A Mediterranean Marriage. Lynne Graham

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СКАЧАТЬ the brave but vulnerable aspect of a punished child. As he had already learnt to his cost in the past, she was a very convincing actress and her sole objective then as now had been his wallet, not the wedding ring he had once naively assumed.

      Swallowing hard, Lily lifted her head and breathed in deep. ‘I’m willing to admit that since we last met, Harris Travel may not have been run quite the way it ought to have been. Two years ago, after a spate of ill health, my father retired and Brett took over. Now he’s gone and it’s my sister, Hilary, who is managing the business. You say that the contract has been broken and you won’t allow any leeway for human error. But if you insist on reclaiming your stake in the agency right now, it may well bankrupt it.’

      ‘Business can be tough. I’m sorry but I’m not prepared to sit through the plucking of a thousand violin strings,’ Rauf said very drily, wondering with revulsion where Brett Gilman had ‘gone’. The grave? To employment elsewhere? He would not allow himself to ask.

      ‘Brett went off with Hilary’s best friend, Janice,’ Lily extended heavily and he noted that, just as he recalled from the past, even now when she referred to her sister’s husband her eyes were carefully screened in a secretive way. ‘Hilary and Brett are divorced now.’

      So that was why Lily had come all the way out to Turkey to beg his indulgence and bat her fawn-like eyelashes in his direction! Smarmy Brett had scarpered with yet another foolish woman. His lean, strong face taut, Rauf’s handsome mouth compressed with distaste. Look beyond the illusory purity of her beauty and Lily was revealed for what she was: an unscrupulous, greedy little schemer, ever ready to tell lies when it suited her to do so. Once, she had been stupid enough to lie to him and in lying had convicted herself with her own tongue.

      ‘I get this feeling that you’re really not listening to anything that I say, but what I’m saying is so very important,’ Lily emphasised in a low intense plea. ‘If those payments which you say were never made—’

      ‘I know for a fact that they were never made.’ Rafe’s aggressive jawline squared. ‘Do we have to keep on going over the same ground?’

      ‘Well, if they weren’t made, then it was a case of a genuine mistake. Surely you have enough understanding and patience to allow Harris Travel to sort it out?’

      ‘Why should I be patient?’ Rauf dealt her an enquiring glance in which the milk of human kindness was most noticeable by its unapologetic absence. The Turkish builders defrauded by Harris Travel had also practised patience and much good it had done them!

      ‘I don’t know you like this…’ Lily mumbled sickly, sinking ever deeper into a sense of shock over the extent to which he seemed to have changed. Had Rauf always been so cold, callous and unfeeling? Had she only imagined that she’d seen other finer and more sensitive qualities in him?

      She tried afresh to reach him. ‘I’m only asking for some more time—’

      ‘No.’ Rauf uttered the word in a tone of crushing finality. ‘You’ve wasted enough of my time.’

      ‘Look, I didn’t come out here prepared for this awful situation!’ Lily protested, her voice rising in spite of her attempt to keep it level, and a flush of embarrassment covered her face as Rauf elevated an ebony brow in meaningful rebuke. ‘Couldn’t you help me with this? I don’t have the resources to check out this bank account mix-up from here.’

      Lily down on her knees and begging. Rauf liked the idea even though he knew that he would still pull the plug on the travel agency and cut that last reminder of her out of his life. For his own amusement, would he play along for a little while with her absurd stories and excuses? What would he discover? That she and her family were a set of outright thieves? Reckless thieves too, unable to look ahead and spot the obvious fact that their dishonesty would inevitably be exposed. Then he reminded himself that his own newspapers were full of tales of such foolish fraudsters, who, regardless of the obvious consequences, were quite unable to resist temptation.

      Sensing that she finally had his attention, Lily pushed the documents across the table again. ‘Please look these over…and I can offer one concrete promise—whatever happens, you will be compensated. Brett built two luxury villas near Dalyan and I have to arrange for them to be sold. Harris Travel does have some assets,’ she proclaimed in desperation.

      But the biggest asset of all was seated just feet away from him, Rauf conceded, looking direct into her pleading violet-blue eyes, a kind of wonderment laced with cold, deep anger rising at volatile force inside him. He could not credit her gall! How dared she feed him such falsehoods? How could she think that he would have agreed to their meeting without having all the facts at his disposal? That Lily should face him with outright lies proved beyond all doubt that she was involved up to her throat in blatant deception! That was the moment that Rauf decided to take a harder line with Lily.

      Anxiety holding her taut, Lily noted how very still Rauf had become and her attention lingered on the semi-screened shimmer of his unreadable gaze. Then even as she watched Rauf reached out and swept up the Harris Travel documents he had earlier disdained, sending a surge of hope travelling through her. ‘I’m not making any promises,’ he asserted in a dark, deep, honeyed drawl that sent the oddest little shiver down her spine.

      ‘Oh, no, of course not…I wouldn’t expect that at this point,’ Lily hastened to assure him, almost sick with relief at his change of heart and certain that he would be more sympathetic once he had gone over those papers.

      ‘But the amount of time that this tangled affair will consume only comes at a price.’ Rauf moved in for the kill, knowing just how much he would revel in making Lily dance to his tune while he kept her in suspense. Hadn’t she once done the same to him in a much more primitive way? With raw contempt, he recalled the pseudo-nervous squeaks he had been made to suffer that summer while she had swerved between brief bouts of melting enthusiasm to keep him hooked and sudden attacks of timidity. She had played him like a violin virtuoso, convincing him one hundred per cent that he’d been dealing with a very nervous virgin. But on this occasion, he had the whip hand.

      ‘A…price?’ In confusion, Lily frowned, her heart hammering as she noted the gleam of gold in his arresting gaze.

      Rauf angled his arrogant dark head back with the measured and confident timing of a hunter about to spring a trap. ‘In this world everything comes at a price…haven’t you learnt that yet?’

      ‘I’m not sure I follow…’ Her oval face taut, a frown marked her smooth brow.

      A faint sardonic smile lightened Rauf’s lean, dark features. ‘It’s very simple. If I have to go through these documents in detail, I need your help.’

      Her frown evaporating at that statement, Lily sat forward with an air of eagerness, soft blue eyes brightening. ‘Certainly…that’s not a problem. How could you think it would be?’

      ‘I’m only here in Bodrum for a few hours. Since I have a board meeting in Istanbul tomorrow, I’ll be flying back there this evening. Later tomorrow, however, I’m going to my country estate and I suggest that you join me there and stay for a few days,’ Rauf murmured levelly. ‘It would be more convenient to have you on hand to answer any queries I might have and assist in my inquiries.’

      As Rauf delivered that bombshell Lily had parted her lips several times as if she’d been about to speak, but on each occasion caution had made her bite her tongue. She was unnerved by the prospect of staying as a guest in Rauf’s country home. However, in the circumstances, his request was a reasonable one. She could hardly expect him to fly back to the coast just for her benefit.

      ‘Yes, СКАЧАТЬ