Leila had needed very little sleep and after a few weeks of sleepless nights they had hired an official nanny. It had amazed Izzy that Lucia could slumber on peacefully even though she was only feet away from her screaming sibling. But the twins were very different, Izzy conceded fondly. Leila was altogether a louder personality, a little extrovert in the making. Copper-haired Lucia was quieter and prone to wandering off to amuse herself with imaginative games with her toys, leaving Leila the one to follow her. Leila went looking for her twin the minute she moved out of sight, but Lucia was more independent. Izzy loved seeing the children’s different personalities emerging.
At that moment her mother, Lucia, walked up and stole Nazir out of her elder daughter’s arms, rocking him and murmuring sweet nothings to the sleeping bundle. ‘I swear an earthquake could go off and this child wouldn’t notice!’ she carolled appreciatively. ‘Matt is so excited about being put forward for the stem cell treatment, Izzy. We’ll never be able to thank Rafiq enough for doing that for him, even if it doesn’t provide either an improvement of his condition or a miraculous cure.’
Izzy swallowed hard. It had been Rafiq who had suggested that they sought stem cell treatment for her kid brother’s paralysis. Her family could never have afforded the costs involved. Matt had recently undergone a series of tests, which had concluded with him being offered a place in ground-breaking trials. She was married to a man with a huge heart, even if it was a heart that he often felt he had to bury deep and hide from notice, and if anything two years of marriage had only made her love her husband more deeply than ever. The happiness their relationship gave her was infinite.
Izzy watched as Rafiq snatched Leila back in the nick of time from the edge of an ornamental pond and scolded her. The little girl threw a massive tantrum and Rafiq just stood there watching it play out while Lucia sucked her thumb and stared. Izzy began to move in their direction. She gave her father a fond hug on the way, teased Matt about the latest piece of technology he was playing games with and greeted and kissed Rafiq’s uncle and aunt on the cheek, pausing to chat with the older couple for a few minutes. By the end of it, Leila was still stubbornly going strong.
‘Leila…’ she intervened sharply.
The tantrum died with Izzy’s arrival, but Leila ran off in a sulk instead, causing Rafiq to roll his eyes and groan out.
‘It’ll blow over,’ Izzy told him soothingly. ‘It’s the result of too much excitement and the annoyance of me choosing what she had to wear today.’
‘She’s very wilful,’ he said with a frown.
‘She’ll learn, just like we all have to learn how to behave,’ Izzy countered. ‘Just don’t tell her any more stories about the warrior queen who preceded her in case it gives her ideas.’
Laughing, Rafiq tugged her back under an archway onto the shaded terrace. ‘You look pretty spectacular in that dress,’ he remarked huskily. ‘Dark blue suits you, matches your eyes.’
Izzy lounged back against a sandstone pillar and preened herself like an old-style sex siren, looking up at her husband cheekily from beneath her lashes. She leant closer to walk her fingertips up over his shirted abdomen, one at a time, the spirit of wantonness personified as she stroked his lean muscled torso, appreciating his physical beauty with every fibre of her being and loving that he was all hers for ever. She watched his gorgeous eyes light up as golden as the sun and noticed with a wicked little grin how he shifted position to contain his arousal.
‘I married a shameless hussy.’
‘And you love that shamelessness, Your Majesty,’ she whispered, gazing up at him with her heart in her eyes.
‘I do and I always will. I will cherish my memory of the virgin who told me not to be a party pooper for ever,’ he husked, lowering his head to claim a single burning kiss that lit her up like a firework.
‘I love you,’ Izzy said sunnily, squeezing his hand. ‘You may be a king but you’re still my bathroom guy…’
Rafiq winced. ‘Are you ever going to let me forget our first meeting?’
‘Probably not.’ She laughed as they joined the festivities to mingle and chat and ensure that their guests had as good a time as they planned to have for the rest of their lives.
* * * * *
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ISBN: 9781488059544
Cinderella’s Royal Secret
Copyright © 2020 by Lynne Graham
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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