‘He is well,’ his brother assured him. ‘His blood count is good and his spirit is high. Don’t worry about him, Rafiq,’ Hassan added gently. ‘He means to meet his first grandchild, believe me.’
This time Rafiq’s sigh was heavy. The last six months had been a trial for all of them. The old sheikh’s illness had been long and miserable, spanning years of waste and pain. But six months ago it had almost taken him from them. With thanks to Allah, he had rallied on hearing the news about his coming grandchild. Now the disease was in remission, but no one could say how long it would remain that way. So it had been decided that from then on one of the two brothers must always be at home with their father. He needed the comfort of their presence. They needed to know that one of them would be there if his new-found strength should suddenly fade again. With Hassan’s wife Leona in the latter stages of a much prayed for pregnancy, Hassan had elected to stay at home and deal with internal matters of state while Rafiq did all the travelling, taking care of the family’s international business interests.
‘And Leona?’ he enquired next.
‘Round,’ her husband drawled satirically. But Rafiq could hear the pleasure there, the love and the pride. He wished he knew what those things felt like.
Then, he told himself forcefully, no, he was not going to go down that particularly rocky pathway, and turned the conversation to the less volatile subject of business. But when he rang off he continued to sit there seething and brooding and contrarily wondering why it was that he was so angry.
He had never loved Serena. She had been speaking the truth when she’d said marriage between them had never been a possibility. She was beautiful and hot—the perfect bed partner, in fact—but love had never been the engine that drove them through the passages of pleasure, even if she’d liked to use the word to him. It had been sex, good sex, but just sex for both of them. And sitting here wishing for love like his brother had was a damn fool’s game.
But the small lecture brought him to his feet and sent him to stand staring out of the window. He was remembering a time when he had once thought he had found the kind of love Hassan was enjoying—had believed he held it in his hand like a precious diamond only to discover it was merely paste. Since then he had never looked for love; he had no wish to feel its tortuous grip again, harboured no burning desire to pass on his genetic fingerprint. That delight belonged to Hassan and Leona, both of whom were worthy candidates to make the successful genetic mix. Whereas he…
That muscle within his chest called a heart gave a squeeze and he grimaced at the sensation. Alone. The sensation spoke to him of a bleak dark sense of aloneness that made him envy all of those people he could see moving about in the street below because they probably had good wholesome relationships to go home to at night, while he—
Well, he stood up here in his marble tower, personifying the rich and powerful and enviously privileged, when sometimes, like now, he felt as poor as any beggar you might pick out on any street corner—emotionally anyway.
Serena’s fault? No, not Serena but that other woman, the one with hair with the same golden sheen he could see on the woman standing in the street below. Melanie had ruined him. With a calculation that belied her beauty, her shyness and innocence, she had taken a younger Rafiq, full of confidence and optimism, and had turned him into this hardened cynic he was today.
Where was she now? he found himself pondering sombrely. What had the last eight years done for Melanie? Did she ever think of him and what their affair had done to him? Or had she simply moved on, left him so far behind that she would struggle to remember his name if they had the misfortune to come up against each other again? He guessed the latter—he knew the latter. Melanie might have possessed the face of an angel but she owned the heart of a harlot. Harlots did not remember names; one merged in with the many.
Behind him his mobile phone burst into life again. It would be that other harlot, Serena, he decided. She was not the kind of woman to give up easily. Did he answer? Did
he leave it? Had he dropped down so low in his own estimation that he was actually asking himself those questions? His teeth came together, gleaming white against the satin darkness of his olive-toned skin as he let the phone ring and glared down at the street where the woman with the golden hair was still hovering, as if she was unsure what she was doing or where she was going. He understood the feeling, could even sympathise with it.
In fact, the golden-haired stranger had more chance of getting him to answer her call than Serena did, was his final thought on the subject of female betrayal.
Standing on the pavement outside the imposing marble, glass and forged-steel frontage of the International Bank of Rahman, Melanie tried very hard to convince herself that she was doing the right thing by coming here. The building was big, and it was bold; it spoke of no compromises when she knew she desperately needed many compromises if her plan was to succeed.
Could it succeed? Was she wasting her time by coming here to see a man she knew from experience held no respect for her at all? Remember what he said, remember what he did, a small voice in her head cautioned. Turn around, Melanie, and walk away.
But walking away was the easy option. And easy options had never come to her. It was either do this or go home and tell Robbie nothing, she determined. And if those two options were not the same as being caught between a rock and a hard place, then she didn’t know what was.
So, think of Robbie, she told herself firmly, and set her reluctant feet moving towards a giant pair of plate-glass doors reinforced by solid-steel tubing that defended the entrance to one of the most prestigious investment banks in the world. As she approached she glimpsed her own reflection in the polished glass doors and didn’t much like what she saw: a too-slender woman with pale hair caught into a neat little topknot and an even paler complexion touched by strain. Her eyes looked too big, her mouth too vulnerable. Overall she looked just too darn fragile to be taking on an arrogant giant like Rafiq Al-Qadim. He’ll step on you and not even notice, she warned her reflection. He’ll do what he did to you the last time and freeze you out with his black opal stare.
No, he won’t because you just won’t let him, she told herself forcefully, and kept her feet moving as the pair of doors slid open with a stealthy silence that made her insides curl.
Like its exterior, the International Bank of Rahman’s inside was a cavern of more glass, marble and steel. Glass walls for three floors gave her glimpses of open-plan office spaces flickering with busy computer screens and even busier people. Here in the foyer a marble fountain pushed moisture into the air while tall exotic plants tried and failed to soften the cold, cold atmosphere. People wearing statutory grey or black moved about with the confidence of those who knew exactly what they were doing here and where they were going.
It was sharp, it was sophisticated—it was everything she wasn’t. A point that would have made her smile at any other time, because she knew who she was and she liked that person. The cut-throat world of high finance held no fascination for her. Never had, never would. But as she stood looking around she was forced to accept the grim truth that, hate all this though she might do, she had still dressed for the occasion in a sharp black suit that blended in perfectly here.
Deliberate? Yes, it had been deliberate. She answered her own question as her high-heeled shoes took her across the busy foyer towards the line of steel-faced lifts. She had dressed to impress, to make him stop and think twice before he tried throwing her out again. Melanie Leggett in jeans had never managed to do that, but Melanie Portreath in a designer suit might.
A stainless-steel plaque set between two of the lifts listed the names of the departments and the floor on which each was situated. She hovered for a moment or two, unsure as to which department she should be making for, then realised that it could only be on the top floor, because high-powered executives liked to keep their minions firmly beneath them.
As she should know, having been there once upon a long time ago. She’d played the worshipping minion to a superior ego and had learned the hard way what it was like be walked all over. It wasn’t the best memory she could have picked to take with her into the lift, Melanie realised as her heart began to pump unevenly. Pressing the top-floor button, she barely felt the lift move it was so efficient, so nerves were putting that sinking feeling in her stomach, she determined. Nerves and just the teeniest hint of excitement about what she was about to do.
Face the truth, an eight-year-old truth, a dark and potentially dangerous truth. The lift doors opened, her knees began to shake as she stepped out into yet another foyer; this one was much smaller and bore the refined trappings of luxury in the soft carpet covering the floor. A steel-framed desk stood in front of a floor-to-ceiling stretch of glass covered by vertical blinds. A dark-haired woman sat working at the desk. She glanced up at Melanie’s approach, came to her feet and smiled.
‘Mrs Portreath? How nice to meet you.’ Her voice, like her smile, was warm and pleasant, the slight accent falling in with her dark and gentle Arabian looks. Coming out from behind her workstation, she presented Melanie with a hand. ‘My name is Nadia,’ she announced. ‘I am Mr Al-Qadim’s secretary. I am afraid Mr Al-Qadim is running a little late this morning,’ she went on apologetically. ‘And the information your lawyer sent ahead of you arrived on my desk only five minutes ago. Please…’ she indicated towards several soft-leather chairs ‘…make yourself comfortable while I check if Mr Al-Qadim is ready for you.’
Not for me, he isn’t, Melanie thought as she watched Nadia walk towards another giant pair of doors, made of solid wood this time. The secretary paused, seeming to need a moment to gather herself before she knocked rather tentatively on the door, opened it, stepped through and closed it behind her.
That small hesitation left Melanie standing there having to deal with the next rush of uncertainty that attacked her resolve. Rafiq was on the other side of that door, and if his secretary had to steel herself to go anywhere near him then what chance did she have of meeting a sane and sensible man?
Arrogance; she was suddenly remembering the hardened arrogance that could add such cold condemnation to his lean face. He was a man who could freeze out the world by just standing in silence, a man who could shatter a person with just two small words: ‘Get out.’
Her stomach muscles collapsed on the crippling memory. In the space of six short weeks he had wooed her into loving him. He had asked her to marry him and promised her the earth. He had told her that no one could ever love her as much as he did, then he had taken her to bed and wooed her of her innocence. Then, on the evidence of one cleverly constructed scene, he had simply turned his back on her with those now immortal words, ‘Get out,’ and had never looked at her again.