Wandering round the spacious suite of rooms as she talked on the phone, Ella stiffened. ‘Is that so?’
‘I did not intend to offend you. I merely spoke the truth.’
Ella’s vexed gaze fell on a silver-framed photo sited on a corner table in the dining room where they had had breakfast at the start of the day. She stared in dismay at the photo of an attractive brunette with beautiful almond-shaped dark eyes smiling into the camera as she held her equally dark-eyed son.
‘Thank you for the flowers, the clothes and the bracelet,’ Ella said woodenly, still gaping at the photo of what could only be her predecessor.
‘I should have stayed to speak to you.’
‘No, saying it with flowers was better,’ Ella broke in. ‘We really don’t have much to say to each other.’
Not giving him the chance to respond, she tossed the phone down and lifted the photo of Azel and her infant son, Firas. Of course he kept a picture of his late wife and child in his private suite and why wouldn’t he? It was a perfectly normal thing to do. He wouldn’t want to forget them and he would want to show respect: of course, he had retained a photograph and she couldn’t begrudge him that. But she knew the image would very likely haunt her. Zarif’s first wife, and cousin, had been an undeniable beauty and the baby was downright adorable but rather too young to be showing any resemblance to his parents in his indeterminate features. Ella returned the portrait to its place, deciding there and then that she didn’t want to share living space with Zarif in what was still Azel’s place.
There was no reason why she and Zarif should share a bedroom, she reasoned feverishly. Good grief, had he taken her to the very same bed he had once shared with Azel? She swallowed hard, scanning the decoration of the rooms suspiciously and feeling very much like an intruder. Naturally she would neither ask nor expect him to put the photo away. At the same time, though it possibly wasn’t very nice or sympathetic, she worried immediately why she was so determined not to live daily with that reminder of Azel or inhabit the same rooms.
Smartly garbed in a tailored cotton dress, Ella went off to explore and soon discovered that there were so many rooms available that she could probably choose a different one for every night of the year she was to spend in Vashir. She picked a set of interconnecting rooms on the other side of the corridor and was engaged in removing her new clothes from the dressing room when Hanya joined her.
‘You are packing to go somewhere?’ the tiny brunette asked in surprise.
Ella studied Hanya for a split second, recalling the misunderstanding about how much vodka she had drunk and she still forced a smile. In the future she would watch out for Hanya but for as long as she was forced to consult the other woman as an interpreter and for advice, it would be wiser not to make an enemy of her. ‘Just across the corridor. I like my own space and Zarif likes his,’ she said lightly.
Hanya called for two maids and, without Ella having to say a word more, she and her belongings, old and new, were resettled across the corridor.
‘Queen Azel planned to turn this suite into a nursery because it had more space,’ Hanya confided. ‘So sad. I expect had my cousin survived she would have been the mother of several children by now.’
‘Yes.’ Ella refused to let the gloss be stolen from her new accommodation by the news that Azel had hoped to site a nursery there.
‘My uncle and the King were inconsolable.’ Hanya sighed. ‘I wept most for the baby. He was so little and cute.’
‘Yes,’ Ella responded a little gruffly, finding her own vocal cords tightening when she thought of that tiny face in the photo, a life taken before it even got properly going.
‘Azel was much older than I was and because of that we weren’t close,’ the other woman admitted honestly. ‘But we all knew how much she adored the King. For a long time he was lost without her.’
‘It was a huge loss,’ Ella conceded and then she quite deliberately busied herself putting away her toiletries in the cupboard in the spacious bathroom. In the same bag she came on her contraceptive pills and realised that she had missed one the day before. She took another and hoped that her having missed one would make no difference. She vaguely recalled being told something about having to try and take it at the same time every day and she shook her head ruefully. Two weddings in forty-eight hours and an apparent allergy to shellfish had destroyed her usual routine.
Around ten, Ella went to bed. She had dined with Hanya after Zarif phoned her to tell her that he wouldn’t be back until late. She wondered if newly marrieds usually went straight back to work after the wedding in Vashir. Certainly, Zarif did not seem to be acknowledging any need to change his schedule to accommodate a wife. But then why would he? she asked herself irritably. Zarif was well aware that she wasn’t a proper wife and that within a year she would be gone, so, even if it was boring and lonely for Ella, it made sense that he should see no point in altering his usual habits.
Just as Ella was contemplating reaching out to douse the bedside light her bedroom door swung open without warning. Startled, she sat up.
Zarif stood poised in the doorway, breathing heavily, his spectacular cheekbones scored with colour. ‘What are you doing in here?’ he demanded.
‘Is there some reason why I shouldn’t sleep in another room?’ Ella asked shortly, colliding with the fiery golden eyes pinned to her and challenging that look.
‘You’re my wife. I want you in my bed.’
Ella was astonished by his attitude. ‘Surely you can visit me here?’
‘But I do not want to visit,’ Zarif derided with savage distaste, stalking to the bed, thrusting the sheet back with impatient hands and snatching her up off the mattress without ceremony. ‘I want you where I know I can find you twenty-four-seven.’
ZARIF TUMBLED HER down on his four-poster bed like a stolen parcel he had forcibly retrieved. Ella sat up, honey-blonde hair fanning round her flushed face, sapphire eyes very bright. ‘What are you playing at?’
‘This is not a game,’ Zarif told her sternly. ‘Why did you move out of here?’
Ella stilled. ‘I saw Azel’s photo in the dining room—at least I assume it was her—and suddenly being here didn’t feel comfortable. This is where you lived with her.’
Zarif was rigid with tension, as he always seemed to be when she made any reference to his first wife or child. ‘No, it wasn’t. We didn’t live together in the Western sense.’
Her brow furrowed. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘My grandparents lived together, sharing the same rooms and mealtimes. That was their way. My uncle Halim and his wife, Azel’s parents, were more traditional and preferred separate accommodation. Azel was accustomed to that lifestyle and this building has so much unused space that it was not a problem,’ he explained flatly. ‘Try to remember that we were only teenagers when we married and Azel wanted her own suite where she could entertain her friends and occasionally forget that she was a queen. I doubt if she ever set foot in here.’
Ella was very much surprised by that snapshot of a marriage she had blithely assumed to be a love’s young dream of constant togetherness and suddenly she was unable to meet his direct gaze. Had she simply fled from the threat of a photograph? Was she still that over-sensitive about Azel’s unassailable position in his heart? And why was that, when she no longer loved him? She didn’t love him, had no excuse to feel jealous or possessive about a part of his past that had been written long before she even met him. What was the matter with her?
‘The presence of the photo offended you?’ Zarif pressed.
‘No, of course not.’ Ella studied her linked hands with fixed attention. Offended did not describe her feelings. She