LITMIR.BIZ

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as such a shock, such a terrible, terrible shock to have him concede defeat like that that it literally smashed her control to smithereens.

      And her shrill cry of, ‘Raschid—no!’ filled the room with more agonised despair than it could accommodate.

      It made him reel around in its shock-waves, dark face certainly showing emotion now as he strode back to the bed and bent over her, his skin wiped clear of any colour, golden eyes ferocious.

      ‘I should damn well think so!’ he ground out savagely. ‘I am your other half—don’t you dare discard me like that again!’

      Her arms were already clutching at his shoulders, his sliding beneath her so he could scoop her out of the bed.

      ‘Now we talk sense,’ he gritted, sitting down on the bed with her then, using hard fingers to angle her face so she could see the power of his fury. ‘For if you think I have risked so much only to concede surrender to your sudden cowardice, then you don’t know me as well as you ought to do by now!’

      ‘You set me up!’ she sobbed out accusingly. ‘I am supposed to avoid that kind of stress!’

      ‘Your stress,’ he said angrily, ‘was there because you were playing the ice-princess to the hilt again!’

      His chest heaved on a taut rasp of air; Evie clutched all the harder at him. ‘What your father did was unforgivable!’ she choked.

      ‘Then don’t forgive him!’ he declared with a shrug that completely dismissed the problem. ‘But you will marry me, Evie,’ he grimly ordained. ‘Proudly and openly. We will bring up our child together and he will bear my name!’

      CHAPTER TEN

      ‘YOU look stunning, Evie,’ her brother murmured huskily. ‘Raschid is a very, very lucky man.’

      Is he?

      Standing there gazing at herself in the mirror, Evie wondered if Raschid was feeling lucky to be marrying her today.

      Oh, he was quick to say all the right things to pronounce his good fortune. No one but no one could deny that Sheikh Raschid Al Kadah had been very vocal about his good luck when he’d announced his forthcoming marriage to Evangeline Delahaye to the world’s press three weeks ago.

      But did he feel lucky, when there was so much he was placing at risk by marrying her?

      And, more to the point, did she feel lucky? Just because, three weeks ago in that hospital bed, she had finally come to terms with the knowledge that she couldn’t let Raschid go no matter what that decision was going to mean to both of them, it did not automatically follow that all the concerns she had been struggling with then had melted away.

      And as she stood here now, in her old bedroom at Westhaven, alone with her brother because the rest of her family were already making their way to the registry office where she was to marry Raschid in less than an hour’s time, it was those concerns that came back to haunt her.

      Like the worrying ring of tight security Raschid had thrown around Westhaven when it was decided that she would come here to convalesce until they married.

      Funny really, she mused, but having been with Raschid for two years and having always been aware that he was an exceedingly wealthy man in his own right, she had never known him make such a dramatic show of that wealth—until they’d come to Westhaven.

      But that wealth had certainly been put on show in the very high-profile cordon that secured both the grounds and the property. Even Julian had found it necessary to prove his identity before he could gain access to his own home!

      The curious press loved it; her mother serenely ignored it. Evie, on the other hand, was horrified by it.

      ‘Is there something going on that you aren’t telling?’ she’d demanded of Raschid when he’d come down to Westhaven to join them for dinner one evening. ‘Am I still at risk—is that what all this security is for?’

      ‘No,’ he’d denied. ‘But I learn my lessons the first time they are taught to me, and by leaving only Asim to take care of you at my apartment I devalued your importance to me in the eyes of those who gauge worth by the strength of its protection.’

      ‘The Arab mentality, you mean.’

      ‘If you wish to call it that,’ he’d conceded, refusing to take up the provoking derision pitched into the remark. ‘But it is an impression that has now been rectified. No one will ever dare to approach you again in threat.’

      ‘Does that mean I have my eunuch at last, sneaking up to guard my bedroom door every night after I’ve retired?’ Again the remark had been sharp with acid.

      ‘Quite obsessed with this eunuch thing, aren’t you?’ he’d drawled, a sleek black eyebrow arching in amused mockery at that suggestion. ‘Could it be you have been weaving secret fantasies in your lonely bed at night? Maybe as a punishment to me because I refuse to share it?’

      His determined abstinence in this area of their lives was just another form of protection he imposed on her that Evie found worrying. In all their two years he had never been able to resist her—she only had to remember that brief episode in her bedroom at Beverley Castle to prove that point!

      But now, suddenly, Raschid rarely even laid a finger on her. Why? What could he possibly hope to gain by his abstinence now, when the damage of their loving had already been done with the conception of their baby?

      He had, until now, avoided the question whenever she had challenged him with it. And it was just another worry she was having to contend with as she stood here staring at herself in the mirror.

      ‘If you were me, Julian,’ she burst out suddenly, spinning round to look anxiously at her beautifully tanned brother who had not long been back home from his monthlong honeymoon sailing round the Caribbean, ‘would you be marrying yourself to an Arab who lives in a Muslim state?’

      ‘I thought true love could conquer all,’ he replied with a teasing grin.

      But Evie was in no mood to be teased. ‘His family don’t want me to be his wife,’ she explained tautly. ‘His people don’t want me! For all I know, I may be walking myself straight into purdah!’

      ‘Or simply suffering from a bad case of wedding nerves,’ Julian suggested. ‘Oh, come on, Evie!’ he sighed. ‘Since everyone knows exactly what Raschid feels for you, I can’t see purdah being much of a problem when it would most definitely necessitate him having to share it with you!’

      Then why does it feel as if I’m doing the wrong thing? she asked herself tautly as she turned back to the mirror.

      What she saw standing there was a woman who was anxiously attempting to respect the traditions of two completely different cultures.

      Her outfit had been made for her in-house by a top designer who had been drafted in at enormous expense by Raschid and instructed to create something incomparable, and what he had come up with was both startlingly simplistic and breathtakingly effective.

      The dress was really nothing more than a long and narrow tunic with a simple high neck and long loose sleeves designed very much on Middle Eastern lines. Made of a fabulously rich antique-gold silk, its only decoration was the narrow band of delicate seed-pearls sewn down the front seam and around the tiny stand-up collar.

      But it was the addition of a fine gold mesh skullcap dotted with yet more seed-pearls that gave it that special touch of glamour. On the advice of the designer, Evie had left her hair loose so the long silken mass tumbled down her spine in fine gold tendrils.

      ‘Medieval England meets mysterious East.’ Christina had softly described the effect just before she’d left for the registry office with Lucinda, putting in a nutshell exactly what it was that the designer had been trying to achieve when he’d created this look for Evie.

      But what would Raschid see when he looked at her? A woman who was trying just a bit too hard to bridge

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