to end things.
And now, one year on, she sat in the small home she had bought that still felt unfamiliar, living a life that didn’t feel like her own.
Tears wouldn’t change anything; sitting on her bed crying wasn’t going to help. She headed downstairs and, one cup of coffee later, unable to face a bus, she called for a taxi, asking him to stop and wait as she went into a florist and bought some flowers.
She hated coming here.
Wasn’t it supposed to bring her peace?
It didn’t.
She looked at the headstone and all Natasha felt was anger that her parents had been taken far too soon.
‘Maybe it’s too soon for peace?’ Natasha said aloud to them, except her heart craved it.
No, there was no peace to be had at the cemetery, so she took a bus home and had a long bath to warm up.
Anticipating packing for her holiday, Natasha had pulled out all her clothes, and late that afternoon she tackled the mountain strewn over her bedroom. But Rakhal and their brief encounter was still there at the back of her mind, and he was so much nicer to think about than her problems closer to home that she allowed herself a tiny dream …
What if she had said yes to him?
What, Natasha wondered, did you wear for dinner with the Crown Prince Sheikh of Alzirz?
Nothing that was in Natasha’s wardrobe, that was for sure. Except as she hung up her clothes there it was—still wrapped in its cover. She had never really known what to do with it. It was to have been her bridesmaid’s dress for Mark and Louise’s wedding, but Louise had called the wedding off a week before the date, which had left Mark devastated. It was then he had started gambling—or rather that was what he had told Natasha when he’d come to her for help. Now she wondered if it had been the reason for Louise calling things off.
She had been so angry with Louise for destroying her brother. The car accident resulting in the death of their parents had been devastating, but the upcoming wedding, though hard to look forward to at first, had been the one shining light—Mark and Louise had been together for years, and her calling it off had had the most terrible effect on Mark.
Yet now Natasha was starting to wonder if Mark had been the one who had destroyed himself—if his gambling problems were in fact not so recent.
She hadn’t spoken with Louise since the break-up. Louise had always been lovely, and for the first time Natasha allowed herself to miss her almost-sister-in-law. She resisted the urge to call her, because Louise didn’t need to be worried with Mark’s problems now.
Instead, Natasha slid open the zip and pulled the dress from its cover. As she gazed at it she wished again that things had turned out differently.
It was gold and very simple, with a slightly fluted hem that was cut on the bias, and thin spaghetti straps that fell into a cowl neck. It would be wrong to pull it on with wet hair and an unmade-up face, for if ever there was a dress that deserved the full effect it was this one.
So Natasha dried hair and then smoothed it with straighteners. Louise had wanted her to wear her hair up. It was the only thing they had disagreed on, but of course it was to have been Louise’s day, and so she would have won. Natasha took her thick red hair and twisted it, securing it on the top of the head with a clasp, then put on make-up as best she could. She took out her mother’s earrings and necklace, holding the cool pearls in her hand for a moment. Natasha rarely wore jewellery for the same reason she didn’t wear perfume: it irritated her skin. But today she made an exception and put the jewels on. It should still be her mother wearing them. How Natasha wished that she could rewind a year, because things had been so much simpler then.
But if she started crying she might never stop, so Natasha looked in the mirror instead. The dress was stunning and Louise had been right—with her hair up it was even more so. The necklace and earrings were the perfect final touch and, again as Louise had assured her, she didn’t look like a traditional bridesmaid. More … Natasha looked again and gave a smile. Had she said yes to Rakhal, this was what she would have worn, for now she was fit for a prince.
Still he played on her mind—but then why wouldn’t he? He had been the one saving grace in a pretty miserable day. And then she heard a knock at her door.
Perhaps it was Mark bringing over the money? Or an aunt dropping round to mark the one-year anniversary of her parents’ passing?
While normally she would have run down the stairs to answer, given how she was dressed Natasha held back and went to the window. She peeked through a gap in the curtain. Peering down into the street, she saw a limousine—but even before that she knew it was him.
Had known at some level that she had been dressing for him.
That this morning their attraction, or whatever it was that had occurred, hadn’t all been in her imagination, that he had felt it too.
And now Rakhal was at her door.
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