that Natasha would be even more disapproving.
He wished she had said yes.
Natasha thought the same almost as soon as she stepped inside. Away from him she was far more logical—she had just turned down a dinner invitation from surely the most gorgeous man alive. The loss of her holiday and her car seemed like minor inconveniences compared to what she had just denied herself. She moved to the window and watched his car glide off. Her hand moved to her wrist, where his fingers had been. She replayed their conversations again.
He had been nothing but polite, she told herself. It was her mind that was depraved.
She kicked herself all day as she dealt with the car insurance company, and then tried to sound cheerful when one of her friends rang to tell her they had secured an amazing deal for ten nights in Tenerife. They would be leaving tonight, and was Natasha quite sure that she didn’t want to change her mind and join them?
Natasha almost did, but then she looked down at the figure that had been quoted as the excess on her insurance and regretfully turned down her second amazing offer in one day.
Her brother’s debts were not Natasha’s responsibility, all her friends said, but actually they were. Natasha had not told anyone about the loan she had taken out for him—which was why her friends were unable to understand why she didn’t want to come away on holiday with them, especially after such a hellish year.
To Mark’s credit, since she had taken the loan he had always paid her back on time, and Natasha was starting to feel as if she could breathe, that maybe he was finally working things out. A payment was due tomorrow, and she pulled up her bank account online. Her emerging confidence in her brother vanished as she realised that his payment to her hadn’t gone in, and immediately she rang him.
‘You’ll have it next week.’
Natasha closed her eyes as he reeled off excuses. ‘It’s not good enough, Mark, the payment’s due tomorrow.’ She cursed at the near miss—she might have been en route to Tenerife, not knowing that she had defaulted on a loan payment. ‘I can’t afford to cover it, Mark. I had my car stolen last night.’ She would not cry, she was tougher than that, but for so many reasons today was especially hard. ‘When I agreed to get this loan you promised you would never miss a payment.’
‘I said you’ll have it next week. There’s nothing else I can do. Look,’ he said, ‘how soon till you get the car insurance payout?’
‘Sorry?’
‘You said your car had been stolen,’ Mark said. ‘You’ll get that payment soon. That will cover it.’
‘It might be found,’ Natasha said. ‘And if it isn’t the payout will buy me another car.’ But, even though there was so much to be addressed, she was tired of talking about cars and money on today of all days. ‘Are you going to the cemetery?’
‘Cemetery?’
She heard the bemusement in her brother’s voice and anger burnt inside her as she responded. ‘It’s their one-year anniversary, Mark.’
‘I know.’
Natasha was quite sure he’d forgotten. ‘Well?’ she pushed. ‘Are you going?’
As he reeled off yet more excuses Natasha simply hung up the phone and headed to her bedroom. But instead of getting on with tidying up, for a moment or two she sat on her bed, wondering how everything could have gone so wrong. This time last year her life had been pretty close to perfect—she’d just qualified as a teacher and had been doing a job she loved; she had been dating a guy she was starting to if not love then really care for; she’d been saving towards moving out of her parents’ house. She had also been looking forward to being a bridesmaid at her brother’s wedding.
Now, in the space of a year, all she had known, all she had loved, had been taken. Even her job. As an infant school teacher she had been on a temporary placement and about to be offered a permanent position when the car crash had happened. Knowing she simply couldn’t be the teacher she wanted to be while deeply grieving, she had declined the job offer, and the last year had been filled with temporary placements as she waded through her parents’ estate.
Their will had been very specific—the family home was to be sold and the profits divided equally between their two children.
How she had hated that—how much harder it had made things having to deal with estate agents and home inspections. And going through all the contents had been agony. It was a job she felt should have been done in stages; she had wanted to linger more in the process of letting go. But Mark had wanted his share and had pushed things along. Her boyfriend, Jason, had been no help either. He’d been uncomfortable with her grief and uncomfortable providing comfort—it had been a relief for Natasha 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,