His soul talked to her soul in a way she knew she could never survive without now.
‘Why did you miss out on lunch today?’ he asked gravely, his long lean fingers brushing a tender caress across her delicate cheekbone.
‘I didn’t actually miss out on it,’ she confessed. ‘I just didn’t want to eat what was on offer.’
Raschid frowned. ‘Which was—what?’
‘Humble pie,’ she replied, and rolled away from him, her sigh as she did so the heavy kind that took all the softness he had just spent the last hour loving into existence right away again.
‘Explain,’ he commanded.
Evie got up, as exquisite to look at naked as she was dressed—and not many women could promise that. Reaching down, she picked up the robe she had recently taken from his body and dragged it over her own. It almost buried her, but she still looked fantastic. With a flick of a hand, she released her hair so it tumbled in a tangle of golden silk down her back—then turned to face him.
‘Mother,’ she said. That was all. It didn’t need an explanation.
And Raschid didn’t comment, but his expression became grim, and he sat up to run his fingers through his hair in a gesture of weary frustration while she walked off towards his bathroom, trailing the dark blue robe behind her like a queen with her train.
The bedroom was a masterpiece of interior design, blending two cultures into one with the very modern western use of pale wood floors and furnishings given a touch of the exotic with jewel-coloured silks and priceless Persian carpets.
But the bathroom was sheer Arabian luxury, with bright white and royal blue patterned tile-work covering floors and walls alike. A white enamel sunken tub the size of a plunge pool stood on a dais dead centre of the room. Above it was a dome of mirrored glass that was both wickedly naughty and deliciously decadent. The shower cubical took up enough room for three by normal standards, the gold inlaid double glass doors works of art in themselves.
It was the shower that Evie made for, turning on a tap that sent no less than seven power jets of water sluicing around her at the absolute perfect temperature. She stayed in there for ages, aware of Raschid moving around in the other part of the bathroom.
Aware also that he hadn’t come to join her here in the shower because the mood had been ruined. Her mother—his father. It was usually one or the other of them that put this dampener on their pleasure.
But there was worse to come, though Raschid didn’t know it yet. Which was why she had walked away just now rather than have it all out with him there and then.
Coward, she accused herself. Then grimaced in acknowledgement of that very obvious fact. But it was not going to be easy to say what she had to say, because the world was about to topple down upon them both, and she didn’t know how Raschid was going to react to that.
By the time she left the shower, Raschid had left the bathroom, but a turquoise silk caftan had been draped over a stool and she smiled at his thoughtfulness as she dried herself. She had worn it many times before here. It was one among several Raschid had brought her back from his homeland.
Pulling it on over her naked body, she released her hair from the simple knot she had fastened it in before going into the shower, and the long mass fell in a slightly damp tangle down almost to her waist. Finger-combing it as she moved, she went back into the bedroom to discover that Raschid had gone from there also.
She found him in the living room, standing by the drinks cabinet pouring sparkling water on to freshly squeezed orange juice. Neither of them drank much alcohol, she because she didn’t care for it and Raschid because his religion forbade it.
He was dressed, which surprised her. Normally he was hard put to pull on a robe during evenings like this. But that soft checked cotton shirt, buff trousers and casual slip-ons he was wearing on his sockless feet were sending her messages.
Raschid was intending to take her home later rather than keeping her here for the night as he usually would.
Well, maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea, Evie told herself heavily when she felt her heart sink in disappointment. For what she had to tell him was going to necessitate some time apart while they both came to terms with what it was going to mean to them.
Hearing her come into the room, he sent her a brief smile over his shoulder. ‘Your food has arrived, ma’am,’ he drawled. ‘Now you may feed that other ravenous appetite of yours.’
It was meant as a joke. But Evie couldn’t laugh. Because the moment she glanced across the room to where an elegant soapstone coffee table stood spread out with a cold meal fit for a king her stomach objected.
Having gone from clutching at her with a demand to be fed, it was now clutching with sickening dread because she knew she couldn’t put it off any longer.
‘Raschid,’ she said huskily. ‘I need to talk to you.’
Glass in hand, he turned, something in her tone perhaps alerting him to trouble, because his eyes had already sharpened. ‘What?’ he demanded.
Her throat dried up, her eyes shifting away from him because she knew she couldn’t look at him and say what she had to say. So instead she walked over to the window where she reached out to send the curtain swishing open so she could fix her gaze on something outside while she decided how to begin.
A tense silence followed. One where Evie could feel Raschid’s quick mind grinding into action, picking up on the vibrations she was giving off, sorting through them and—belatedly perhaps—realising that all was not well with his lover.
After a minute, he put down his glass and walked slowly towards her. He didn’t attempt to touch her—those shrewd instincts of his warning him that she needed her own space.
‘What’s wrong, Evie?’ he prompted soberly.
Tears washed across her eyes and stayed there. ‘We have a problem,’ she began huskily—only to go silent again when she found she couldn’t continue.
Raschid said nothing, waiting patiently for her to go on. Evie could see his face reflected in the darkened window. He looked grave, the smoothly handsome lines of his features so very still that she knew he had already prepared himself for something dire to come.
And, to her wretched despair, she found she couldn’t do it. He was too important to her. She loved him so deeply that she discovered she couldn’t risk the chance of losing him.
Not yet, she thought achingly. Please, not yet.
‘My mother wants you to find an excuse not to attend my brother’s wedding,’ she said, dragging the half-truth out from the depths of a real desperation.
Another silence. Evie watched that face via its darkened reflection and saw a frown mar its smooth lines. Her heart began to beat with a sickly pump. He wasn’t a fool, this man of hers. His highly tuned instincts where she was concerned had been warning him of something far more disastrous than a silly problem with her mother.
Oh, there was truth in the lie, she grimly acknowledged as she stood there waiting for his response. Her mother had spent the whole of their lunch together today telling Evie in no uncertain terms how much she would prefer it if Sheikh Raschid stayed away from Julian’s high-profile wedding in
