Seduced by the Sultan(20)

                For a moment Catrin was tempted to tell the truth. To say: Of course I didn’t know that! And even if I did, do you really think I’d be okay with it? Knowing that the man she loved was actively courting another woman without even bothering to tell her?

                What would Lise say if she bellowed out her pain and distress in the middle of the crowded restaurant and admitted that she felt a fool? Worse than a fool. She felt like the kind of woman who would accept whatever scraps a man was prepared to fling her way. Who would take whatever was on offer and that would be good enough—because hadn’t it been that way all her life? Had she become so used to accepting second best that she had carried it on into her adult life, and then thought it would make her happy?

                Knowing she had no right to take out her distress on Lise—for that would simply be shooting the messenger—she drank some water, and shrugged.

                ‘Of course I’m okay with that,’ she said. ‘It’s no great secret. I’ve known right from the start that there was never going to be any future for me and Murat.’

                Lise wore the same kind of expression as somebody who had slowed down on a motorway to survey the wreckage of a recent accident. ‘Really?’

                ‘Really.’ Where had she learned this smile? Catrin wondered. Had she been a magician’s assistant in a former life? ‘I’ve always known that the Sultan would have to marry a woman of pure, royal blood and that woman was never going to be me. That’s why neither Murat nor I have ever tied each other down with any kind of commitment.’

                The words sounded so convincing that she very nearly convinced herself. She managed to get them out as smoothly as if she had been commenting on the quality of the scallops, which now lay cold and congealing on her plate. And wasn’t it good to say them, rather than letting them build up inside her like a slow poison?

                ‘I’m with you there, and I’ll drink to that,’ said Lise, raising her glass in mocking salute. ‘Because getting Niccolo to commit is like getting blood from a stone.’

                But the false camaraderie between her and Lise made Catrin suddenly feel pathetic. As if they were a band of desperate women dating these two very eligible bachelors and waiting for them to commit.

                Was that what she had become?

                For a moment she experienced the strange, telescoping sensation of looking at herself from the outside. Of seeing herself as others saw her. A woman in an expensive dress without a job. A woman whose life was spent waiting for a man she increasingly saw less of. It was not a pretty picture and she felt the sour taste of self-disgust. She found herself asking just how long she was prepared to continue with a situation like this? Until Murat did find himself a wife?

                Pushing her food around the plate, she somehow managed to get through the rest of the meal. In fact, she did more than get through it. For a woman who had just found out that her lover had been actively seeking another bride, she thought her behaviour was exemplary. If medals were being awarded for indifference in the face of emotional turmoil, she would have come out with a shiny gold one. Nobody would have guessed from her attitude that she and Lise hadn’t spent the time discussing manicures, or recent films they had seen.

                At one point she laughed so loudly at a joke Niccolo made that Murat sent a frowning look of disapproval icing across the table towards her. Which only made her want to laugh harder and louder.

                He didn’t say a word until they were in the car on the way home, but when he turned to her it was with an unmistakable look of disapproval on his face.

                ‘So what got into you over dinner?’ he said, his forefinger tapping against his lips, like a teacher awaiting the answer to a question. ‘What merited the rather hysterical outbursts?’