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

turn down the opportunity to legally bind himself to a woman like Evie if he had the chance to do it?

      He shifted restlessly, feeling a wave of angry discontent sweep through him at his own inability to make her feel more secure in his life.

      He was heartily glad when the service was over and everyone relaxed a little as the couple went off with their entourage towards the chapel itself where the register was apparently signed. It wasn’t often he found himself yearning for alcohol but this moment was surely one of them.

      ‘On the face of it,’ his companion observed beside him, ‘if you remove the religious inferences, a Christian marriage is not so very different from our own.’

      You wouldn’t be saying that if it was me marrying Evie, Raschid thought caustically through the fixed smile he offered in wordless acknowledgement.

      The band suddenly struck up again, followed by the dulcet tones of a solo tenor, saving him the need to offer a polite reply.

      Instead, he flicked a hooded glance back to Evie again. She was sitting straight-backed now, most definitely tense, listening to whatever the old lady in the lilac dress was saying so severely. Her mother had gone, joining the rest of the bridal party to watch the signing ceremony—from which, it seemed, Evie had been excluded.

      By her own choice, he knew that, but it didn’t make him feel any better for hearing her voice in his head saying, ‘Imagine the headline beneath the wedding photograph, Raschid, if I took a major role in this wedding: “Evangeline Delahaye plays chief bridesmaid at her brother’s wedding while her Arab prince lover looks on!”’ she’d quoted caustically. ‘Not “Lady Christina Beverley marries Sir Julian Delahaye at her beautiful Berkshire home”!’ she’d concluded. ‘I refuse to steal their thunder, and that’s the end of it.’

      Which was also why she had asked him not to attend today and—arrogant as always—he had treated the request with the contempt he believed it had deserved.

      But now, as he sat here witnessing the way Evie had been isolated from something she should have been allowed to share, he began to realise just how selfish he had been.

      The old lady in the lilac dress was scowling, he noticed. Her wizened mouth spitting words at Evie who was sitting there with her lovely head lowered as she listened. Then the head lifted suddenly and turned. She had time only to speak one single word, but whatever that word was the old lady launched herself to her feet, sent Evie one last hostile volley then she stalked angrily away to go and sit herself down several rows back. Leaving Evie entirely alone.

      The desire to get up and go over there, sit with her—declare his support for this woman whose only sin was in loving the wrong man—almost overwhelmed him. Except he knew she wouldn’t want that, for it would only cause the one thing she was trying so hard to avoid here.

      Talk, gossip, speculation—shifting the centre of attention away from the bride and groom and on to themselves.

      But, damn it, she looked so wretchedly deserted sitting there on her own like that! And something very close to a desire to commit bloody murder exploded in his chest—aimed directly at himself for his own lousy inadequacies as the lover of such a beautiful and special woman.

      Evie could feel the sting of curious eyes on her as her great-aunt stalked away. It took everything she had in her to maintain an outwardly calm composure while inside she felt as if she was being eaten up by a million ravenous worms.

      ‘And there he sits, surrounded by his own kind,’ her great-aunt had hissed at her. ‘Pretending to be civilised when really he is nothing better than a womanising barbarian!’

      Evie would have found the words funny if she’d dared. But Great-Aunt Celia hadn’t finished with her at that point, and the next volley that left the old lady’s lips had not been funny at all. ‘While you, you brazen little hussy, insult the Delahaye name the way you carry on with him! Do you have no shame?’ she’d demanded.

      ‘No,’ Evie had quite coolly replied.

      And that was the point where the old lady had stormed off, leaving behind her final shot—’You could have been a marchioness, but you settled for being a slut!’—ringing in Evie’s ears.

      Had Raschid witnessed the little altercation? She presumed he had since she could feel the heat of his anger even from here.

      She only hoped he didn’t decide to come over here in a gesture of support. It would only make everything ten times worse if he did. But Great-Aunt Celia’s cutting demolition of her character had left its mark, and she was glad of her wide-brimmed hat because at least it was hiding the pained flush that was colouring her cheeks.

      Fortunately the wedding party came back into view then, and the whole congregation rose to applaud them as the newly married couple walked down the aisle with bright beaming smiles on their happy faces.

      Evie clapped with the rest of them, tears of genuine heart-warming emotion blinding her eyes. So it wasn’t until the whole wedding entourage were out in the sunshine and everyone else began filing out after them that she realised someone had come to stand right behind her.

      Tilting her head back so she could see who it was over the brim of her hat, she found herself looking through a bank of moisture into the lean dark face of Sheikh Raschid Al Kadah. And her heart turned over.

      He was smiling down at her, the wonderful shape of his sensual mouth tilted wryly at one corner. But his eyes were sombre, their warm, dark liquid-gold depths burning with a grave kind of understanding that had her sighing as she tilted her head forward again to watch the final few stragglers drift away.

      ‘You look beautiful,’ he murmured to her gently. ‘But inconsolably sad.’

      ‘I think I want to run away and never be found again,’ she confided. ‘Do you think my mother may notice if I did?’

      ‘No,’ he honestly replied. ‘But I would.’

      Despite her heavy mood, a smile tilted the corners of her red-painted mouth. ‘That’s because you fancy the hell out of me,’ she countered. ‘Whereas my mother doesn’t fancy me at all—especially as a daughter.’

      ‘Then she has no taste.’

      ‘Gosh,’ Evie gasped. ‘I wonder if she knows that?’

      ‘Would you like me to tell her?’ he kindly offered.

      ‘No. What I would like you to do, Sheikh Raschid,’ she sighed out wistfully, ‘is gather me up on your white charger and take me away from all of this.’

      ‘Right now?’ A pair of long-fingered, beautifully shaped brown hands slid around her narrow waist to turn her to face him. His eyes were still sombre despite the light banter they were exchanging. ‘Just say the word, and I will carry you off to my palace in the desert and keep you locked away there for ever.’

      ‘A fate worse than death,’ she pouted. ‘You have horrible dungeons there with no windows to look out of. I know,’ she disclosed sagely. ‘Because you told me.’

      ‘I have beautiful rooms too,’ he declared. ‘Which overlook exquisite gardens that cost me an absolute fortune to irrigate. You may have one of those rooms,’ he offered benevolently. ‘Where I will visit you every day to ply you with priceless gifts and incomparable compliments.’

      ‘May I move around your desert palace freely?’ she asked.

      He shook his covered head. ‘You will be my prisoner,’ he explained. ‘With guards posted at the door to make sure you don’t stray.’

      ‘What if I fancy one of your guards for a bit of light diversion?’

      ‘They would all be eunuchs,’ he came back blandly. ‘The kind of light diversion you are referring to will make them of no use to you.’

      ‘I don’t want to go, then,’ Evie decided. ‘I’ll be more miserable there than I am here.’

      ‘That’s