The car stopped. Rafiq climbed out and came around to open her door for her. Still without daring to look at him, she arrived at his side like a cracked piece of porcelain, in danger of shattering if anyone so much as spoke.
She found herself standing in front of huge sandstone monolith with tall sash windows and an oak front door. Beyond caring what this place was, she followed Rafiq to the door, which he unlocked with a key then stepped to one side, as if to invite her to precede him. She took a single step—that was all—before he was lifting her up in his big arms.
‘More tradition?’ she mocked shrilly.
‘For once in your life keep your mouth shut,’ he grimly advised her, and stepped over the threshold with his bride. He kicked the door shut again.
She gained a vague impression of oak panelling and iron fretwork, but most of her attention was honed on his taut profile as he proceeded to carry her up a stairway that curved around a panelled wall. They walked through an archway and down a dark red-carpeted corridor, passing more oak doors on their way. When they arrived at the one he was aiming for he opened it, then walked inside.
The room was so dramatically Gothic in design that she half expected to find a headless ghost standing in one of the shadowy corners. A fire burned in the grate of a big fireplace and a tray laid for coffee waited on a low table set between two richly upholstered wine-coloured velvet chairs. But what dominated the room was the huge and heavy oak four-poster bed hung with more wine-red velvet and, of all things, a dark purple throw made of silk.
The scene for a bridal seduction was set right down to the last detail—right down to the two matching black silk robes that lay draped across the foot of the bed. Shame, she thought cynically that they had pre-empted the moment; it had certainly spoiled all of this.
Allowing her feet to slip to a thick purple carpet, Rafiq then turned to close the door. ‘Sit down—pour yourself a drink,’ he invited.
She almost jumped when he spoke to her. She spun on her heel then wished she hadn’t done it when she found herself looking at a man at war with himself. He was yanking his tie loose with impatient fingers; the frown on his face was a definite scowl. Heat bloomed in her cheeks; shame choked her lungs. Turning away, she felt the sting of tears in her eyes.
‘I don’t like what you do to me,’ she breathed out painfully.
‘You surprise me. I had not noticed,’ he drawled.
It was derision of the crushing kind and the worst insult he could have offered her. Moving on legs that did not want to support her, Melanie went to the nearest chair and sank down.
He disappeared through a door near the bed and came back a few minutes later wearing only a long black robe. She glanced at the bed, saw that one robe was now missing. It was so glaringly obvious what he was intending to do next that she wished she had never been born.
But what made it worse was the low soft pulsing taking place between her thighs. She could still feel him there, hard and silken. She could still taste his kisses on her tongue. He took the other chair, saw she hadn’t touched the coffee pot and leant forward to pour it himself.
Silently, he handed a cup to her. With lowered eyes she took it. ‘Thank you,’ she breathed.
He huffed out a laugh. It brought her wary gaze up to clash head-on with his harshly mocking expression. ‘How can you manage to sound so prim when we both know that prim is the last thing that you are?’ he threw at her.
It was like being kicked when she was already down on the floor. ‘I don’t know how you can sit there and speak to me like this when you only married me an hour ago,’ she responded shakily.
‘And was seduced by you half an hour later.’
‘You started it!’
‘You finished it!’ he raked back. ‘In the name of Allah I cannot believe I am even sitting here with you! You are poison to a man like me.’
‘Oh.’ She stood up. ‘How dare you say that?’
‘Your step-cousin says I can say what the hell I like to you.’
He looked hard and dark and dangerously foreign. His anger and contempt washed over her in waves. Senses that just should not respond to this man she was seeing stung her with their awful message.
‘I n-need to use the bathroom.’ She turned away dizzily.
‘You need an escape.’
‘I hate you!’ she cried.
He launched to his feet. She dropped her cup and ran towards the door he had used a few minutes ago as a dark coffee stain seeped into her skirt. Slamming the door shut behind her, she expected to find herself standing in a bathroom and instead found her eyes flickering round a room full of clothes. Men’s clothes, women’s clothes—rails and rails of them. It took only a glance at a couple of dresses for her to realise that every female item in here was so new it still wore its label.
Bought for her? She couldn’t be sure. Didn’t even think she wanted to know. They were her size and that was all that she cared about, since she didn’t have anything else to wear and she needed to get out of this stupid wedding outfit that made such a mockery of the word marriage—and which was impregnated with the scent of him!
With trembling fingers she stripped the suit from her body and had just removed the wretched Lycra body when the door opened. She spun, clutching that silly scrap of material to her. ‘Get out!’ she shrieked at him.