With almost biblical immediacy, the crowd parted to allow them to pass through. The huge double doors to the private garden of the banqueting suite were flung open, and as they stepped out into the softness of the night perfectly timed fireworks exploded, sending sprays of brilliantly coloured stars showering earthwards.
At the same time they were deluged with handfuls of scented rose petals, and the air was filled with a pink-tinged cloud of strawberry scented shisha smoke. Doves swooped and flew, and a cloud of shimmering butterflies appeared as if by magic—music played, people laughed and called out good wishes to them, and Rashid drew her relentlessly towards the exit to the garden.
As he touched her arm and held her for one last second to face their audience, he whispered wryly in her ear, ‘Your aunt wanted me to whisk you away on an Arab steed, complete with traditional Arabic trappings, but I managed to dissuade her.’
Caught off guard by the note of humour underlining his words, Petra turned automatically to look at him. ‘You mean like a prince from an Arabian fairytale? Complete with medieval accoutrements including your falcon?’
‘I suspect she would have wanted to pass on the falcon—for the sake of the doves—and I certainly would not have wanted to expose my prize birds to this fairground.’
As she looked at him Petra felt her heart suddenly miss not one beat but two.
As though a veil had abruptly lifted, giving her a clear view of something she had previously only perceived in a shadowy distorted fashion, she recognised an unwanted, unpalatable, unbearably painful truth!
In believing that logic, reality, anger and moral right were enough to destroy her unwanted love for Rashid she had deceived herself even more thoroughly and cruelly than Rashid himself could ever have done.
Had she married Rashid because secretly deep down inside she still wanted him? Still loved him? Petra was filled with self-contempt and loathing, her fiery pride hating the very idea!
She had believed that her most dangerous enemy lay outside the armed citadel of her heart, in the shape of Rashid himself, but she had been wrong. Her worst enemy lay within herself, within her own heart, in the form of her love for him.
But Rashid must never ever know that. She must forever be on her guard to protect herself and her emotions. She and they must become a fortress which Rashid must never be allowed to penetrate!
‘Welcome to your new home!’
For the first time since they had left the hotel Rashid broke the silence between them. They had driven into the courtyard of the villa several seconds earlier, its creamy toned wall, warmed to gold by the discreet nightscape lighting. Her whole body rigid with the effort of maintaining the guard she was clinging to so desperately, Petra had discovered that her throat had locked so tensely that she couldn’t even speak!
Once inside the villa she felt no more relaxed—quite the opposite.
‘It’s late, and it has been a very long day,’ she heard Rashid saying calmly. ‘I suggest that we both get a good night’s sleep before you begin another round of hostilities. I have arranged for you to have your own suite of rooms. Not exactly the traditional way to conduct a wedding night, perhaps, but then it is not as though it would be our first time together.’ Her gave a small dismissive shrug whilst Petra struggled to assimilate a feeling which was not entirely composed of relief! ‘This has been a stressful time for you, and you need a little breathing space, I suspect, to accustom yourself to what is to be. Despite your comments earlier, I can assure you that there is no way I intend to… to force the issue between us, Petra!’
Petra stared at him. He sounded so controlled, so calm, so… so laid-back and casual almost. And as for his comment about arranging for her to have her own rooms—that was not at all what she had been expecting!
From the moment he had proposed formally to her this night had been at the back of Petra’s mind. This moment when they would be alone as husband and wife. Fiercely she had told herself that no matter what kind of pressure he put on her to break down her resolve she would not allow him to touch her!
And yet now he was the one telling her that he did not want her!
A distinctly unpleasant mix of emotions filled her. Shock, disbelief, chagrin… and…
Disappointment? Most certainly not! Relief—that was what she felt. Yes, she was perhaps just a touch disappointed that he had stolen her thunder by not allowing her the satisfaction of being the one to tell him that she didn’t want him. But at the end of the day what really mattered was that she was going to be free to sleep on her own… without him. Sleeping in her own bed and not his… just as though they were not married at all. And that was just what she wanted. Exactly what she wanted!
At last she was on her own. Which was just what she wanted. So why couldn’t she go to sleep? Why was she lying here feeling so… lost and abandoned? So unwanted… and unloved and so hurt?
What was it that she longed for so much? Rashid? Blaize?
No! What she ached for, so much that it hurt, Petra acknowledged tormentedly as she burrowed into the emptiness of her huge bed, was to be able to trust the man she loved. Because without such trust, without being able to be open and honest with one another, how could two people possibly claim to share love?
CHAPTER TEN
A LITTLE apprehensively, Petra surveyed the other women crowding into the exclusive enclosure.
It was the start of the horse racing season and Petra suspected that by now, after over a month of marriage, she ought to be familiar with the high-octane and very glamorous nature of the social events to which her position as Rashid’s wife gave her an entrée.
In the short time they had been married they had already had the tennis championships, and a celebrity golf tournament, in addition to a whole host of business events sponsored by the Royal Family in which Rashid, as one of their most favoured architects and a business partner, had played a high-profile role.
And now, within a few days, it would be the most prestigious event of the Zuran social calendar—the Zuran Cup, the world’s most glamorous horse race.
Horses, trainers, jockeys, owners and their elegant wives had been pouring into Zuran all month—the whole city was in a state of excited expectancy over the race and its eventual winner.
Rashid was entering his own horse, an American-bred and Irish-trained three-year-old stabled at his training yard close to the racecourse. Along with a mere handful of other specially favoured owners, Rashid was permitted to use the actual racecourse itself for training purposes.
Petra and Rashid were due to entertain a group of businessmen and diplomats and their partners from America and Europe, and for the duration of Race Week they would be staying at the hotel complex with their guests.
Unlike some of the other wives, Petra had not found it necessary to fly to Paris or Milan to order a series of one-off couture outfits for the event—although she had taken her aunt’s advice and been to see a visiting top milliner to ensure that her hat for the occasion was ‘special’ enough for her position as the wife of an owner of one of the competing horses.
At the breathtakingly stunning villa he had designed and had built, in its equally breathtaking setting of his private oasis, they had entertained a variety of prominent politicians, sportsmen and women and businessmen from all over the world, including the UK, and never once on any of those occasions had Rashid faltered in enacting his own chosen role of devoted husband.
But in private things were very different. Rashid kept to his own suite of rooms in the villa, as she did hers, and when they were not entertaining or being entertained Petra hardly saw him.
He was either working, visiting various projects he was involved in virtually all over the world or, when he was at home, he