‘I don’t blame you for thinking I might be guilty,’ Lily said miserably to Rauf as they walked through the airport at Istanbul. ‘You had grounds—’
‘No. No matter what life throws at me, I should always have faith in you—’
‘How can you have when I come from a family who harboured Brett for so many years?’ Lily mumbled, sunk in despair. ‘It’s better that we get a divorce and you just don’t mention me to anyone. If your family was unhappy because you’d got married without them present, with a bit of luck they won’t have discussed our marriage with any friends yet and it can all be hushed up.’
In a sudden move, Rauf closed a lean hand hard over hers as if divorce were so imminent he had to retain a bodily hold on her to prevent it. ‘I’ve upset you a great deal but there is no reason whatsoever for you to be talking about divorce—’
‘I don’t think you’ll feel that way if I’m arrested—’
‘Should there be the slightest risk of that, I’ll get you out of the country,’ Rauf declared with a lack of hesitation that unnerved Lily, for it seemed to suggest that there was indeed a fair chance of such a situation developing. ‘But as I will not be pressing charges against Gilman for the payments I didn’t receive, that cannot happen—’
‘But you really wanted to prosecute him—’
‘You matter to me a great deal more than revenge,’ Rauf confessed, brilliant golden eyes clinging to her delicate profile. ‘Your peace of mind is also of paramount importance to me.’
Unwilling, it seemed, to cede him the ability to have even that amount of tender feeling for her, Lily sighed. ‘Of course, you don’t want to risk this whole horrible mess coming out in public and upsetting your family.’
In frustration, Rauf herded her into the waiting limousine.
‘You can just take me to the police station and I’ll get it all over with,’ Lily muttered as he swung in beside her. ‘It’s not right that Brett should be let off—’
‘It’s not right that my wife should talk about divorcing me!’ Rauf bit out rawly, tawny eyes shimmering over her startled face as he closed two strong hands round her tiny waist and propelled her toward him. ‘Or that when you’re innocent you should even consider approaching the police with a very complicated and confusing story which they might not understand as well as I do. Both subjects are closed. For ever closed—’
Held only inches away from him, Lily quivered, her tense body leaping with wicked immediacy to the proximity of his, her mind a bemused sea of anxious thoughts. ‘But—’
‘Turkish wives don’t argue with their men. Ask my great-grandmother, Nelispah,’ Rauf advised silkily. ‘You can try to manipulate me in a thousand much more devious ways…that’s OK, that’s perfectly acceptable and even expected of you. But you never argue outright with me—’
‘You quite like it when I argue with you—’
‘Not on this issue, güzelim. Take it from me…I know best on this subject—’
‘But when the police find out I’m a director in Harris Travel and Brett’s prosecuted for what he did with those villas—’
‘You’re Lily Kasabian. You have done nothing wrong, therefore you can have nothing to fear,’ Rauf murmured in a soothing and yet subtle forceful tone, striving to get through to her with every fibre of his extremely determined personality and seeing no reason to concern her with the reality that the police were already aware of her directorship in the firm. ‘As my wife, your place is by my side and if any problems arise you can rest assured that I will move immediately to deal with them on your behalf.’
‘I wish life was like that,’ Lily mumbled, almost laughing in spite of her anxiety, for he really, truly believed that there was nothing he could not handle, nothing he could not make right.
‘Life with me is and will be like that, I promise you,’ Rauf intoned, golden gaze dropping to her sweet lush mouth, and then he tensed, fighting an almost irresistible urge to kiss her with all the pent-up passion that the mere mention of losing her had roused in him. All you have ever wanted from me is sex, however, was one of those Lily-type accusations calculated, Rauf knew, to come back and haunt him at the worst possible moments. The very last thing he wanted to risk was stoking that impression any higher. Tonight, when they went to bed in his riverside home, he would just hold her, nothing else. Maybe for at least a week he should hold her…
As if she were being tugged by elastic, Lily leant slowly forward in an inviting way, heart banging hard up against her ribs, lips tingling, but Rauf set her back from him with a preoccupied air. Truly embarrassed by her own disappointed expectations, Lily sank back into the far corner of the seat and endeavoured to concentrate instead on the exotic busy streets of Istanbul. Would everything be all right as he had sworn it would be? Ought she to listen to him? Then there was no point kidding herself that she wanted a divorce, was there?
Was he obsessed with sex? Rauf was engaged in a rare phase of the uneasy self-examination of the type that only overcame him in Lily’s vicinity. He would have said he was obsessed with her but she had to have worked that out for herself by now. When a man married a woman within the space of four days, it was hardly a sign of sophisticated cool and restraint, was it? Especially when the same guy had spent all of his adult existence swearing that he was never, ever going to get married. Did Lily think sexual restraint was a demonstration of romantic and considerate caring even in marriage? Suddenly sexual restraint was looming on his horizon like a very big black cloud.
Apprehensive about meeting his family, Lily preceded Rauf into the enormous mansion where three generations of Kasabians lived. ‘I bet you anything they don’t like me—’
‘Nelispah liked you on sight and my father will be very grateful that he won’t have to listen ever again to the three of them bewailing the shame of me still being single,’ Rauf informed her cheerfully.
From the minute the maid opened the door of the big, gracious drawing-room and Rauf’s mother, Seren, a small, rounded brunette in her fifties emerged proffering an animated welcome in English, Lily did not have the time to be nervous. His father, a tall, craggier version of Rauf with greying hair, smiled at her. His grandmother, Manolya, was the quietest of the three older women. Nelispah Kasabian grasped Lily’s hand in her frail fingers and just looked at her with tears in her bright old eyes and nodded to herself with satisfaction.
‘You and I are to fly over to England tomorrow,’ Rauf’s father, Ersin, murmured to his son under the cover of the feminine chatter filling the room.
‘Say that again,’ Rauf invited.
‘This promises to be a very traditional wedding,’ Ersin stressed. ‘We must ask Lily’s father if he will accept you as a bridegroom—’
‘He’s already got me whether he likes it or not,’ Rauf pointed out, inflamed by the prospect of being parted from Lily for even a day. On reflection, however, he conceded that he would not have dreamt of marrying one of his own countrywomen without first approaching her family. ‘Yes, you’re right. That is how it should’ve been done—’
‘By the time you return alone to your own home this night, you will have discovered one of life’s unhappier truths,’ Ersin contended. ‘Nelispah cannot be fought. She’ll be upset if you argue and distraught if you refuse her expectations and how can you risk that?’