Cinderella's Royal Secret

After all, even their mother hadn’t waited until she was married. Lucia had been very honest about her life experience, freely admitting that she had got to twenty-five years of age zealously conserving what her traditional parents had assured her she had to conserve. But she had tired of respecting the social belief that to be valued she had to remain ‘pure’ even though the men she met were far from pure and, having fallen head over heels for their father, she had never lived to regret that decision, in spite of her judgemental family’s shocked rejection of her.

So, when Rafiq shot her an all-encompassing look that almost ate her alive, Izzy went pink with awareness but, on another level, she thought, yes, I could with him, and she felt positively wicked and forward and shameless, but she couldn’t help the heat that mushroomed up through her quivering body, because the desire that he was unafraid to show was coursing through her as well. And why should she be afraid of showing it? Of feeling that way? He made her body come alive in a way it never had before. He made her want what she had never wanted before. And who knew how long it would be before she met another man who had that effect on her?

Striving to act as cool as she knew how while struggling to handle all the different responses assailing her, Izzy set out the simple starter on the table and they sat down. ‘So, how did your appointment go?’ she enquired casually.

Rafiq shrugged a broad shoulder in dismissal. ‘Nothing unusual. I would prefer to talk about you. Tell me about yourself...’

In a few words, she described her family. He asked about her brother, Matt.

‘Was he born disabled?’ he asked with a frown.

‘No, he fell off a ladder when he was very young and broke his spine. He’s paralysed from the waist down. He’s eleven now and because he’s been in the wheelchair for so long he bears it very well,’ Izzy told him with quiet pride. ‘But caring for him is tough on my parents so Maya and I help as much as we can. Hopefully I’ll be able to do more when I can finally start full-time work.’

‘That will be soon?’ Rafiq assumed.

‘Well, no, if everything goes according to plan, and I get a good enough pass in my degree, I’ll have a year’s teaching training course to do next,’ Izzy explained. ‘I want to be a primary school teacher. Maya will probably take a high-flying job in the city. She’s very good with numbers.’

Of course, she wasn’t about to tell him the embarrassing truth that their parents were almost drowning in the amount of debt they had accrued over the years and at risk of losing their home, which had been specially adapted for her little brother’s needs. All their choices always seemed to come down to money, which was mortifying, but Izzy felt sorriest of all for her sister because Maya had no desire to be a high-flyer in the stock market but since that kind of work paid the best, she would have to take it. At least Izzy, being the less academic twin, would be able to follow the career she wanted.

‘Where are your guards?’ she asked curiously, keen to get off the topic of future plans when she couldn’t tell him the truth.

An almost imperceptible hint of colour honed the high cheekbones that lent Rafiq’s lean dark features such powerful impact. The four guards hired at his uncle’s insistence had been banished from the apartment while the remaining pair, who had long been in Rafiq’s employment, were enjoying a night off that they would never mention to anyone. It outraged his pride that even as a fully grown adult male he was obliged to utilise such ploys to escape the intrusive nature of his security arrangements. ‘They’re off duty tonight because I’m not going out.’

‘Tell me about Zenara,’ Izzy suggested.

‘Even though you’ve never heard of my country before?’ Rafiq murmured with a touch of a raw edge to his intonation.

Izzy went pink and then lifted her chin at an angle. ‘I offended you, didn’t I?’

‘Of course not,’ Rafiq countered, noting how that extra colour in her cheeks merely brightened the sapphire blue of her eyes.

‘Yes, I did. Well, I’m sorry, but we all have moments of ignorance,’ she pointed out in her own defence. ‘I expect I could come up with a topic that would leave you floundering too...if I tried.’

‘Not in basic geography,’ Rafiq told her drily.

Izzy compressed her soft pink mouth and shifted a narrow shoulder. ‘Yeah, bet you could have completed the science paper I tanked on this morning too. I’m not gifted at science or general knowledge.’

Rafiq frowned. ‘I thought you were studying for a degree in English?’

‘To complete my degree I had to study a couple of different topics this year and everybody said the basic science course was easy-peasy.’ Izzy’s lip curled at the memory. ‘Well, Maya could probably have aced it at five years old but even after swotting hard I couldn’t answer some of the questions.’

‘Hopefully you managed to answer enough to gain a pass,’ Rafiq said encouragingly. ‘It’s a mistake to do a major post-mortem after an exam. People tend to underestimate their own performance unless they’re exceptionally confident in their abilities. And by the sound of it you have been overshadowed your whole life by a very clever sister, which must have been difficult.’

‘No, it wasn’t!’ Izzy protested defensively as she rose to fetch the main course. ‘I was never envious of Maya. She always tried to help me whenever she could.’

Rafiq registered that he had entered a conversational minefield. ‘We’ll talk about Zenara instead,’ he informed her, disconcerting her by that total change of subject.

In the wake of her protest, Izzy had paled, her innate honesty tugging at her conscience. ‘No, what you said was right, although I never envied her,’ she admitted reluctantly as she reappeared from the kitchen. ‘Sometimes it was difficult being Maya’s twin because people would make comparisons and have expectations that I could never meet. But I love her, and I would never admit that to her. It wasn’t her fault.’

‘Of course, it wasn’t. I have a teenaged brother and I am equally protective of him,’ Rafiq confided.

Set at ease again, Izzy smiled at him, appreciating his insight and intelligence. His glorious black-lashed dark eyes shimmered like gold ingots in the subdued lighting and butterflies leapt and soared in her tummy, so that she felt almost intoxicated even on a glass and a half of champagne. ‘Nothing’s more important than family,’ she remarked.

Studying her animated face and the smile that illuminated her porcelain-perfect skin, Rafiq gritted his even white teeth because she still wasn’t flirting with him and he didn’t know how the conversation had become so serious, as though they were on a date or something. And how would he know what that was like when he’d never been on a date in his life? But when he looked at her, let his attention linger on those big sparkling blue eyes, that wickedly luscious pink mouth full of promise, the delicate little slice of pale skin below her collarbone where a tiny pulse was beating, he burned for her as he had never burned for a woman, the hardness at his groin a constant nagging ache. He wanted to plunge his fingers into that amazing curly hair the glittering peachy colour of a desert dawn.

‘You were going to tell me about your home country,’ Izzy reminded him.

Rafiq pushed his plate away because they had finished eating.

‘My goodness, I’m so busy talking I’m forgetting about the dessert course!’ Izzy exclaimed, leaping out of her chair and vanishing into the kitchen.

Rafiq didn’t want dessert. He wondered what would happen if he simply walked into the kitchen, snatched her up into his arms and carried her into his bedroom. She could thump him, she could say no. Right at that instant, he felt he could handle either negative reaction better than he could handle being passive when he was much more an aggressive, action-orientated kind of guy. He had been raised to take charge, to steer negotiations and wasn’t sex a form of negotiation? An exchange in which both partners knew the score? She could not have come to the apartment to be alone with him for the meal and have expected any other kind of conclusion...could she? How the hell did he know?

In a blaze of frustration, Rafiq stared at her, catching the glow of awareness in her eyes as she looked back at him. He thrust back his chair and sprang upright. Izzy emerged from the kitchen again carrying bowls of fruit or something. His innate good manners warred with his lust and that seething hunger won hands down, sweeping away every other consideration. As she set down the bowls he stalked around the table and hauled her entire body up into his arms, the pleasure of finally touching her engulfing him in a heady surge.

Izzy blinked and gasped in complete shock. One minute her feet were on the ground and the next she was airborne, and he was kissing her.

‘I am only hungry for you now,’ Rafiq husked in a ragged undertone as her tiny frame quivered in his arms, huge sapphire eyes now locked to him with an appreciation he could no longer misinterpret.

After that explosive kiss, Izzy’s heart was pounding so hard inside her chest she couldn’t get breath into her lungs, and while on one level she felt that pouncing on her like a panther and lifting her off her feet wasn’t quite what she had expected, on another secret level she was thrilled by the glow of wildness in his smouldering gaze and that urgent mouth on hers. It was so exciting, the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her and wasn’t that sad, she chided herself, at her age? And Rafiq was that hungry for her? That was a thrilling assurance for a young woman who had never seemed to inspire passion of that strength in any presentable man before. And he wasn’t just presentable, he was downright drop-dead gorgeous...

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