Exotic Affairs: The Mistress Bride / The Spanish Husband / The Bellini Bride. Michelle Reid

the way I see it, Raschid,’ she said firmly, ‘you don’t have a problem here. I do.’

      ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’ he jerked out, beginning to look just a little shell-shocked now.

      ‘I’ve never expected marriage from you,’ Evie informed him. ‘And I am not asking you for it now.’

      ‘Are you mad?’ he choked. ‘Of course you will marry me! What else can we do?’

      Oh, his sensitivity knew no bounds! Evie mocked him bitterly as she bent to retrieve her discarded shoes. ‘I wouldn’t marry you, Sheikh Raschid Al Kadah, if you came gift-wrapped in rubies!’ she hissed as she straightened up again. ‘I have too much damned respect for myself, you see!’

      ‘Are you saying that I don’t respect you?’

      ‘Do you?’ Evie flashed back. ‘You see, I find it hard to reconcile the fact that I wasn’t fit to marry before I became pregnant with your child!’

      At last those angry golden eyes began to burn with a pained understanding of what was actually going on here. Remorse tightened his arrogant features.

      ‘Evie…’ he sighed, the hand he used to capture her wrist tense with frustration. ‘I have handled this badly,’ he acknowledged. ‘I apologise.’

      ‘Don’t bother,’ Evie snapped, tugging angrily at her imprisoned wrist. ‘Let go of me,’ she commanded shakily.

      ‘Not until you listen to me,’ he refused. The hand pulled her closer, drawing her fully against his powerful chest. ‘You cannot expect me to pretend to be pleased about a baby when you know as well as I do the kind of problems that are going to erupt around us!’

      ‘Funny really,’ she said, lifting lavender eyes turned into dark purple pools by the sudden flood of tears washing across them. ‘But I expected nothing more than I got from you, Raschid. Which just about says it all, doesn’t it?’

      His sigh was driven, the hand he brought around her waist there to stop her from pulling against her captive wrist. ‘I thought we loved each other well enough to be honest with each other.’

      ‘There is honest and there is brutal,’ Evie said thickly. ‘I feel frightened. I feel vulnerable. I feel as if I’ve ruined both our lives. And all you can do is worry about how this is all going to affect you!’

      ‘I’m sorry,’ he sighed yet again.

      But—too late, Evie thought, and pulled herself free of him.

      ‘Listen to me,’ he pleaded. ‘We need—What are you doing?’ he raked out in disbelief as Evie began to walk away. ‘Come back here, you exasperating creature!’ he growled after her. ‘You cannot just walk away from this!’

      Just watch me! Evie thought wretchedly. ‘In the profound words of a certain arrogant swine I know,’ she tossed at him over her shoulder, ‘go to hell!’

      Two people knocked on her bedroom door that night. Both tried the handle when they received no response. Both discovered that the door was locked.

      One was her mother; Evie knew that because Lucinda had called out to her, the usual sharpness honed out of her voice by the thickness of the wood. The other was Raschid.

      She knew that because he didn’t call out, he just stood on the other side of that door like a silent but dark presence—and used other means to make her aware that he was there and hadn’t given up on this.

      Evie didn’t sleep that night; she merely dozed, shifting restlessly about the lumpy old bed that had been her mother’s idea of a punishment for a daughter who refused to toe the moral line.

      So, what would the punishment be for conceiving an illegitimate baby? she wondered grimly. Total excommunication from the family?

      And Raschid, she moved on to consider with the same sense of wretched derision. Did he really expect her to be grateful for his belated and very reluctant offer of marriage?

      And don’t forget the ever-vigilant press, Evie reminded herself as she lay there in the darkness. They were going to make a real meal out of all of this if or when they ever found out about it. And neither excommunication nor marriage was going to stop their acid pens from writing their poison.

      Maybe the other option was the better one. Maybe a quick if bloody end to this was the only way to save everyone’s embarrassment. But even as the thought popped into her head Evie dismissed it with a telling shudder. She was whole, she was healthy, and she had no excuse—moral or otherwise—to put an end to a life before it had barely started.

      And this little life had been conceived with love, even if that love now lay floundering somewhere between here and the Beverleys’ private lake. She loved this baby. She loved where he came from and who he was going to be. She wanted to be there to watch him become that person. And, no matter what his father, grandmother or even his grandfather thought about it, she would make sure her child grew up feeling pride in his mixed heritage, she vowed fiercely.

      By dawn she’d had enough of lying there trying to sleep when it was clear that sleep was a million miles away. Getting up, she showered in the antiquated bathroom, pulled on fresh underwear, a pair of jeans and a white tee shirt. Brushing her hair back into a simple ponytail, she then pushed her feet into lightweight slip-ons, and quietly let herself out of her room with the intention of going for a long walk before she had to face Raschid again.

      There was no one about as she walked down the stairs. The hour was too early for most people after last night’s partying, so she wasn’t particularly surprised about that. But the house had been carefully locked up for the night, she realised belatedly, and the huge cast-iron bolts that were still rammed across the double front doors looked lethal, much too big for her to attempt to shift them.

      Luckily a servant appeared in the hallway. He looked a trifle disconcerted when he saw Evie standing there so early. But he recovered quickly.

      ‘Good morning, Miss Delahaye,’ he greeted politely. ‘If you’re looking for the breakfast room, it’s this way…’

      ‘No—’ He was about to move off when Evie stopped him. ‘I was hoping to go outside for some fresh air before breakfast, but the bolts on that door look pretty much beyond me,’ she explained with a rueful glance at the door.

      He smiled back, half relieved he wasn’t going to have to serve her yet, and came quickly towards her. Two minutes later the front door stood open, and Evie was stepping out into one of the soft, still, slightly misty mornings that were so typical of an English summer.

      About to walk off to the right with the intention of making for the lake, she was stalled by the sound of a car coming up the driveway that skirted the lake on its left-hand side. A moment later the car appeared around the side of the chapel, where it stopped and the driver got out.

      He saw her, and waved. It was Harry. ‘Morning, Evie,’ he called out, striding briskly towards her. ‘You’re an early bird!’

      ‘So are you.’ She found a tight smile from somewhere.

      ‘Force of habit in my business.’ He grimaced.

      ‘But—didn’t you stay here last night?’ Evie asked frowningly.

      He shook his head. ‘I bunked down with some friends a couple of miles away,’ he told her. ‘But I left my jacket here last night, so I decided to collect it on my way home.’

      ‘You’re going home?’ Evie’s heart stopped beating for a moment, a sudden, very cowardly idea popping into her head. Harry lived only ten miles outside London.

      ‘I have a mare due to foal at any minute,’ he nodded. ‘It will be her first, so I want to be there just in case there are any problems.’

      ‘Harry—can you give me a lift home?’ she asked, suddenly very sure it was what she desperately needed to do. Get away—escape.

      ‘Of course,’ he