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‘The staff quarters here at the palace require renovation and until that work is complete, we can’t put anyone else in substandard housing. I am, however, willing to offer her staff accommodation in Kazan, where I have bought property for that purpose,’ he countered curtly. ‘I would also add that I think it would be inappropriate for you to develop any closer friendship with Nahla.’
Claire reddened in surprise. ‘And why would you say that? Am I suddenly supposed to turn into some sort of snob and only rub shoulders in a friendly way with VIPs?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Raif told her curtly, pushing aside his coffee untouched and springing upright with unconcealed impatience. ‘That is not what I’m saying. You must learn to respect the boundaries that we should observe. That is our life now.’
‘You don’t like her. That’s what this is about,’ Claire decided, standing up in turn, annoyed by his intransigence.
‘That is untrue. I have a high opinion of Nahla...how could I not? She has been very helpful to you and she does not put herself forward.’
Claire straightened, shaken to discover that they were on the very edge of a row and wondering how that had blown up so quickly. ‘Then what’s your problem with her?’
Raif’s brilliant dark eyes hardened. ‘There is no problem.’
‘Sounds like it!’ Claire scoffed.
‘Don’t be so stubborn,’ Raif urged her impatiently. ‘Occasionally I will give you advice that is not to your taste and, unfortunately, this is one of those occasions.’
‘That’s not good enough,’ Claire told him irritably. ‘I want an answer. I want to knowwhyyou don’t really like Nahla being around.’
Raif stared back at her, scanning her vivid face and the brightness of the blue eyes that had captured him at first glance. He breathed in deep and slow, wishing he could tell her the truth, wishing he could get that off his conscience but convinced that that truth would distress her and cause trouble he would struggle to handle. ‘I can’t tell you,’ he declared with sudden harshness.
‘And is this the same guy who told me that there should be nothing I can’t tellyou?’ Claire responded. ‘What a shame it doesn’t work both ways!’
Raif swore under his breath. ‘To tell you would entail breaking a promise I made you before our marriage,’ he replied grimly. ‘I don’t know what to do for best. You tell me.’
Claire had no idea what he was referring to. She blinked, drew in a sharp breath and tried to clear her head. ‘Raif...’ she began quietly.
‘Nahla is the woman I believed I was in love with for years,’ he stated in a clipped undertone, his strain in making that admission etched in the tension clenching his lean, darkly handsome features.
CHAPTER TEN
FORABOUTTENSECONDS, Claire gazed back at him, her lips parting but not a breath of sound emerging. Shock was flooding her in a tidal wave. She went white. She felt sick. She also felt unbelievably stupid.
How on earth had she been so blind? How on earth had she forgotten that promise she had asked for prior to their marriage? She had warned him never ever to tell her the identity of the woman he loved and, being Raif, he had tried to stick to that agreement until she made it impossible for him by continuing to demand answers. Without another word, she left the room, her steps merely quickening when Raif called her name after her to try and halt her flight.
She raced down the stairs into the hall. And where was she going to run? And what would running avail her? There was no running away, no escaping such an unlovely truth. Once that confession was out, there was no avoiding it, no denying it either. But what could she possibly have said to him in response to that explanation?
Shehad brought Nahla into Raif’s radius again.Shehad fought to employ Nahla, whom she had taken an immediate liking to, a liking that had not wavered once in the weeks since she had met the other woman. Nahla was quiet, discreet, efficient and obliging. She was also strikingly beautiful in that ethereal, delicate, soulful-eyed way. Raif had attempted to dissuade her from hiring Nahla and she had ignored him, much as she had ignored his unease around the other woman, she recalled sickly. It had never occurred to her to suspect that something truly important lay behind his reluctance to employ Nahla.
From the hall, she went out through the French windows into their private courtyard. Stately palm trees of several varieties made it a highly ornamental space surrounding a beautiful mosaic-tiled fountain where water fanned down softly into a pond. Tropical flowers flourished and bloomed in every corner, tumbling in abundance from urns. She hovered by the fountain, watching the water fall and spread a pattern of ripples across the surface while she struggled to get a grip on herself. Circe sidled out from beneath the foliage to brush against her legs, and she distractedly bent to stroke her elegant cat.
Before she’d married Raif, she had told herself that she would not get wound up about the fact that he loved another woman. And yet what was she doing right now? That question was unanswerable. She swallowed hard. Nahla had no idea of Raif’s feelings, had evidently never once looked at Raif in a romantic light because he was younger than her and she had already been falling in love with the man she had married...andlost. Belatedly, it dawned on Claire that Nahla was a widow now and available, only Raif hadn’t known that crucial fact until he’d returned to Quristan and by then he had already been married to Claire.
Had he railed at the cruel fate that had set him up with such bad timing that he’d lost out on a possible relationship with the woman he loved? Her tummy lurched at that acknowledgement. But nothing could be changed, she thought heavily. She was pregnant, the mother of the future Crown Prince. Raif was stuck with her as a wife whether he wanted to be or not. At this moment, neither of them had the freedom to make other choices and she had to woman up and face the emotional fallout of such a confession.
Certainly, she would not be blaming Raif for seeking out Nahla’s company, she thought humourlessly. Raif had avoided the other woman to the best of his ability. No, Raif would not cheat on her. Raif was too honest and scrupulous for such behaviour. She reckoned that both of them were, never mind the fact that Nahla was still grieving for the husband she had loved.
‘Claire...’ Raif murmured quietly.
The woman I believed I was in love with for years.
His explanation sounded like a crack of doom in her memory and it wounded her like the short sharp shock of a lightning strike, knocking her right out of her happy place of security. And that was the terrible irony, she acknowledged unhappily. Raifwasher happy place. From the day of their marriage, he had made her happy, so happy she could sometimes barely credit it, and yet right from the outset she had been fully aware that another woman had his heart. How naïve had she been not to appreciate that that horrible truth would eventually come back to haunt her?
‘Claire...’ Raif repeated, striding down the winding wrought-iron steps that led down from the sitting room into the courtyard. ‘Much as I would prefer to avoid ever mentioning that name again, we have to talk about this.’
Claire avoided looking at him and studied his shadow instead. ‘I can’t think of much to say. That was what you might describe as a conversation killer,’ she reasoned in a strained undertone.
‘Did you evenlistento what I actually said?’ Raif chided. ‘I said the woman that IbelievedI loved. It wasn’t love, Claire. It was a teenage crush, which I assumed was love. And that assumption made me feel much more normal mixing with my peers. I may not have been chasing girls with my friends, but I was not sexless.’
