Exotic Affairs. Michelle Reid

      Within seconds the noise was unbelievable, people knocking on the door and on the window, calling out her name and shouting out questions. White-faced, she turned towards Raschid. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked bewilderedly. ‘What was my mother talking about? Why are they here?’

      ‘I don’t know.’ Frowning, he was already lifting the telephone up and stabbing in a set of numbers.

      Evie stood, still trembling with shock from her scalding without the added confusion that was now taking place outside her home. Raschid’s voice was tight with anger as he spoke in his own language to whoever it was he had contacted, his dark face growing darker by the second, while the thumping on the door and window grew so loud Evie could barely hear herself even think.

      On a violent curse, Raschid slammed down the receiver. At the same moment a newspaper was pushed through the letterbox. It landed on the doormat with an ominous thud. Evie went to get it but Raschid was there before her.

      ‘Do you have anything to say about this, Miss Delahaye?’ a muffled voice shouted through the letterbox. ‘Front page. Can’t miss it!’ the voice added helpfully.

      Front page. Can’t miss it.

      Evie stood by Raschid’s arm and simply stared at what she was seeing. It was a photograph of herself and Raschid kissing beneath the wedding canopy at Beverley. Above it the headline read: ‘Is This Farewell?’ Below it was the sub-heading: ‘Behran Embassy announces the forthcoming marriage of Sheikh Raschid Al Kadah to neighbouring sheikh’s daughter! The marriage will unite two of the most powerful sheikhdoms and effectively put Evie Delahaye out in the cold.’

      ‘This has not been announced with my approval!’ Raschid insisted forcefully. ‘My father is attempting to force my hand!’

      ‘Oh, no,’ Evie whispered, sinking into the nearest chair when her legs went weak beneath her.

      Raschid stood gripping the newspaper between white-knuckled fists while he read on, his dark face locked up like a steel trap. Neither spoke again; neither needed to. They both knew very well what this was going to mean to them.

      For, no matter how much he would like to deny what his father had announced, Evie knew Raschid dared not. To deny it would be tantamount to insulting both his own father and Aisha’s family.

      So this is it, Evie concluded hollowly. Her instincts had been sending her all the right signals, and this was the end for her and Raschid.

      No more mouthing words that she didn’t really mean. No more pretending she wouldn’t marry him. For it was only now as she sat here accepting that she could never marry him that she realised she had been pretending to herself.

      And it hit her hard, so hard she could barely function.

      The telephone began ringing again. Neither of them heard it. Just as they didn’t hear the pounding on the front door and the window any more. For those few stark minutes the very walls could have come tumbling down around them and neither would have moved a muscle.

      Then the letterbox flew up and a pair of eyes appeared in the opening. ‘Did you know about this yesterday, Miss Delahaye?’ a voice demanded. ‘Is that why you and the Sheikh were careful to avoid each other at your brother’s wedding?’

      Not careful enough, was Evie’s hollow answer to that as she thought of that revealing photograph. And we didn’t avoid each other, she reminded herself as, with glassy eyes, she watched Raschid throw down the newspaper and angrily reach for one of her cream linen easy chairs. Picking it up, he rammed it against the door, effectively trapping the letterbox shut.

      We danced together, her own train of thought went on uninterrupted. We made love in my room before we went to the ball together.

      Raschid had been angry with her for avoiding him. He hadn’t known about this then, she was sure of it. For, whatever he was, he was not devious.

      Angry again later, yes, when she told him about the baby, she acknowledged. Seeing all the problems a baby was going to cause because his father was already laying the pressure on him to marry Aisha.

      But this—this was cruel. This did not take into account her own feelings. This publicly stripped her of her pride and left her heart exposed and bleeding.

      Raschid just wouldn’t have done that to her.

      ‘I’ll go away,’ she whispered as one thought led haphazardly on to another. ‘I have relatives in Australia. I can—’

      ‘No!’ Raschid ground out at her furiously.

      Glancing up, she saw him through a haze of tears. His wonderful skin had lost most of its colour, his eyes standing out like two golden suns locked into fierce eruption. ‘You will do nothing—nothing until I can get this sorted out! There is a way—there has to be a way!’ he raked out hoarsely.

      And it was that hoarseness of voice that cut her to the quick. For Raschid, like herself, knew the emptiness of that statement.

      Outside, the noise was growing. Inside someone was shouting questions at her via the answering machine. With an angry jerk, Raschid bent down and pulled the plug on the phone.

      Then, on a growl, he muttered, ‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ and retrieved his leather jacket to take his mobile phone out of one of the pockets. Tossing the jacket aside again, he stepped into the kitchen to peer out of the rear window, looking to see if they had been besieged at the rear of the cottage as well as the front.

      No tell-tale camera lens came poking over the top of the seven-foot-high brick wall that protected the back of the property.

      ‘Get the car around the back of the cottage,’ he rasped tersely to whoever he was speaking to. ‘Keep the engine running and be prepared to move.’

      With that he came back to Evie’s side, bent to grasp her uninjured arm and lifted her to her feet. ‘Come on,’ he urged grimly.

      ‘But—’

      She looked dazed and shaken. Raschid shook his dark head. ‘You can’t stay here,’ he clipped out. ‘And I certainly cannot. Going by the questions they have been throwing at you, I don’t think they even know I am here—which is to our advantage. I arrived before they did, and my car was parked around the corner. With a bit of luck,’ he added as he unbolted the back door and pulled it open, ‘we can be out of here before they realise you’ve escaped.’

      ‘Escaped to where?’ Evie asked bleakly as he pushed her outside and followed her, pulling the door shut behind him.

      ‘To my apartment,’ he replied as if the question had been a serious one and not a stark response to her own bleak sense of isolation. ‘At least there I can protect you from all of this until we decide what we are going to do.’

      Do? Evie let out a nervy little laugh that verged on the hysterical. They both knew what he had to do. It was her future that was hanging in the balance here.

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      IT WAS another warm sunny day and the enclosed back yard acted like a suntrap. But Evie felt shivering cold as she let Raschid take her over to the solid wooden back gate that led out into the narrow alleyway, which ran right along the row of terraced cottages.

      They paused there in the sunshine, Raschid sliding back the two bolts that secured the gate then going still with his hand on the latch while he listened for the sound of his car arriving. Evie stood beside him with her face lowered where she stared blankly at the white towel still covering her scalded arm. The skin was burning a little, but it didn’t seem to matter, not when her whole world felt as though it was slowly but surely falling in on her.

      Raschid put a hand to her waist, then sent it travelling up her trembling spine until it reached her nape where his long fingers gently closed so he could use his thumb beneath her chin to lift her eyes to his.

      Her heart turned over at the dark glow she could see burning in his eyes. He was so handsome, she thought