‘I had to see for myself if you could live up to Uncle Jalil’s acclaim,’ he admitted as he gave a nod to a hovering servant and smiled with Rafiq’s easy charm while breakfast arrived at full tilt, offered in a bedazzling choice of dishes.
‘Acclaim?’ Izzy queried with a look of surprise.
‘My uncle believes that you are exactly what my brother needs. Considering that he once believed that Fadith was the perfect wife for Rafiq, who can blame me for being a complete cynic and refusing to trust in his assessment?’
‘Fadith,’ Izzy echoed uncomfortably, now feeling very much under scrutiny, for Rafiq’s kid brother was making no attempt to hide his scepticism. ‘Rafiq rarely mentions her.’
‘Rafiq never rats on anyone. It’s a point of honour for him. An amazing trait for someone who was shafted at birth and cursed to pay for our late, unlamented father’s sins,’ Zayn continued with bite. ‘He deserves better now.’
‘Yes,’ Izzy agreed, dry-mouthed, feeling under fire and unsure how to respond with anything other than honesty. ‘And you want to know if I’m a better bet, but I’m afraid only Rafiq could answer that question.’
‘You think?’ Zayn lifted a black brow and scoffed, ‘Twins? My brother already thinks you are the eighth wonder of the world!’
Izzy reddened and continued to carefully eat the muesli she had selected. She was tempted to tell Zayn that no woman wanted to be valued purely for her fertility but that was too private a thought for sharing. ‘Lucky me,’ she murmured a shade flatly.
‘Do you love him?’
Izzy glanced across the table in consternation. ‘You can’t ask me that!’
‘I just did. I want my brother to be happy. It’s that simple,’ Zayn declared unrepentantly.
Feeling under pressure, Izzy pushed her curls back from her damp brow. ‘I don’t know how I feel. Everything’s happened so fast. One minute I was single, the next I was married and expecting twins, for goodness’ sake! I’ve hardly had time to catch my breath.’
‘So, that’s a no, then,’ Zayn assumed, his mouth down curving.
Izzy looked back down at her plate, struggling to concentrate. In truth she didn’t know what she felt for Rafiq, only that she felt too much in too many different ways, not all of which made sense. Last night, he had left her feeling angry and hurt, but she had still come down to breakfast with a helpless sense of anticipation. The disappointment that had infiltrated her once she learnt of his absence still rang like a hollow bell of warning inside her, reminding her that she couldn’t afford to get too attached to the man she had married, not when their marriage wasn’t expected to last.
‘It’s a marriage of convenience,’ she told Zayn baldly since he had been so blunt with her. ‘And it’s early days for us.’
‘Only my unlucky brother would get to make two marriages of convenience,’ Zayn ground out and, glancing at her, he saw her surprise and curiosity. ‘No, it wasn’t a teenage love match with Fadith. But you need to ask him for the details.’
‘I wasn’t going to ask you,’ Izzy said, thinking I so was, her face colouring afresh. Like most people she preferred to avoid contentious issues and it was obvious to her that Rafiq didn’t want to talk about his first marriage. Getting the story from Zayn would have been easier, most particularly when she and Rafiq were currently at daggers drawn.
Evidently accepting that he had got all he was likely to get from her, Zayn engaged in normal conversation for what remained of the meal. He was much less guarded than his older brother, yet very mature for his age, only his sudden boyishly enthusiastic smile betraying his youth. She understood his loyal protectiveness towards Rafiq because she was equally attached to her twin and two orphaned brothers, regardless of the age gap between them, were almost certain to be close.
They sat in the shade playing poker, Izzy working up a tally of losses that hugely amused Zayn.
‘It’s lucky for you that we agreed not to play for money,’ he teased. ‘You’re a hopeless card player.’
‘It’s been a long time since I played,’ Izzy admitted ruefully.
‘I’d take you for a drive in the desert but Rafiq thinks I’m reckless at the wheel and you’re too precious a cargo for me to take the risk,’ he told her cheerfully.
They ended up playing a board game then, which Zayn played with the same ferocious spirit of competitiveness. When he departed in a helicopter before lunch, he and Izzy were on easy terms and she was sorry to see him leave. After lunch she felt queasy and went for a nap, but it didn’t help. Her pregnant stomach was determined to be oversensitive and feeling under par was a side effect she assumed she had to accept. It was a surprise when a doctor was shown in by her maid, who had evidently contacted him. Where he had come from, she had no idea and she was taken aback to be told when she asked that he was the doctor ‘in residence’ at Alihreza. A herbal tea was prescribed and Izzy sipped it throughout the afternoon, pleasantly disconcerted to discover that it did definitely help the nausea and reduced it to a more bearable level.
She dozed through the hottest hours of the day, wakening to learn that Rafiq was on his way back. She went for a shower to freshen up, enjoying the cool sprays hitting her overheated skin before rifling through her new wardrobe to pick a casual cotton blue-and-white maxi dress that was both cool and comfortable. It was unnerving how fast her body was changing, she thought ruefully. Her breasts had swelled at least a cup size and her once neat waist was vanishing as her stomach pushed out.
When she heard another helicopter flying in, she was reading a magazine in the shade of the courtyard. Eventually, Rafiq came striding across the courtyard towards her and
