why when Polly had banished him from the marital bed he had wanted to protect her reputation by waiting in the room next door.
But, in spite of that concession, Rashad remained blazingly, scorchingly angry with his bride. What a way to embark on a new marriage! This was not what he had wanted. Separation was not a way forward and sex was not a reward for good behaviour. And what was Polly’s idea of good behaviour? Rashad hadn’t a clue. He was right back to where he had started out, utterly in the dark as to what way he had somehow contrived to fall short...
* * *
Eventually, and only once Polly had surrendered all hope that Rashad would reappear and discuss their quarrel, she removed her jewellery and undressed and got into the giant bed. She felt curiously overwhelmed and deflated by the reality that she was alone on her wedding night. She couldn’t even understand her own reaction, because she had asked him to leave her alone and now to feel dissatisfied on that score seemed perverse.
In truth, she recognised ruefully, on some level inside herself she had expected Rashad to reason, persuade or even seduce her into changing her mind. But Rashad hadn’t done anything so predictable. Instead he had walked out on her. Angry? Bemused? Hurt? She discovered that she didn’t like to think that he was either hurt or confused by her behaviour. But she must have hurt his pride, she finally acknowledged unhappily, wondering why she had not foreseen that very obvious consequence.
The next morning, she came awake with the sunlight. At some stage while she still slept her luggage had been unpacked. Her grandparents had insisted on equipping her with a new and more appropriate wardrobe to wear after the wedding. She had picked out styles she liked with a trio of Dharian designers and had been concerned by the likely cost of such exclusivity even after Hakim assured her that he was well able to afford such a generous gesture.
Polly extracted a comfortable dress and smilingly dismissed the maid kneeling at the door ready to assist her into her clothing. The blue sundress was light and airy and, with canvas shoes on her feet, she sat down to breakfast on the terrace on the floor below, to enjoy the view of the sea while telling herself repeatedly that she was not one whit bothered by Rashad’s vanishing act. At some stage of the night that had passed, however, she had reached new conclusions about what she had done.
When she had been getting so wound up before the wedding, Rashad had been completely absent and unable to answer or soothe any of her concerns. Her sister’s dire fear that she was making a mistake had encouraged her own insecurities, which in turn had exploded when Rashad had appeared to act differently throughout their wedding day. Had she imagined that he was different? Had she been looking for trouble, seeking a fatal flaw that would give her the excuse to step back and take stock of her new marriage? After all, what did she want from Rashad when she already knew that he didn’t love her?
Honesty, respect, trust, caring, affection, she listed anxiously, her lovely face clouding as she acknowledged the unrealistic level of desired perfection inherent in making such a list about a man, particularly on the very first day of a brand-new marriage.
When Rashad in person appeared out of seemingly nowhere and joined her without fanfare and with a seemingly relaxed smile to bid her a good morning, Polly was so disconcerted she almost fell off her chair in shock.
‘My goodness, I was wondering where you were!’ she exclaimed helplessly.
Her attention involuntarily welded to the impressive physique outlined by a white tee shirt that hugged his muscular chest and biceps and faded jeans that outlined his narrow waist and long powerful thighs. In fact, although the sun hadn’t at so early an hour been bothering her, she heated up so much she began to perspire. ‘Last night—’
‘We will not discuss last night,’ Rashad broke in decisively. ‘We were both overtired after the wedding.’
‘Seriously...we’re sweeping the dust under the carpet?’ Polly muttered in astonishment.
Rashad answered her in Arabic, and then with an affirmative yes, the sculpted full line of his eloquent mouth firming, his devastating dark eyes cloaked by his lashes.
A fair brow lifted in growing disbelief. ‘And you think that’s all right?’
‘I think it is better than the alternative,’ Rashad told her truthfully, heaping sugar into his mint tea.
Polly stared down blindly at her own tea. ‘What happened to the man who said dissension could be stimulating?’
‘He learned that that brand of stimulation can be treacherous,’ Rashad countered with level cool.
And that fast, Polly wanted to scream at him again and so powerful was that urge that her teeth chattered together behind her murderously compressed lips. He could set off a seething emotional chain reaction inside her and make her madder than anyone else had ever done and it seriously unsettled her. She sipped at her tea with a stiff-fingered hold on the tiny glass cup and looked out to sea in angry silence, her mouth tightly compressed.
‘You see now we have nothing to talk about because you can’t gloss over a major row and simply pretend it never happened,’ she then pointed out, not feeling the smallest bit generous, especially not after having lain awake for half of the night wondering where he was, how he felt and what he was doing. Evidently if he simply moved on past the dissension without requiring any contribution from her, he had done no such wondering.
‘We did not have a row, we had different opinions.’ Rashad persisted in his peace-keeping mission much as he persisted against all odds to direct challenging meetings staged between enemies and rivals.
Polly almost lunged across the table as she leant abruptly forward, silvery blonde hair rolling across her slim shoulders like a swathe of heavy silk. ‘I want a row!’
Rashad levelled resolute dark eyes on her, raw tension gripping him because he only had to look at that rosy soft mouth of hers to want to back her down on the nearest horizontal surface. Hell, it didn’t even have to be horizontal, he acknowledged, his inventive mind rushing to supply every erotic possibility imaginable. His jeans uncomfortably tight around the groin, he flexed his broad shoulders. ‘You’re not getting one.’
‘Even if I say please?’ Polly pressed helplessly, because she genuinely believed that they had to discuss what had happened to move beyond it.
‘With regret...not even if you beg,’ Rashad spelt out a tinge more harshly. ‘Rows are divisive and risky and we will not have them—’
‘Says the King. But we still need to clear the air,’ she muttered, shaken by an increasing fear that he really did believe such an approach could work.
‘As far as I am concerned the air is already clear and further discussion would be overkill,’ Rashad concluded in a tone of finality as he began to peel a piece of fruit, waving away the manservant who immediately approached him in a keen attempt to save him from the labour of such a petty task.
‘Well, then you can listen,’ Polly told him in desperation.
Rashad tensed at that seemingly new threat, dark eyes flashing gold below lush black velvet lashes as he focused on her. Why was she trying to destroy his calm and enrage him again? He had behaved honourably the night before. He had not argued. He had not threatened. He had walked away. This morning he had not uttered one word of reproach. If he had told her how he really felt about what she had done his anger would’ve blown the roof of the castle off and scared her. Whether he liked it or not, he was what he was, the heir to a ruthless lineage, and his belief that his wife belonged to him ran like a thread of steel through his every reaction even while his intelligence told him that life didn’t work like that any more.
She looked so innocent and so very beautiful and yet she was totally off-the-wall crazy in Rio’s parlance, Rashad acknowledged ruefully. Yet why did he continue to find that strange trait so incredibly attractive? Why, when he was in the worst possible mood, did that trait make him want to smile? He concentrated on his tea, which was less likely to unnerve him than the odd thoughts assailing him without warning. He told himself that he didn’t want to listen, didn’t want further criticism