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‘This pregnancy may not have been planned but, now that it has happened, I’m fully willing to change and adapt,’ she told him curtly.
Rafiq thrust impatient long fingers through the black hair still tousled by her clutching hands. Her face flamed and she looked hurriedly away from him as if by so doing she could block such thoughts and memories.
‘It’s too late in the day for this conversation,’ Rafiq murmured flatly. ‘I can see that I have offended you and that was not my intention. Perhaps tomorrow we will both be in a more reasonable state of mind.’
‘I still don’t understand how we’re going to work anything out when we both want the same thing,’ Izzy breathed tightly.
‘We’ll work it out because we’re both adults,’ Rafiq countered impatiently. ‘And adults negotiate and compromise.’
Izzy almost urged him to speak for himself because she wasn’t in the mood to compromise, not when it came to being a mother to her own children. That wasn’t negotiable, was it? In that field, she wasn’t prepared to make concessions because she couldn’t afford to bend. It would break her heart to walk away from her babies and deny them her full love and attention. How could he think otherwise?
‘I won’t surrender my rights,’ she whispered tightly as Rafiq reached the connecting door that separated their bedrooms.
Rafiq skimmed dark golden eyes back to her in an electrifying moment of silent communication. ‘We’ll see.’
No, we won’t see, she told herself as she punched her pillow and got back into bed. She wasn’t about to change her mind, no matter what he had to say. Some wedding night, she thought prosaically, cringing at the recollection of the intimacy they had shared before she realised how he saw her. Well, monsterwasan exaggeration, she conceded grudgingly, but Rafiq certainly did view her as less than the feminine ideal of caring motherhood and that had bitten deep. Why had it hurt so much? Why on earth did she care so intensely abouthisopinion of her? Why was she so vulnerable when it came to him? Why couldn’t she grow a thicker skin?
In the morning she was heavy-eyed and still at odds with herself. It was both a relief and an annoyance to walk out into the courtyard where breakfast was to be served and be greeted with an apology on Rafiq’s behalf and the news that a major fire in a hotel in the capital city, Hayad, had demanded his presence early that morning. Braced to see him again and deprived of the expectation, she stiffened and her back went rigid. She would be much happier without him, she told herself staunchly.
She was still deep in that uneasy mood when a young man strolled out from under the trees shading the table. He extended a confident hand in greeting. ‘May I join you for breakfast? I’m Rafiq’s brother, Zayn.’
Momentarily, Izzy froze because in the midst of all the drama she had forgotten about his visit. But there he was, tall, lean and as dark as Rafiq in colouring and unmistakeably her husband’s sibling. Dark eyes inspected her with unhidden interest.
‘I had to see for myself if you could live up to Uncle Jalil’s acclaim,’ he admitted as he gave a nod to a hovering servant and smiled with Rafiq’s easy charm while breakfast arrived at full tilt, offered in a bedazzling choice of dishes.
‘Acclaim?’ Izzy queried with a look of surprise.
‘My uncle believes that you are exactly what my brother needs. Considering that he once believed that Fadith was the perfect wife for Rafiq, who can blame me for being a complete cynic and refusing to trust in his assessment?’
‘Fadith,’ Izzy echoed uncomfortably, now feeling very much under scrutiny, for Rafiq’s kid brother was making no attempt to hide his scepticism. ‘Rafiq rarely mentions her.’
‘Rafiq never rats on anyone. It’s a point of honour for him. An amazing trait for someone who was shafted at birth and cursed to pay for our late, unlamented father’s sins,’ Zayn continued with bite. ‘He deserves better now.’
‘Yes,’ Izzy agreed, dry-mouthed, feeling under fire and unsure how to respond with anything other than honesty. ‘And you want to know if I’m a better bet, but I’m afraid only Rafiq could answer that question.’
‘You think?’ Zayn lifted a black brow and scoffed, ‘Twins?My brother already thinks you are the eighth wonder of the world!’
Izzy reddened and continued to carefully eat the muesli she had selected. She was tempted to tell Zayn that no woman wanted to be valued purely for her fertility but that was too private a thought for sharing. ‘Lucky me,’ she murmured a shade flatly.
‘Do you love him?’
Izzy glanced across the table in consternation. ‘You can’t ask me that!’
‘I just did. I want my brother to be happy. It’s that simple,’ Zayn declared unrepentantly.
Feeling under pressure, Izzy pushed her curls back from her damp brow. ‘I don’t know how I feel. Everything’s happened so fast. One minute I was single, the next I was married and expecting twins, for goodness’ sake! I’ve hardly had time to catch my breath.’
‘So, that’s a no, then,’ Zayn assumed, his mouth down curving.
Izzy looked back down at her plate, struggling to concentrate. In truth she didn’t know what she felt for Rafiq, only that she felttoomuch in too many different ways, not all of which made sense. Last night, he had left her feeling angry and hurt, but she had still come down to breakfast with a helpless sense of anticipation. The disappointment that had infiltrated her once she learnt of his absence still rang like a hollow bell of warning inside her, reminding her that she couldn’t afford to get too attached to the man she had married, not when their marriage wasn’t expected to last.
‘It’s a marriage of convenience,’ she told Zayn baldly since he had been so blunt with her. ‘And it’s early days for us.’
‘Only my unlucky brother would get to maketwomarriages of convenience,’ Zayn ground out and, glancing at her, he saw her surprise and curiosity. ‘No, it wasn’t a teenage love match with Fadith. But you need to ask him for the details.’
‘I wasn’t going to ask you,’ Izzy said, thinkingI so was, her face colouring afresh. Like most people she preferred to avoid contentious issues and it was obvious to her that Rafiq didn’t want to talk about his first marriage. Getting the story from Zayn would have been easier, most particularly when she and Rafiq were currently at daggers drawn.
Evidently accepting that he had got all he was likely to get from her, Zayn engaged in normal conversation for what remained of the meal. He was much less guarded than his older brother, yet very mature for his age, only his sudden boyishly enthusiastic smile betraying his youth. She understood his loyal protectiveness towards Rafiq because she was equally attached to her twin and two orphaned brothers, regardless of the age gap between them, were almost certain to be close.
