her—was like twisting a dagger deep in her heart all over again.
And she had no one to blame but herself.
Her hands trembling, she held out the bolt of fabric, willing him to take it so once again she could withdraw to somewhere safe, somewhere she could not feel the intensity of his hatred. She could feel his eyes on her face, could feel the burn as his gaze seared her skin, could feel the heat as blood flooded her face.
‘What do you think?’ she heard the Sheikha say. ‘Have you ever seen a more beautiful fabric? Do you think it would sell well in Australia?’
At last he relieved Sera of the burden in her arms. At last, with him distracted, she might escape. She took a step back, but she couldn’t resist the temptation that had been assailing her since she’d first seen Rafiq again, couldn’t resist the compulsion that welled up within herself to look upon his face. Just one glance, she thought. Just one look at the face of the man she had once loved so much.
Surely that was not too much to ask?
Tentatively she raised her lashes—only to have the air punched from her lungs.
Because he wasn’t looking at the fabric!
Blue eyes lanced hers, ice-blue, and as frozen as the glaciers that adorned mountaintops in the Alps. So cold and rapier-sharp that just one look sliced deep into her psyche.
And she recognised that this was not the man she had loved. This was not the Rafiq that she had known, the man-boy with the warm smile and the liquid blue eyes, eyes that had danced with life and love—love for her. Oh, his features might otherwise look the same, the strong line of his nose, the cleft jaw and passionate slash of mouth, and the thick dark hair that looked like an invitation in which to entangle one’s fingers, but his eyes were ice-blue pits, devoid of everything but hatred.
This man was a stranger.
‘What do you think, Rafiq?’ she heard his mother say, and a moment later his eyes released their icepick hold, leaving her sagging and breathless and weak in its wake. ‘Come, sit here, Sera,’ Sheikha Rihana continued, pouring another cup of coffee as she patted the cushions alongside her.
And, while escape would be the preferred option, with Sera’s knees threatening to buckle underneath her it was all she could do to collapse onto the cushions and pretend that she was unshaken by the assault his eyes had just perpetrated against her. Maybe now Rafiq would ignore her, for there was no reason for him to so much as look at her again. Hadn’t he already made his hatred plain?
Rafiq tried to concentrate on the fabric. He wasn’t formally trained in such things, but once upon a time he’d singlehandedly selected every item that would be shipped to Australia for sale in his emporiums. Times had changed since those heady early days, and now he had a handful of trusted buyers who circled the Arab world looking for treasures to appeal to his customers, but still he knew something special when he saw it. Even now, while his blood pumped hot and heavy through his veins, he felt that familiar spike of interest, that instant of knowing that what he held in his hands was extraordinary.
‘Hand-stitched,’ announced his mother, as proudly as if she’d made it herself, ‘every one of those tiny gems stitched by hand into place.’
He didn’t have to pretend to be interested to indulge his mother; he was genuinely fascinated as he ran the gossamer-thin fabric through his hands, studying the beads, searching for their secret.
‘Emeralds,’ he realised with surprise. The tiny chips were sculpted and shaped to show off their magnificent colour as if they were the most spectacular gems. The workmanship in cutting the beads would be horrendous in itself, the craft of stitching them to a fabric so light a labour of love.
‘Is it not magnificent?’ his mother said. ‘The beads are fashioned from the off-cuts after the best stones from the emerald mines are cut. This fabric is light, and suited to gowns and robes, but there are heavier fabrics too, suitable for drapes and cushions, of all colours and weights. Could not something this beautiful sell well in your stores?’
‘Possibly,’ he said, making a mental note to inform his buyers to check it out, and then put the fabric aside, his curiosity once more drawn to the black-clad figure kneeling next to his mother. She was studying the floor again, her long-lashed eyes cast downwards, looking the very essence of meek and submissive. Surely his mother wasn’t taken in by such a performance? This was a woman who had married for wealth and privilege and status. She might look innocent and meek, but he knew differently. She was as scheming as she was beautiful.
The thought stopped him in his tracks. Beautiful? But of course she always had been, and even now, with the air of sadness she carried with her, there was a haunting beauty in her slumberous eyes and the curve of her lashes that could not be denied. Beauty and cunning. She had both, like a viper poised ready to strike.
He turned to his mother, only to find her watching him, her eyes narrowed. For a moment he got the impression she was going to say something—could she read his thoughts in his eyes? Was she about to defend the woman again?—but then she shook her head and sniffed, and gestured towards the roll of material instead.
‘How can you say possibly? Fabric of this quality, and yet you think it could only possibly be good enough to sell?’
‘I’ll have one of my buyers come over and check it out.’
‘Ah, then you may be too late.’ She collected the bolt of fabric in her hands, winding the shimmering loose material around it and passing it to Sera. ‘I am sorry to have troubled you. Sera, you might as well take this back.’
Sera was rocking forward on her knees, preparing to rise to her feet, when Rafiq reached out and grasped one end of the bolt. ‘Stay,’ he ordered Sera, before turning to his mother. ‘What are you talking about, too late? Why should it be too late?’
Sera looked to the Sheikha, who smiled and put her hennastained hand over the younger woman’s. ‘One moment, my child.’ And then his mother turned to Rafiq and sighed wistfully. ‘There is another party interested and ready to sign for exclusive rights to the collection. If you delay, and wait for your buyer to arrive…’ she shrugged for effect ‘…it will no doubt already be too late.’
‘Who is this other party?’ But he already suspected the answer, even before his mother confirmed it by giving the name of the biggest importer of Arab goods in the world. Strictly speaking they weren’t competitors. He was content to dominate the southern hemisphere while they took the north, each keeping out of the other’s way. But to demand exclusivity on a range of goods made right here, in the country of his birth? That had never been part of their unspoken agreement.
He caught his mother’s cool-eyed gaze assessing him again, and allowed himself a smile. It had never occurred to him before, but maybe he owed at least some of his business acumen to his mother. What else could have prompted him to look up a business opportunity while he was here for his brother’s coronation but the thrill of the chase?
‘I suppose,’ he conceded, ‘I could go and look at the collection while I am here. Is the workshop here, in Shafar?’
She shook her head. ‘No, it is in the town of Marrash, in the mountain country to the north.’
He summoned up a mental map of Qusay, trying and unable to place the town, but knowing that if it was in the rugged red mountains of the north transport would be difficult and by necessity slow. He shook his head. ‘Travelling
