She swallowed back the tears which were welling up at the back of her eyes, because she didn’t want to break down in front of him. There would be plenty of time for tears later.
‘And that’s why I’ve brought Cameron back to you.’
There was silence for a moment and his gaze was steady, as if he were giving her time to retract her statement, but when she said nothing, he spoke at last. ‘And you?’ he questioned heavily. ‘What will you do?’
She shrugged. ‘I will stay, because I have no choice other than to stay. I cannot deprive Cameron of a mother, any more than I can deprive him of a father. I will become the best Queen I can possibly be. I will accept and enjoy what is, and not yearn for things which are not mine to have. I will not ask you for love, Kadir, because one-sided love never really works—I saw that with my mother. And in time my feelings for you will fade—that’s inevitable...a bit like the flowers in a hot summer garden wilting if they don’t get enough water. All I ask is that you treat me with respect and set our son a good example of what an amicable relationship can be, so it doesn’t put him off love and marriage when he is of an age to want those things for himself.’ She forced a smile, which felt as if it were slicing her face in two. ‘Let’s do our best not to warp his perception about human relationships, shall we?’
Kadir closed his eyes, realising that she had condemned him with her words. That her generosity of spirit and good heart were making him feel like the most contemptible of men—and with good reason. He was not worthy of her. Perhaps he would never be worthy of her. But he had to show that he could try to be, if only she would give him one last chance. She had to. Because this was one battle he could not afford to lose. Unless it was already too late.
He opened his eyes and knew that he was responsible for the desperately sad expression she was doing her best to hide and a feeling of self-contempt made his blood run cold. What kind of brute was he? What kind?
He clenched his fists. ‘Caitlin, I need to tell you something—’
‘You don’t—’
‘Please. Hear me out, as I did you.’ He sucked in a ragged breath. ‘What I felt for you, all those years ago, was like a bolt of lightning to my heart. But my guilt about Adiya allowed me to convince myself it was nothing but the pent-up lust of a man who’d never had sex before, which had finally spilled over. Even when I returned to Scotland to find you again, I was certain that what I felt was nothing but carnal desire, and the anger I experienced when I found out about Cameron gave me permission to dislike you. But I couldn’t dislike you. The more time I spent with you, the more I saw your humour and softness, which had so attracted me in the first place. I discovered what a good person you were—as well as being a remarkable mother to our son. And that frightened me.’
For the first time, her face lost some of its tight, pinched expression. ‘Frightened you? You don’t strike me as the kind of man who would be frightened of anything.’
‘Everyone feels fear, Caitlin,’ he said, and as he spoke he realised he was being truly honest with himself. ‘It’s just that some of us are better at hiding it than others. I never opened up to the pain I’d felt when I was a child. I’d never shown anyone how much my mother’s treatment of me wounded me. I think I was trying to protect my father from any more suffering. He already had her betrayal to contend with—I think if he’d known of my heartbreak, it would have finished him.’ He sucked in a shuddered sigh. ‘Just like I never showed the pain I felt when Rasim died, for it felt like a kind of weakness to do so. I still had a country to repair after the ravages of war, and a people who were looking to me for guidance.’
‘So you buried all those feelings deep inside you,’ she said slowly. ‘Which only made it worse. Because things which are buried just get more and more rotten.’
He gave a bitter laugh. ‘You could say that.’
‘But why are you telling me all this, Kadir?’ she said, her voice sounding very precise, as if she was picking out each word with care. ‘And why now?’
Had he wanted her to guess at his reasons without having to articulate them? Of course he had. Because that would have been easier. Easier for him, certainly. But not for her. And he owed her this. He owed her so much, but this more than anything. ‘Because the pain of not having you in my life is far greater than any other pain I could ever contemplate,’ he husked. ‘It eclipses everything—even the fear of rejection and of becoming too reliant on another human being and opening myself up to hurt again. I’ve discovered that holding back from you and pushing you away doesn’t make me happy. Having you beside me does—but I’ve been fighting those feelings for so long.
‘I fought them at the beginning and I did the same when I brought you here. I fought them on our honeymoon—the single most blissful week of my life. And now I fear it may be too late. That you may have given up on me. But I love you, Caitlin. I love you so much.’ He slapped his hand over his heart and let it lie there. ‘Believe me when I tell you that.’
Had he been hoping for instant capitulation? For her to fling herself into his arms and forgive him? Yes, he probably had. But she didn’t move. She just stood there surveying him, with that same wary look in her eyes.
‘You don’t have to say all this stuff to seal the deal, you know, Kadir,’ she said stiffly. ‘Cameron is coming to live here, no matter what.’
He shook his head. ‘I’m not trying to seal the deal,’ he said simply. ‘I’m trying to heal the deal.’
Maybe it was the break in his voice which swung it—that or the transparent brightness of his gaze. Because suddenly she was hurling herself across the office as she had done once before on a plane high above the Alps. But this time she was not brandishing a jewelled paper knife above her head and threatening to do him harm. This time she was in his arms and covering his face with kiss after fervent kiss and telling him she loved him, that she had loved him from the first time she’d ever seen him and that she would never stop loving him.
And for the first time in Kadir’s life he knew peace. Real peace. Solid and rich and beautiful. Because he didn’t just love Caitlin—he believed her and he trusted her. And right now, that felt like the most profound gift he had ever received.
EPILOGUE
‘MAGNIFICENT.’
‘Superbly captured.’
‘What talent! Honestly, I had no idea.’
Caitlin smiled. Some of the praise was in English and some in Xulhabian, but she couldn’t fail to be aware that the reaction to her photographic exhibition remained heart-warmingly positive. It had been open for a month now but its sell-out status showed no sign of abating.
‘If it was anyone else reaping this kind of praise, I’d be worried that their ego might start over-inflating,’ Kadir murmured and she looked up to see a smile playing around the edges of his lips. ‘But since it’s you, my darling Caitlin, I don’t think there’s any danger of that.’
She gave a sigh of pleasure as she acknowledged his approval, and looked around the vast gallery space in Azraq which Kadir had commissioned to mount her debut photographic exhibition. At first she’d been worried that such a move might be seen as nepotism, but then a prestigious visiting dealer had seen it and asked if she would consider transferring it to London’s Mayfair. There was even talk of turning it into a touring exhibition, for the Xulhabian Tourist Board were eager to show the world a different side of the country which had been so faithfully recorded by their young Queen.
Blown up and magnified were images from their honeymoon—almost two years ago now. Dramatic sunrises, star-spangled skies and a desert tortoise basking in the sand, beneath the shade of a baswa tree. There were arty shots taken around the palace, showing areas which the public never usually got to see. Much interest had been generated by her early portrait of Kadir, walking through the wide marble corridors with his robes flowing around him and, seemingly, the weight of his destiny hanging heavy on his shoulders. Yet the most recent photo was of him and Cameron on their horses, looking into each other’s eyes and laughing. It showed a different side of the desert Sheikh—the more human side, as the international press were fond of putting it.
But pride of place went to a candid study of their son, holding the hamster previously known as Hamish. To Cameron’s delight, the much-loved pet had been flown from Cronarty to Xulhabi, and then surprised them all by producing a litter of seven pups. And so H