This Stream of Dreams (Mirella, Rashid and Adam Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

thoughts, are you?”
    “Well, maybe just a little concern, Josh. You are a formidable group to take on. But certainly no second thoughts. Frankly, I’m still so dazzled by your father’s courtship, I haven’t had much of a chance to think about you all, until this minute, When I realized the clan is my family now. Take you, for example,” she said as she snapped her fingers, “in you I have a most attractive and intelligent twenty-five-year-old son. It feels wonderful, exciting even — but strange. I know you all live separate lives away from Adam; that there are rooms for each of you in his house, the Peramabahçe Palace —”
    “Correction,” Josh interrupted. “Not
his
house;
our
house is what you must say now. I hope you don’t mind my correcting you, but ever since we were all summoned to Istanbul to meet you, although it was only for one day, we’ve taken you to our hearts as Father’s choice as wife, the newest member of our clan, the female head of the family. There’s never been one before you. We’ve always been a closely bound family, loving and devoted to each other while loving and admiring Papa. We delight in the life he has chosen for himself, as well as the one he gives us, so we’ve never really missed his not having a wife. Now that Papa has selected you to stand by his side, we’re all happy for him and for you, too, and for ourselves as well. We want to love you the way Papa does. So don’t feel strange. Welcome to the family. And now may I kiss the bride?”
    Mirella was touched by Josh’s sensitivity and grateful for his kind words. When he bent and kissed her on the lips, he had a similar warmth and appeal to that of Adam. Mirella knew instinctively that, in time, she would love him because he was every inch his father’s son, love them all because they were a part of Adam.
    “Yes, Mirella, welcome to the clan, Zhara said. “You’re brave to take us all on. You’re the loveliest bride I ever saw, and Papa looks so young and handsome, and happier and different than I can ever remember. I do hope you will love us, all of us. We already love you for making our papa so happy.” Then Zhara kissed Mirella.
    Rashid was standing on the fringe of the Corey clan with Deena and Brindley. One of the waiters approached him andannounced that the wedding guests were seated and waiting for the bride and groom. Adam heard him, went to Mirella and took her hand.
    “Well,” he said, “shall we go in alone, darling, or as a family, since all the clan is here? Well, almost all the clan is gathered; Marlo is missing. I can’t understand it. She said she would be here.”
    The disappointment on Adam’s face surprised Mirella, even slightly worried her, since Marlo was the only member of the immediate family whom she had not yet met. Mirella had a gut instinct that here was the woman, possibly the only other woman, who had ever got as close to Adam as she had. She felt not jealousy but rivalry — then put it out of her mind at once, because she knew she could not cope with even the thought. And besides, she was too happy.
    Marlo was Marlo Channing, a world-famous war photographer, mother of Adam’s youngest child, the seven-year-old Alice. And, Mirella knew from her first visit in Istanbul to the yali that Marlo was adored by all the children and women of Adam’s household. That time, too, Marlo had announced she would be there, flying in from somewhere in the African bush where she was covering the side of the rebels in a Nigerian uprising against the current regime, to meet Adam’s wife-to-be. They had all waited impatiently well into the night for her to arrive. Mirella remembered, as time wore on, how they had talked about her with such enthusiasm, love, and even adoration. Now, slipping her arm through Adam’s, and taking Alice’s hand in hers, Mirella announced, “This is my wedding breakfast, and I’m famished.”
    A chorus of “This is
our
wedding breakfast” rose up from the