hero.
‘Petra, my dear, your father would have been so proud had he been here today.’
Numbly Petra smiled automatically at the American Ambassador.
‘Petra, you look so breathtakingly beautiful,’ his wife, an elegant Texan with a slow drawl said with a warm smile. ‘Doesn’t she Rashid?’ she demanded, causing Petra to stiffen, the tiny hairs on the back of her neck lifting as Rashid turned to look at her.
‘She is my heart’s desire,’ Rashid responded quietly, without taking his gaze off her.
‘Petra, take him away and hide him before I turn green, you lucky girl,’ the Ambassador’s wife teased.
‘I am the one who is lucky,’ Rashid corrected her.
‘He certainly is,’ Petra chimed in brittly. ‘Today he isn’t just gaining a wife, are you, Rashid? He’s gaining the opportunity to design a new multi-million-pound-complex, and—’
‘I’m certainly going to need some good commissions if I’m to keep you in the style your grandfather is accustoming you to.’ Rashid cut across her outburst in a light drawl that masked the icy, glittering look of warning only she could see. ‘At least if that necklace you’re wearing is anything to go by.’
‘Yes, it’s gorgeous,’ another of the guests enthused.
Petra tensed as she felt Rashid’s hand beneath her elbow.
‘I don’t know why you’re so determined to play the adoring husband,’ she told him bitterly.
‘No, I don’t suppose you do,’ he agreed.
‘Why didn’t you tell me that your second name was Blaize?’
He gave a small dismissive shrug.
‘Does is it matter? Rashid or Blaize—I am still the same man, Petra. The man who—’
‘The man who lied to me and trapped me,’ Petra snapped at him. ‘Yes, you are.’
Out of the corner of her eye she could see his mouth compress.
‘We’re married now, Petra, and—’
‘For better, for worse… Don’t remind me. We both know which it will be, don’t we?’
‘Look, it doesn’t have to be like this, Petra. After all, we both already know that we have something in common, some shared ground…’
‘And what ground would that be? The ground you’re hoping to design another billion-pound complex on? Money! Is that all you can think about?’
Petra tensed as she felt his grip move from her elbow to her upper arm and tighten almost painfully on it as he bent his head and whispered with menacing silkiness in her ear, ‘I would have thought that I had already proved to you that it is not. But if you wish me to show you again…’
Petra jerked away from him as though she had been scalded.
‘If you ever, ever try to force me to… to accept you as my husband physically, then—’
‘Force you?’
For a minute he looked as though she had somehow shocked him, but then his expression changed, hardening.
‘Now you are being ridiculous,’ he told her curtly. ‘There has never been any question of my doing any such thing. Even though…’
‘Even though what?’ Petra challenged him bitterly. ‘Even though legally it is your right?’
She was almost beside herself with misery and anguish mixed to a toxic consistency by an over-active imagination and the fear that she was not as indifferent to him as she wanted to be.
Now that the ceremony was over she was face to face with the knowledge that tonight she would be his wife—his bride. He was a sensually passionate man; she already knew that! If he chose to consummate their marriage would she have the strength to reject and deny him?
‘Rashid, your uncle has been looking for you…’
Petra released her breath in a sigh of relief as he moved away from her.
Several hours later, blank-eyed with exhaustion and misery, Petra stared bitterly in front of her, wishing she was anywhere but where she was and anyone but who she was—or rather who she was now.
Her godfather had not been able to join them. No doubt he would save his celebrations until after the New Year and the announcement of his peerage, Petra reflected savagely.
Her marriage to Rashid had been trumpeted in the press as the romance of the year, but of course she knew better! She hated Rashid more than she had ever thought it possible for her to hate anyone, she decided wearily, and she knew she would never, ever forgive him for what he had done to her.
Finally the celebrations were drawing to a close. Finally her attendants were coming to carry her away to the suite that had been set aside for her to change out of her wedding dress and into her ‘going-away’ clothes.
‘Where is Rashid taking you on honeymoon? Do you know?’ one of the girls, a married niece of her aunt, asked Petra before shushing the knowing giggles of some of the younger bridesmaids.
Petra was tempted to reply that she neither knew nor cared, but good manners prevented her from doing so.
‘I don’t really know,’ she replied instead.
‘It’s a secret. Oh, how romantic,’ another of the girls exclaimed enviously.
Yet another chimed in, more practically, ‘But how did you know what clothes to pack if you don’t know where you are going?’
‘She’s going on honeymoon, silly,’ another one submitted. ‘So clothes won’t—’
‘Stop it, all of you,’ the oldest and most sensible of her attendants instructed. ‘You are supposed to be helping Petra, not gossiping like schoolgirls. You must not worry. A man as experienced as Rashid will know exactly what to do!’ she soothed Petra. ‘I can remember how nervous I was on my wedding night. I had no idea what to expect, and I was terrified that my husband would not know what I needed, but I should have had more trust in him… or rather in my mother.’ She grinned. ‘She had ensured that I had all the right clothes—although I suspect if it had been left to Sayeed I might not.’
Clothes! She was talking about clothes! Petra didn’t know whether to laugh or cry!
At last it was over and she was ready, dressed in the simple cream trouser suit she had bought in the exclusive shopping centre nearby. The plain diamond ear studs which had been her mother’s, and which she had worn since her death, had been removed from her ears and replaced by the much larger pair which had been part of Rashid’s wedding present to her. She felt like ripping them out and destroying them, but of course that wasn’t possible, with her attendants exclaiming excitedly over the clarity and perfection of the stones, obviously chosen to complement the diamonds in her platinum engagement and wedding rings.
She
