‘Lily…’ he breathed with satisfaction.
‘Rauf…’ Lily feasted her shadowed blue eyes on him for one painful moment and managed a lacklustre smile. In a lightweight dove-grey suit cut to fit his lithe, wide-shouldered masculine physique by a master tailor with designer style, Rauf looked utterly breathtaking: sleek, sexy, gorgeous. There he lounged, the ultimate fantasy fix of masculinity, his face slashed by a vibrant smile that was capable of melting the skin off her bones…but Lily blocked him out in self-defence and wished her rapid heartbeat had as much pride.
‘Miss me?’ Rauf demanded.
‘We’ve been very busy here…’ Lily compressed her soft mouth. After all, it had taken Rauf two days to return to Turkey while his father had flown back after less than twenty-four hours away. But then, just as she should have known, she told herself wretchedly, if her body was out of bounds Rauf had been in no great hurry to get back to her and that had hurt. But was it fair for her to judge him on that? After all, who had tossed and turned every night just thinking about him? Thinking blush-making stuff too, Lily reminded herself guiltily, recalling the depth of her own longing for him and striving not to cringe where she sat.
At that point a welcome diversion was created by the entry of a staggeringly large wooden trunk adorned with ornate carving.
‘The düzen…my first gift to you.’ Resisting a dangerous urge to ask what was the matter with her, reminding himself that his former lack of faith in her had undoubtedly made her think less of him, Rauf opened the trunk and removed a large box from the interior.
‘What’s this?’ Lily asked weakly.
‘The fabric for your wedding dress…it’s an old custom for the bridegroom to provide it—’
‘I thought you weren’t into customs…’ Determined not to be impressed, Lily lifted the lid on the box. An exquisite expanse of fine gold hand-embroidered white silk was revealed. ‘Oh…it’s out of this world!’
‘Don’t let me see it—’ Rauf warned as she almost cast aside the lid in her excitement.
‘I thought you chose it—’
Rauf dealt her a discomfited look that tugged at her heart no matter how hard she tried to resist. ‘Don’t mention it to the diehard traditionalists in the household, but I want it to be a surprise when I see you in your wedding gown. I just listed what I thought you might dislike and left the choosing to the designer. She’s flying in this evening for a dress fitting.’
Lily replaced the lid on the box and studied him with dreamy eyes because she found that confession so sweet. It was no use. She couldn’t be cool with him when she just loved him to death. So maybe he did have a slight secret yen for the svelte, sophisticated Kasmet but she was not about to make the crucial error of questioning him on that score. Of course, Rauf had had at least one significant relationship and if she pried into his past he would resent it and what would she gain? Well, he would tell her the truth if she asked, only sometimes the truth could hurt, she acknowledged ruefully.
‘I picked everything else in the trunk,’ Rauf assured her.
‘Everything else…?’ Lily got up to look down into the trunk in amazement. It was packed full of clothes.
‘Your trousseau…’ Rauf regarded her with vibrant amusement. ‘But I had the lingerie conveyed up to your room in a separate delivery. I didn’t want to embarrass you—’
‘You bought me lingerie…?’
‘And what a very erotic experience that was, güzelim.’ The smouldering undertone Rauf utilised made her mouth run dry and her face burn.
The tap-tap of his great-grandmother’s stick warned that they were about to have company. Nelispah Kasabian’s delight at the sight of that giant trunk was touching to behold.
‘Of course, I’m being shortchanged here,’ Rauf murmured silkily to Lily under cover of the chatter that erupted between their companions.
‘How?’
‘You’re supposed to respond with the equivalent of a bottom drawer you’ve been industriously sewing and collecting up since childhood,’ Rauf shared mockingly. ‘Full of useful items like saddlebags and saucepans and hand-stitched sheets.’
‘I’m afraid you’re getting the equivalent of the barefoot bride,’ Lily confided, dying to ask him how he had got on with Hilary but reluctant to do so with an audience around.
Half an hour later, Rauf took Lily in his car to see the sumptuous Topkapi Palace, the former residence of the Ottoman sultans for over four hundred years, out at Seraglio Point.
‘So what happened with my sister and why hasn’t she phoned me?’
‘She said that she would prefer to talk to you when she comes over for the wedding—’
‘Stop holding out on me…was she horribly upset about the villas?’
‘Shocked and extremely angry. However, your father has agreed that I can buy into Harris Travel in the guise of an equal partner,’ Rauf divulged. ‘Hilary said no initially but I can be very persuasive.’
‘Yes, I know…’ Studying his bold bronzed profile, picking up on the quiet note of satisfaction in his dark, deep drawl, she smiled. ‘You’ve been incredibly kind—’
‘Your family has had a rough ride and I wanted to help—’