dead?
Rafiq was stilled with shock, absorbing the news with a kind of mute disbelief and a suspension of feeling. Was that why Sera had looked so sad? Was that why she seemed so downcast? Because she was still in mourning for her beloved husband?
Damn the woman! Why should he care that she was sad—especially if it was over him? She’d long ago forfeited any and all rights to his sympathy. ‘That still doesn’t explain why she is here. She made her choice. Surely she belongs with Hussein’s family now?’
The Sheikha shook her head on a sigh. ‘Hussein’s mother turned her away before he was even buried.’
‘So her husband’s mother was clearly a better judge of character than her son.’
‘Rafiq,’ his mother said, frowning as her lips pursed, as if searching for the right words. ‘Do not be too hard on Sera. She is not the girl you once knew.’
‘No, I imagine not. Not after all those glamorous years swanning around the world as wife to Qusay’s ambassador.’
The Sheikha shook her head again. ‘Life has not been as easy for her as you might think. Her own parents died not long before Hussein. There was nowhere for her to go.’
‘So what? Anyone would think you expect me to feel sorry for her? I’m sorry, Mother, but I can feel nothing for Sera but hatred. I will never forgive her for what she did. Never!’
There was a sound behind them, a muffled gasp, and he turned to find her standing there, her eyes studying the floor, in her hands a bolt of silken fabric that glittered in swirls of tiny lights like fireflies on a dark cave roof.
‘Sheikha Rihana,’ she said, so softly that Rafiq had to strain to catch her words—and yet the familiar lilt in her voice snagged and tugged on his memories. He’d once loved her softly spoken voice, the musical quality it conveyed, gentle and well bred as she was. As he’d once imagined she was. Now, hearing that voice brought nothing but bitterness. ‘I have brought the fabric you requested.’
‘Thank you, Sera. Come,’ she urged, deliberately disregarding the fact that Sera had just overheard Rafiq’s impassioned declaration of hatred as if it meant nothing. He wanted to growl. What did his mother think she was doing? ‘Bring it closer, my child,’ his mother continued, ‘so that my son might better see.’ And then to her son, ‘Rafiq, you remember Sera, of course.’ Her grey-blue eyes held steady on his, the unsaid warning contained therein coming loud and clear.
‘You know I do.’ And so did Sera remember him, if the way she was working so hard at avoiding his gaze was any indication. She’d heard him say how much he hated her, so it was little wonder she couldn’t face him, and yet still he wanted her to look at him, challenging her to meet his eyes as he followed her every movement.
‘Sera,’ he said, his voice schooled to flat. ‘It has been a long time.’
‘Prince Rafiq,’ she whispered softly, and she nodded, if you could call it that, a bare dip of her already downcast head as still she refused to lift her gaze, her eyes skittering everywhere—at his mother, at the bolt of fabric she held in her hands, at the unendingly fascinating floor that her eyes escaped to when staring at one of the other options could no longer be justified—everywhere but at him.
And the longer she avoided his gaze, the angrier he became. Damn her, but she would look at him! His mother might expect him to be civil, but he wanted Sera to see how much he hated her. He wanted her to see the depth of his loathing. He wanted her to know that she alone had put it there.
Through the waves of resentment rolling off him, Sera edged warily forward, her throat desert-dry, her thumping heart pumping heated blood through her veins.
She knew he hated her. She had known it since the day he had returned unexpectedly from the desert and found her marrying Hussein. She’d seen the hurt in his eyes, the anguish that had squeezed tight her already crumpled heart, the anguish that had turned ice-cold with loathing when he’d begged her to stop the wedding and she’d replied by telling him that she would never have married him because she didn’t love him. Had never loved him.
He hadn’t quite believed her then, she knew. But he’d believed it later on, when she’d put the matter beyond doubt…
She squeezed her eyes shut at the pain the memories brought back. That day had seen something die inside her, just as her lies and her actions had so completely killed his love for her.
Yet walking in just now and hearing him say it—that he felt nothing for her but hatred, and that he could never forgive 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.