She wanted to say no, to ask him what was the point—but her curiosity got the better of her. And, besides, she wanted to hear news of Khalim.
‘Yes, of course you can.’
‘Thank you.’
Lara was still away filming and so the flat was empty and mercifully tidy and she found herself thinking about the time when she had turned up with Khalim to find total chaos. Remembered the rather fastidious look of horror which had darkened his handsome face, and the resulting decision for him to find them somewhere to live.
Just stop remembering, she told herself fiercely. Stop it!
‘Would you like some coffee, Philip? Or tea, perhaps?’
He shook his dark head. ‘Thank you, but no.’
He seemed, she thought, a trifle uncomfortable. What was the purpose of his visit? she wondered. ‘What can I do for you, Philip?’ she asked pleasantly.
‘Khalim has sent me.’
She bit her lip. ‘H-how is he?’
‘He’s sad, of course—but coping magnificently, just as you would expect.’
‘Yes.’ Of course he was. Swallowing down her pain, she said, ‘So what is the purpose of your visit here today, Philip?’
Philip nodded thoughtfully, as if her reaction was not the one he would have anticipated. ‘He asked me to bring you this.’ He opened up his briefcase and withdrew a slim, dark leather box and handed it to her.
Rose stared down at it. ‘What is it?’
‘Why don’t you open it, and see?’
Caution told her to give it straight back to him, but that old devil called curiosity seemed to be guiding her actions instead. With miraculously unshaking hands, she opened the clasp.
Inside was a necklace, although the word seemed oddly inadequate for the magnificent piece of jewellery which dazzled at her from its navy-velveted backdrop.
A necklace of sapphires and diamonds which blazed with unmatchable brilliance, and, at the very centre of the piece, a single deeper blue sapphire, the size of a large walnut.
Rose lifted her eyes to his, her face pale and her voice now trembling. ‘Wh-what is the p-purpose of this?’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’
‘Not to me it isn’t, no. Why is he sending his emissary with expensive baubles? To sweeten me up? Is that it? To induce me to fall in with his wishes?’
‘He doesn’t want it to be over, Rose.’
‘Well, it is over,’ she said stubbornly. ‘It has to be. I thought I made that clear. I’m not prepared to become his part-time mistress, Philip—I told him that unequivocably. So perhaps you’d like to give this back to him, and tell him that pieces of jewellery, no matter how gorgeous, will not change my mind.’ And she snapped back the clasp and handed it back to him.
Philip stared down at the proffered case for a long moment before he took it. ‘You won’t change your mind?’ he asked slowly.
She shook her head, but with the pain again came the sense of liberation, and of dignity. ‘I can’t. Tell him that. And tell him not to contact me again—that’s best for both our sakes.’ She kept her voice steady. ‘Tell him to make a happy life for himself in Maraban, and I will endeavour to do the same for myself in England.’
Philip nodded. ‘He will not be pleased.’
‘I didn’t imagine for a moment that he would be. And please tell him not to mistake my resistance for enticement.’ She gave a heavy sigh. ‘I’m trying to be practical, Philip, for both our sakes.’ And my heart is too fragile. If I stop it now, I will survive, she thought. And so will he. If I let it continue in the cloak-and-dagger way of being his foreign mistress, then I risk it breaking into a thousand pieces.
‘Do you have any message for him?’
She longed to ask Philip to tell him that she loved him, and that she would never stop loving him—but wouldn’t that give him the power to try and wear her down? And who knew how long she would be able to resist that?
She nodded. ‘Just wish him luck, Philip. Tell him to make Maraban great.’