The Wedding Party Collection. Кейт Хьюит
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famous.’
‘I have a credit card,’ said Lena.
‘Payment at this most exquisite abode may only be made by credit card,’ said Yasar. ‘Indeed, it is not for the financially challenged. I myself have never been there.’ Yasar met Trig’s gaze in the rear-view mirror. ‘There are other options.’
Trig was all for exploring other options.
‘What’s it called?’ Lena asked.
‘Saul’s Caravan. Though it is not a caravan, you understand. It is an old stone residence overlooking the city. It is thought to have once housed a King’s concubine.’
‘Do we have anywhere booked?’ Lena turned to him, her eyes imploring.
‘No. But...’
‘But what?’
‘I think I have a headache. I could be coming down with something. I’m probably not going to be of much use to you tonight, romance-wise, that’s all. We could save ourselves for another time.’
Lena eyed him thoughtfully before turning her attention to Yasar. ‘Yasar, what do you have for headaches?’
‘There is a drink,’ began Yasar, above the wailing of the radio.
Of course there was.
* * *
Lena went ahead and organised a two-night stay at Saul’s Caravan. The hotel accommodation to date had been fine but nothing special, and her encounter with the pickpockets and subsequent visits to the doctor had left her feeling as if they needed some place special in order to get this honeymoon back on track.
A driver from Saul’s Caravan collected them from the airport, his immaculate dark grey suit and the brand-new Mercedes he led them to an indication of what they might expect. The hotel stood high on a cliff face, grim, grey and surrounded by high stone walls half smothered in jasmine.
‘Look.’ Lena leaned across Trig to get a better look as they passed the entry gates. ‘It has a turret. I’ve always wanted a turret.’
‘I’ve always wanted a puppy,’ said Trig, but he smiled as they came to a stop at the hotel entrance.
The carved double entrance doors could have graced the Versailles palace. The mosaic tiles that covered the ground looked as if they belonged in a museum. A staggeringly beautiful woman greeted them and introduced herself as Aylin, the proprietor of Saul’s Caravan. She didn’t bother with check-in, but led them to their suite and showed them inside.
It felt a lot like stepping into Aladdin’s cave. Silver candlesticks and burnished pewter ware glowed atop burnished wooden dressers and sideboards. Gauze drapes hung from the roof above the huge four-poster bed and there was enough exquisite linen draping the bed itself to open a linen store. Old tapestries hung on the walls, half a dozen Persian carpets scattered the floor.
Because why have just one?
The suite had a tiny courtyard garden and sweeping views of Bodrum and the Aegean.
There was an outdoor eating area and a small indoor sunken pool, half hidden behind a carved wooden partition. A life-sized marble lion stretched out next to the partition. He appeared to be protecting a sleeping cherub. A life-sized painted plaster Virgin Mary graced one corner of the room, a jade Buddha sat in the opposite corner, and a trompe l’oeil of what Lena suspected was a Muslim prayer covered an entire wall. The room also contained a harp, a pianola, fairy lights and a gong.
‘Oh, yes,’ murmured Lena.
‘Are we still on the planet?’ Trig clearly doubted it.
Lena headed for the en suite—which was not to be confused with the other bathing pool. ‘Hey, Trig. There’s a surfboard-shaped mirror right here in the dressing room, next to the Tinkerbell lamp. Do you feel at home yet? Tell me you do, because there are costumes here too—that or someone’s left their clothes behind.’ She reappeared. ‘I love this place.’
‘I think it’s mental.’
‘Yeah, but I’m not in my right mind now either and you won’t be once I’m through with you. This place works on so many levels.’
Aylin smiled softly. ‘This room is strategically lit of an evening,’ she offered. ‘There are lights, for example, beneath the bed.’
‘Electrocution as well.’ Trig nodded sagely. ‘Tell me that doesn’t cost extra.’
‘It doesn’t cost extra,’ said Aylin.
Lena liked this woman already. ‘See? What’s not to love?’
Lena was on for the ride, the adventure, the unexpected.
‘One night,’ Trig said.
‘I booked us in for two.’
‘There’s half a winged cherub sticking out of the ceiling.’
Lena looked up. Indeed there was. And it wasn’t his upper half. She chewed on her lip and stifled another smile. ‘Definitely two.’
Trig rolled his eyes, but Lena knew she had him.
‘Two nights,’ she told Aylin sweetly and the woman nodded and stepped aside so that their driver could enter with their bags. A young woman followed in his wake, carrying a silver tray bearing refreshments. Another woman entered with a tray of fresh fruit.
‘You feeling indulged enough yet, princess?’ Trig wanted to know.
‘Is the bed big enough for you?’ she shot back. Because it was the biggest bed she’d ever seen. Antique. Custom made. Ever so slightly daunting. But Trig would fit on it and so would she.
‘We’re on our honeymoon,’ Lena murmured and Aylin looked first at Lena and then at Trig in clear assessment of what he might bring to the honeymoon party. And smiled.
* * *
If there was ever a place for a scarred and insecure woman to seduce a man, this was it, decided Lena as the staff left and she started exploring her surroundings in earnest. The furniture choices and combinations had a whimsy about them—they celebrated the absurd and the unexpected, the ridiculous and the frayed. The blue and white tiled mosaic on the bathroom floor had a jagged crack running through one corner but still dared the viewer to gaze on it and call it anything but magnificent. You could find beauty in imperfection here. An imperfect woman might find courage here and the boldness to seduce a wary man.
Because her husband? Whatever else he was, he was also a wary man. Especially when it came to being physically intimate with her. Kisses, he delivered with impressive thoroughness and abandon. Hugs, touches and full body contact, he could do that too, provided everyone was wearing clothes.
Jump into bed and the man had a habit of leaving the room.
And maybe that had been on account of the doctor’s orders, but Lena didn’t entirely buy into that scenario.
Trig wasn’t pushing the physical intimacy at all.
Take now, for example. They had everything they could possibly need when it came to an afternoon of seduction. They had water and wine, a tray full of finger-food delicacies and even a little hookah with a selection of flavoured tobaccos. And he stood there as if uncomfortable in his own skin, hunching slightly as he looked towards Bodrum with a brooding expression on his face.
He’d been brooding ever since he’d checked his phone—correction, one of his phones, because he had at least two that she’d seen.
He held it in his hand now, big thumb stroking absently over the screen. Whatever his mind was on, it wasn’t on her.
And Lena did most firmly want it on her.
She came to stand beside him, freshly showered and wrapped in an emerald silk robe that she’d found hanging on the back of the bathroom door. ‘That a work phone?’
‘No.