LYNNE GRAHAM - A Mediterranean Marriage

‘And wouldn’t you just know it?’ Annabel muttered resentfully as she watched Rauf appraise Lily’s glowing blonde beauty with predictable male intensity. ‘I might as well be invisible but he’s yours for the asking. You should wear a little “I’m gay” badge, Lily…at least it would stop the guys wasting their time and let the rest of us get a look-in!’

Aghast at the startling content of that disgruntled little speech, Lily shot her attention back to Annabel. ‘Say that again?’

Annabel just shrugged. ‘Well, you are, aren’t you? You might still be in the closet but the way you feel about men makes it pretty obvious. I guessed ages ago.’

‘I’m not gay…’ Lily countered in whispered but emphatic denial as Annabel lifted her laden tray.

‘Look, it’s none of my business.’ Annabel grimaced. ‘I was only being a jealous cow about your looks.’

Shaken that someone she had known for two years could have got her so wrong, Lily went to serve Rauf. Not once did she look directly at him or his companion but, even in the ennervated state she was in, she noted his rich, dark drawl and the faint exotic accent that edged his excellent English. Disaster only struck when she delivered their drinks. As she tried to set the glass of red wine down the brunette made a sudden snatch at it mid-air and their hands collided. The glass fell, spilling a cascade of ruby-red liquid down onto the woman’s lap.

‘You stupid girl!’ the irate brunette screeched, behaving as though she had been subjected to a deliberate assault. ‘Wasn’t coming on to my man enough for you? Did you have to ruin my dress too?’

As Lily’s boss hurried to the scene and Lily proffered napkins and apologies that were ignored while really wanting to sink through the floor in chagrin, Rauf dropped a banknote on the table and herded his hysterical lunch date out at speed. Lily didn’t expect ever to see him again. But the next day when she turned up for her shift a beautiful bouquet was waiting for her along with a card.

‘Sorry that you were embarrassed yesterday. Rauf’

‘When a bloke spends about a hundred quid on flowers, it certainly tells me who was coming on to who,’ her female boss quipped with considerable amusement.

Emerging from the powerful pull of the past, Lily needed enormous effort to shut down the surging tide of memory keeping her awake. What did it say about her that she should still be so obsessed with a relationship that Rauf had long since left behind him? Angry at her lack of self-discipline, Lily told herself to grow up.

The next morning, Rauf flew in on a sleek private jet half an hour after Lily arrived at the airport. In the brilliant sunlight of midday, she watched him emerge and descend the steps with the fluid, measured pace of a very self-assured male. Sheathed in a beautifully tailored dove-grey business suit, he looked stunningly handsome and, even at a distance, his bold bronzed features emanated all the decisive authority of his forceful personality. Exchanging a laughing word with the official waiting to greet him, he paused, lean, strong face settling back into striking gravity again as he aimed a cool-eyed glance at Lily where she waited just inside the building.

‘You can go through now, Miss Harris,’ she was told.

Rauf watched her walk towards him. Clad in a pale blue dress and a cardigan that had to be roasting her alive in the heat of midsummer, golden hair glittering in the bright light, Lily looked apprehensive and very young.

An insane impulse to urge her to turn back and board the first available flight home assailed Rauf. Faint colour demarcating his hard cheekbones, his jawline clenched hard. Had she been a man, he would have harboured no second thoughts. So who was being sexist? He was only doing to her what she had once done to him: luring her down a path that would look safe until the very last moment. How would she react when she found herself staring into the abyss with the police waiting to make an arrest on the other side?

As yet, he hadn’t called in the police, hadn’t identified her to them. But the gendarme in the village where the villa project had misfired already had a file prepared on the case. Furthermore, Lily, Rauf had discovered, was now listed as a director of Harris Travel on the firm notepaper and as such could be held liable. But what Rauf wanted most of all was Brett Gilman’s head on a plate.

‘It’s hot,’ Lily murmured as she drew level with him.

‘And likely to get hotter,’ Rauf imparted in his distinctive drawl, a light hand touching her spine just enough to turn her in the direction of the helicopter sitting parked.

‘Will it be a long flight?’

‘About an hour or so in all. We’re making a stop on the way.’ Without hesitation, Rauf made a smooth change of subject. ‘How are you enjoying your stay so far?’

‘I’m still getting acclimatised. Next week, I’m going to sign up for all the trips and see the sights. Hilary’s hoping to organise special tours for the spring…’ Lily said, her voice petering out as Rauf closed his hands round her waist and lifted her up into the helicopter as if she weighed no more than a child. ‘Thanks.’

As he settled in beside her and signalled the pilot, the rotor blades began to whir. Lily struggled to tighten the seat belt, which had been loosened to hold a much larger frame than her own. Rauf leant over to assist and she tensed, soft brown lashes flying up on uncertain blue eyes to connect with reflective gold. Her hands fell from the clasp and let his take over. As he bent his dark head his luxuriant black hair brushed her chin. Breathing in the warm, achingly familiar scent of him, she trembled, feeling her breasts lift and stir beneath her dress and the tender tips swell into prominence, and biting her soft lower lip in an agony of discomfiture.

She wanted to plunge her fingers into his silky black hair and drag his mouth up to hers again and she was shocked rigid by the depth of her own longing. In the midst of such crazy promptings, she didn’t know herself. What was it about him that he could reduce her to such a level without even trying? Mouth bone-dry, her fingers curled in on themselves lest they too developed a will of their own, she only breathed again when he had settled back into his own seat.

For the entire flight, she stared out the window. She had a fantastic view of the bright turquoise sea studded with islands and edged by tall crags and sandy beaches before the helicopter went into a turn and headed inland. When the coastal development was left behind, she saw the ruin of a castle built on bare rock, hazy tracts of soft green pine forest, the occasional dust road leading out miles through tiny cultivated fields and orchards to small clusters of remote dwellings. She remembered Rauf telling her that virtually every family had links with a village and would often maintain contact with their roots there generations after they had taken up residence in a town.

After the tranquil, soothing scenes of beautiful unspoilt countryside, it was something of a surprise to Lily to see a coalmine come into view as the helicopter started to land. Coalmining was a business, she reminded herself, and Rauf had mentioned a stop on the way. Perhaps one of his newspapers or magazines was doing a feature on the mine, she thought dimly.

Springing out of the craft, Rauf swung back to extend a hand to her. Lily stepped out onto waste ground and saw a dust road several yards ahead of them.

Level dark golden eyes zeroed in on her. ‘Do you know where you are?’

Lily shook her golden head and wondered how on earth he could imagine she would know. ‘I haven’t a clue.’

‘I think you’ll solve the mystery soon enough,’ Rauf asserted, leading her across the road towards a steep paved driveway edged with fancy carriage lamps and really the very last kind of opulent entrance one would have expected to see within yards of the fencing that surrounded the mine.