A Mediterranean Marriage

Rauf explained that he was flying over to her home the following day to visit her family.

‘Oh, no…Hilary hates you!’ Lily exclaimed in dismay.

Rauf watched Lily pin an embarrassed hand to her parted lips as she appreciated what she had let drop and he squared his big shoulders, brilliant golden eyes shimmering.

‘Because of the way you dumped me three years ago,’ she added with a rueful grimace.

Every sin he had ever committed was now coming back to haunt him, Rauf reflected with a fatalistic feeling.

‘What about the villas…and all that?’ Lily prompted worriedly. ‘Hilary and Dad need to be told.’

‘Yes,’ Rauf acknowledged. ‘I’ll take care of that—’

‘I should phone her—’

‘Yes, but only tell your sister that we’ve got married—’

‘But—’

‘I’ll handle the bad stuff with tact. I’m family now too.’ His lean, gorgeous face serious, Rauf reached for her hands and drew her close. ‘When I get back, I’ll take you out on that tourist trail you were supposed to be following and nobody can argue about that. That’s your duty to your sister, who sent you over here, and a business necessity.’ A slumbrous smile of satisfaction slashed Rauf’s handsome mouth as he came up with those indisputable facts, calculated to impress even his great-grandmother, who would be unable to even conceive that Lily might either travel round alone or fail to fulfil a family obligation.

‘I’m still going to miss you,’ Lily confided unevenly.

Rauf suppressed a groan. ‘I should be back within forty-eight hours…but all of a sudden that seems a long way away…why is that?’

Lily wrapped her arms round his neck and pressed into connection with his lithe, powerful frame. In the very act of claiming her lush mouth with hungry heat, Rauf heard a slight cough sound from the hall and he yanked his dark head up again, eyes a blaze of smouldering gold. ‘The second wedding can’t come fast enough for me, güzelim.’

The next twenty-four hours were very busy for Lily. When she phoned her sister, Hilary was stunned to be told that Lily was already married to Rauf, but mollified by the discovery that there was a second, more formal wedding yet to come. ‘Of course, we’ll come over for it. With a little luck, Rauf will send his private jet to fetch us and we’ll save on the fares,’ Hilary teased with considerable amusement. ‘In return, I will desist from calling him a rat and endeavour to like him.’

Lily got on like a house on fire with Rauf’s relatives and she was warmed by their affectionate lack of reserve with her. A large ceremonial tea party was held that afternoon and every female acquaintance of the Kasabian family appeared to be on the guest list. Lily was the centre of an admiring and curious throng. When Nelispah Kasabian became tired, Lily accompanied the old lady into another room where she lay down on a couch to rest for a while.

As Lily emerged again a beautiful brunette, garbed in an elegant white trouser suit, intercepted her to introduce herself. ‘I’m Kasmet. I’ve known Rauf almost all my life…’

Lily smiled.

‘But I was very surprised to hear that he was getting married,’ Kasmet continued, sultry dark eyes bright with scorn. ‘After all, he’s still in love with me!’

Lily blinked in bemusement. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Of course, Rauf would never admit that…even when we had an affair earlier this year. He’s too stubborn and proud,’ the other woman informed Lily, her ripe mouth setting into a thinned line. ‘But I want you

to know it. I want you to know that you’re second-best. He fell for me when we were teenagers and he never got over me.’

Blue eyes wide with astonishment, Lily spoke her own first thought out loud without meaning to do so. ‘You must be the girl he caught with one of his friends!’

Infuriated coins of scarlet bloomed over Kasmet’s cheeks.

‘I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to say that,’ Lily mumbled, shaken by the other woman’s spite, but also rather embarrassed by her own rejoinder.

Unexpectedly, Kasmet loosed a bitter laugh. ‘I had too much to drink and I was foolish. I didn’t love my late husband but because I lost Rauf, I married him. Could you really imagine my preferring any other man to Rauf?’

After that revealing little speech, Lily was pale and, reluctant to listen to any further revelations from the aggressive brunette, she murmured, ‘Please excuse me…’

The afternoon continued but, from that point on, Lily was challenged to play the part of the happy bride-to-be. Her mind was in turmoil. Oh, yes, she knew Kasmet had been angry and resentful and keen to cause trouble and pain. She wasn’t stupid, was she? But the problem was that Lily also knew Rauf and the darker side of his forceful character. No, not even if he had expected to love Kasmet to the end of his natural life would Rauf have forgiven her infidelity. For that reason, Kasmet’s assurance that she had had a recent affair with Rauf had upset Lily the most. For why would Rauf have got involved again with a woman who had once betrayed him? The answer to that question could only be that Rauf must still have had strong feelings for Kasmet.

For the very first time ever, it occurred to Lily that there might actually be a very good reason why Rauf had only ever talked of ‘caring’ for herself: if all along he had loved another woman. A woman he wouldn’t marry. Although he had had an affair with Kasmet, he had ended that relationship as well. He had succumbed to temptation and then fought temptation off again, which was exactly how Lily could picture him behaving: at war with himself from start to finish. Her own heart had sunk to the soles of her feet. Somehow she had contrived to come to terms with the idea that Rauf didn’t love her, but the wounding suspicion that he might feel much more for another woman savaged her.

Fresh from his successful manoeuvres in England, and having stopped off in Paris to do some necessary shopping on the way home, Rauf watched the staff struggling to cart the vast bulk of the carved düzen up the steps of his family home. Lily would be surprised and pleased that he was getting into the spirit of the occasion. In eight days, fourteen hours and thirty seven minutes, Lily would be back where she belonged by his side, in his home and in his bed. While he waited, he would use that time to demonstrate what a wonderful husband he could be: romantic, tender, caring, considerate, sensitive, generous, patient, magnanimous and tolerant. Having mentally scored a little tick beside each and every one of those desirable qualities in the performance of which he was certain he could excel, Rauf made his entrance and was relieved to find Lily alone.