Sharif sat back. ‘What I want to know is why you wouldn’t tell me the truth when I confronted you about it? Why pretend to be something you’re not?’
Liyah admitted defeat. ‘The day you brought it up...it seemed easier just to let you believe what you wanted. I barely knew you. Everything had happened so fast.’ She avoided his eye and plucked at her napkin. ‘I guess it felt like a kind of armour. I wasn’t ready to let you know who I was, and you didn’t seem inclined to want to know.’ She looked at him. ‘You were too busy telling me that I was pretty much a bought companion, purely for public appearances.’
Sharif had the grace to look slightly discomfited. ‘Yes, well... I was still coming to terms with the fact that you, the mystery woman from the oasis, and my new wife were one and the same. And you have to admit that your behaviour that night—our behaviour,’ he amended, ‘didn’t exactly dissuade me from believing the worst.’
‘That was part of it too,’ Liyah admitted. ‘I didn’t think you’d believe me.’
‘So, if you weren’t tripping on and off yachts and spending up a storm and falling out of nightclubs, what were you doing?’
Sharif’s gaze was direct and unwavering. Liyah tipped up her chin. ‘I do like to dance, and I did go to nightclubs.’
‘But, like most people, you probably managed not to fall out of them. Who’s the girl in the pictures?’
‘She’s a Middle Eastern model. One of my sisters spotted that she looked like me. Same hair. Height...’
‘She’s totally different. She’s about half your weight and she has no breasts.’
He glanced at her chest, making Liyah all too conscious of her larger than fashionable breasts under the soft fabric of her sweater. And her nipples were reacting to his look right now, growing hard, tingling...
She said in a strangled voice, ‘I think we look totally different too, but she worked for what my father wanted and so he paid her to behave like a spoiled socialite and then tipped the press off that it was me.’
Sharif—thankfully—lifted his gaze back up to Liyah’s face. ‘Why would he do that?’
Liyah tried to ignore the familiar pang of hurt. ‘Because telling people I was misbehaving all around Europe was preferable to admitting that I had left Taraq to try and live an independent life, which is all I’ve ever wanted.’
‘What were you doing?’
Liyah’s heart was beating fast. She hated it that it mattered to her what Sharif thought. ‘I got a place at Oxford. I did a Master’s in Economic and Social History over two years.’
‘A Master’s? Had you done an undergraduate course?’
Liyah shook her head. ‘No, I’d studied for the Baccalaureate with a tutor in Taraq, and I did an interview, and they accepted me.’ Liyah’s mouth twisted. ‘I’m sure being an international student with ready funds helped.’
Sharif shook his head. ‘They’re more discerning than that at Oxford. How many languages do you speak?’
‘Arabic—obviously. English, French, and passable Italian and Spanish.’
‘And if you were here for the summer holidays, and not falling out of clubs and onto yachts, what were you doing?’
‘One summer I worked in a vineyard in France, picking grapes, and I also worked in the library at Oxford.’
‘And your family were angry that you were doing that?’
‘My father is conservative. He doesn’t approve of my desire for independence. To be honest, I didn’t expect them even to notice that I was gone.’
Liyah looked directly at Sharif, daring him to pity her. This wasn’t about self-pity—even if her family’s disregard for her had brought pain.
‘My father turned his back on me a long time ago—after my mother died. He moved on with his other wives and children.’
Sharif said tautly, ‘That’s why I have no intention of having children. I’ve only known a father to be a destructive force, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone else.’
Before, Liyah would have agreed with Sharif, but somethin
g rogue made her say now, ‘We’re not our fathers.’
‘Do you want children?’
In all honesty, Liyah wasn’t sure any more. ‘I want a life of freedom and independence. I don’t see how children fit into that. And I’m aware that’s selfish.’