, ‘A monument to excess and corruption?’
Lean, devastatingly attractive features grim, Rafiq turned brooding dark eyes back to her, thinking that she just had to gothere, where nobody else dared in his radius. ‘My father built this palace and ploughed millions into it, so that he could have somewhereveryprivate and luxurious to entertain.’
‘Well, maybe he was extravagant but surely in an oil-rich country that’s not a hanging offence,’ Izzy remarked uncomfortably, beginning to wish by his grave demeanour that she had left the subject alone.
Rafiq studied her with shielded eyes and decided it was time to tell her what was already widely known in Zenara, where his father’s name was never ever mentioned in polite company. ‘He held drug-fuelled orgies here with porn stars and hookers.’
‘Oh...’ For a split second, Izzy was frozen to the floor by shock and then she blinked rapidly, and a startled strangled snort of laughter was wrenched from her, her hand flying up to her parted lips in sincere apology and dismay. ‘S-sorry,’ she stammered. ‘I was just thinking that this is one place where you wouldn’t want to say,If only the walls could talk!’
Rafiq surveyed her in utter disbelief.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but you’re standing there like a pillar of doom,’ Izzy told him helplessly. ‘All ashamed and disgusted and miserable at having to tell me that. Why are you still so sensitive about it? Your father’s gone! Itisthe past you’re talking about, not the present, and you’re not responsible for your father’s choices.’
‘It is not that simple,’ Rafiq argued fiercely. ‘He disgraced the royal house. There is no depravity he did not explore, no extravagance he did not commit!’
‘When did he die?’ Izzy asked more gently.
‘Sixteen years ago...’ Rafiq admitted flatly.
‘And you’re still angry, but you shouldn’t still be feeling that so personally,’ Izzy countered with conviction. ‘It happened and can’t be changed but the sins your father committed weren’t yours and you should make the decision to let go of it all. Make that decision for your own sake. Itisthat simple.’
Rafiq was shaken by that straightforward and practical approach to the sordid heritage that had haunted and humbled him throughout his life.
‘I mean,everyfamily has secrets,’ Izzy commented more thoughtfully. ‘Some secrets are embarrassing, some are hurtful, some may even cruise close to illegality but there’s nothing you can do about that. If it’s your family, you’re stuck with them and that background, but you certainly shouldn’t feel guilty about their mistakes, particularly not if you choose to lead a different life from theirs. I mean, youdo, don’t you?’
Even more surprisingly in response to that enquiry, Rafiq found himself breaking out into spontaneous laughter that she could even ask such a question of him. ‘Definitely not into orgies and the like,’ he confirmed with a flashing smile, relishing her indifference to what he had told her and the obvious fact that it didn’t change her attitude to him. ‘But some peopledobelieve that such behaviour as my father’s is the result of bad blood and that such a man’s children may follow in his footsteps.’
‘Only really,reallyout-of-touch, prejudiced people,’ Izzy opined confidently.
‘I am not oversensitive on the subject,’ Rafiq felt the need to declare even though he knew he was glossing over the truth, indeed possibly outright lying. After all, his father’s sins had been used like a stick to beat him with throughout his life, changing him, marking him, rebuking him, warning him of the danger of excess in any field. Having someone simply laugh inappropriately and remind him that his father’s mistakes were not his to repent was a little like being suddenly busted out of a prison cell with bars that he hadn’t even realised existed.
‘Well, if this is my room, I’ll leave you to it!’ Izzy breezed, stepping through the doorway and beginning to close the connecting door.
‘No!’In an abrupt movement, Rafiq crossed the room and dragged the door open again.
‘No?’ Izzy queried in surprise as she spun back. ‘But Ithought—’
‘This far we have not had much of a wedding day,’ Rafiq breathed in taut continuation. ‘No celebration, nothing...’
Izzy shrugged a tiny dismissive shoulder, her head high, her chin at an I-can-cope-with-anything angle. ‘We’re not a real couple,’ she pointed out quickly.
‘We may as well be,’ Rafiq countered, brilliant dark-as-Hades eyes locked to her triangular face, lingering on her pale flawless skin and the brightness of her bluer than blue eyes. ‘Tonight, we will do something different...’
‘Don’t think there’s a lot ofdifferentaround this neck of the woods,’ Izzy warned him ruefully, having only seen sand and more sand out of any of the windows that looked beyond the walls and the courtyard. And Izzy didn’tlikesand, had never liked sand, whether it was sand on a beach or sand in a sandpit when she was a kid. Sand in giant rolling dunes that formed the entire landscape left her cold.
‘We will dine in the desert this evening,’ Rafiq proposed, striving to think feminine, romantic, even frilly and getting absolutely nowhere in his imagination because he had absolutely no experience in that line. Instead he was forced to settle on an experience that he was pretty sure she could not previously have encountered.
‘Oh...’ Izzy was just quick enough to kill the grimace threatening her facial muscles. ‘Well, that would be different,special,’ she added hastily, not wanting to be picky or ungracious because there truly wasn’t much available in the way of alternative options.
‘The stars are amazing at night,’ Rafiq told her with sudden warmth, his smile illuminating his bronzed features like the sun and dazzling her. ‘The desert at night is wondrous.’
Engulfed by that astonishing smile, Izzy decided she could bear to picnic in a mud puddle should that be what was required of her.
Vanishing back into his own room, Rafiq stripped for a shower and wondered why he had suggested dinner in the desert. It was surely basic courtesy to ensure that his bride enjoyed her time in Zenara and for him to act as a considerate host?Even though he had planned to avoid her?his hind brain prompted. And beneath the beat of the shower, Rafiq groaned, comprehending his change of heart with a clarity that surprised him.
Izzy wasnotFadith. In nature, she was not remotely similar to his first wife. She was a totally different woman. Just as the handful of women he had had sex with in recent years could also have been dissimilar, only he had never given them the chance to prove that, had never got to know them in any but the most superficial of ways. He had never spent the night with anyone until Izzy and had never allowed an encounter to stretch into a second night.
