No, he hadn’t, Melanie agreed. He’d just got rid of her. He’d heard enough—had enough—and had just got up and marched her out! Sophia almost copied him by marching her back to the kitchen table and sitting her down again, only her friend used a guiding arm to do it whereas Rafiq hadn’t even spared her a glance, never mind touched her! As if she was unclean. As if he would have contaminated himself if he’d remained in her company too long.
A shudder ripped through her. ‘Stop shaking,’ Sophia commanded. ‘The man isn’t worth the grief.’
But Melanie didn’t want to stop shaking. She wanted to shiver and shake and remember another time when he’d done almost the same thing. She had followed him back to London, had almost had hysterics in her desire to get inside his embassy and plead with him. What she’d met with when she’d eventually been granted an audience had been Rafiq locked into his Arab persona, about to attend some formal function dressed in a dark red cloak, white tunic and wearing a white gut rah on his head. He’d looked taller and leaner, foreign and formidable. His face had taken on a whole new appearance: harder, savage, honed to emulate some cold-eyed, winged predator. ‘Get out.’ He’d said those two immortal words then turned his back on her to stride away.
‘Melanie, if he still despises you as much as you think he does, he will probably consign your papers to the bin without bothering to read them.’
‘Yes.’ She liked that scenario.
‘But would it be a very bad thing if he did read them?’ Sophia then dared to suggest. ‘At least he would know everything—which is what you wanted, remember? It was why you decided to go to see him in the first place.’
Sophia was holding onto her hands while trying to talk some good sense into the situation. But she hadn’t been there this morning; she hadn’t seen the size of the mistake Melanie had made. It had been huge; she’d been damned by her own foolish optimism, letting the years soften Rafiq’s hard image until she’d actually begun to question whether she had been fair to him.
William had helped by gently nudging her in this direction. Dear, sweet, gentle William who, like herself, hadn’t liked to see bad in anyone. But even William’s advice had only been wise with all the facts laid before him. If Rafiq did decide to read those papers they would only tell him half the story. As for the other half—
Well, that half belonged to his eagerness to believe badly of her simply because people had told him to.
But, no. She sighed. There had been so much more to it than words of poison spoken into his ear. He had seen her with Jamie. It had all been so desperately damning. And explainable, she reminded herself, if he had only given her the chance to explain. He hadn’t and still wouldn’t. That hadn’t changed. He still looked at her and saw her through the unforgiving eyes of a half-Arab man with his feet firmly entrenched in cultural principles and a deep-rooted belief that all women were natural sinners.
And she no longer wanted a man like that to come anywhere near her son so he could contaminate him with his poisonous view of her.
‘Melanie—’
No. She scrunched her hands free, then got to her feet. She didn’t want to talk about it any more. For what was the use in talking when it was basically too late? All she could hope for now was that Randal would come through for her and manage to retrieve her stuff before Rafiq decided to feed his hatred by reading things that he really did not want to know.
‘What are you doing at home at this time of the day, anyway?’ she asked Sophia as an abrupt change of subject. ‘I thought you were supposed to be wowing them all in some court or other.’
‘The case was adjourned,’ Sophia explained. ‘And I’m off to wow them in Manchester tomorrow, so I decided to come home to pack a bag and catch a flight up there today. I’ve got friends there I haven’t seen in ages—but I’ve changed my mind,’ she then added swiftly. ‘I’m going to stay here with you, just in case—’
‘No, you’re not.’ Mouth set in a stubborn line, Melanie glared at her with a warning look. ‘I had a bad experience today but I’m all right,’ she insisted, and to prove it she gathered up the tea mugs and took them to the sink. ‘Maybe I even needed it to help me move on from the past.’
‘You believe you can do that?’ Sophia sounded sceptical.
Maybe she was right to. ‘I have no choice.’ Just as soon as I’ve got my papers back, she thought with a shiver. ‘Because I won’t be repeating the same mistake twice.’
It was such a complete, final statement that Sophia didn’t even attempt to say another word. Ten minutes later she’d gone, leaving Melanie with the rest of the afternoon stretching out in front of her like a long dark road filled with nerve-stretching uncertainty—and a heartache she didn’t want to feel.
She called Randal’s office three times with no satisfaction. Actually picked up the phone to call Rafiq’s secretary, only to change her mind when his final words came back to hit her full in the face. She would not even get beyond the main switchboard.
How could a man fester in such hatred that it could make him want to humiliate her like that? Tears threatened again; she swallowed them down and went upstairs to change out of her suit. As she removed the jacket she caught sight of herself in the mirror, saw the black lacy bra and relived the feeling of long brown fingers staking their claim. She shuddered, despising herself for being so easy, finished removing the suit and scrambled into a pair of faded old jeans and a roll-neck top that covered everything. By the time she walked downstairs a few minutes later she was the casual Melanie her son was used to seeing when he arrived home from school. No sign of designer clothes left anywhere for him to pick up on. No hint that she’d been doing anything today that was different from any other day.
Robbie arrived with a shout and a bump of his school bag against the polished hall floor. She turned from chopping vegetables at the sink to watch him come in through the kitchen door. His maroon and gold striped tie had flipped over his shoulder, and beneath his gaping school blazer she could see the white tails of his shirt hanging free from grey school trousers. One grey sock was up, the other was down, and his glossy black hair looked as if it had been in a fight.
Her heart dropped like a stricken bird, because even with his rumpled appearance he was hitting her hard with his father’s image.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Guess what we did today?’
‘What?’ she asked.
He frowned. ‘Are you catching a cold?’
Melanie shook her head and tried swallowing the tears again. ‘Just need to clear my throat.’ Which she did. ‘So what did you do today?’ she prompted.
‘We went to the park to collect fallen leaves that looked like skelintons, then took them back to press some into a books and draw round others.’
‘Skeletons,’ Melanie corrected.
‘Skeletons,’ he dutifully repeated. ‘Do you want to see?’