His jaw clenched and the pain which had been twisting inside him grew unbearable. He knew he could walk away after he’d seen his little boy. He could agree that all such future meetings would probably be best conducted on neutral territory, through their respective lawyers. Or he could tell her the truth, which was only just beginning to dawn on him. A shocking truth which seemed to have come at him out of nowhere.
He thought back to when he’d discovered he had a son and told Jazz he would continue to seek a suitable bride, before blithely announcing that Darius would be his ‘insurance policy’ in case his new wife proved infertile. Suddenly he recognised just how wickedly cruel his words had been, though he’d never really stopped to consider the consequences of saying them before now. He thought how tolerant she had been, even in the face of all that heartlessness. How strong and brave in withstanding the undoubted suspicion and coolness of the palace servants when he’d first taken her to Razrastan. And determined, too. She had rejected his advances when they’d arrived at the royal palace—with a single-mindedness he suspected most other women wouldn’t have displayed in her place. Didn’t that make him respect her even more?
‘Jazz, listen to me.’
‘We’ve said everything we need to say.’
‘But that’s where you’re wrong. I haven’t even started but I need to start now by telling you just how much I miss you—’
‘No!’ she butted in, urgent desperation in her voice, as if she couldn’t bear to hear what he was about to say. ‘One thing I’ve always admired about you is your honesty—so please don’t ruin that by telling me lies!’
‘Not lies but the truth,’ he argued doggedly, as the certainty inside him grew. Like when your plane dropped down, out of the cotton-wool blur of the clouds—and suddenly there was a whole clear landscape below you. ‘I’ve realised why I ended my relationship with you the first time round—long before I planned to.’
‘Don’t,’ she whispered, with a shake of her blonde head. ‘Just don’t.’
‘It was because you used to make me feel stuff,’ he continued, undeterred. ‘Stuff I didn’t want to feel. I listed all the reasons why you were unsuitable for any kind of future and I forced myself to believe them. But I never forgot you, Jazz. Not ever. Why else do you think I chose to come to you when I needed comfort and succour after my brother disappeared?’
‘Because you thought I would be a walkover?’
He shook his head. ‘No,’ he said simply. ‘Not that. And not just because you were the best lover I’ve ever had but because something told me that with you I would be able to break the rule of a lifetime, and talk. Why else did I never…’ his voice deepened, and cracked ‘…take another woman to my bed, since parting from you?’
She was staring up at him, disbelief widening her green-gold eyes. ‘Are you trying to tell me you haven’t had sex with anyone else since we split up?’
‘I am telling you, because it’s the truth,’ he clarified unsteadily. ‘And I’ll you another. That my morning rides haven’t been the same without you by my side to talk to. That the palace has seemed empty without you there. But I’ll tell you something else, something which eclipses all those other realisations and that is that I love you. I love you, Jazz. I love you so very much.’
She shook her face from side to side, her expression disbelieving and mulish. ‘But you don’t want love. You don’t do love.’
‘That’s what I thought and that’s what I said—only now I discover I was wrong. Because I don’t want to live without it. Without you. Without Darius. My family—the most precious thing in the world, which I almost let slip through my fingers.’ He reached out and took her hands in his, and even though they lay there—inert and cold—she didn’t pull them away. ‘Will you forgive me for all the cruel and unthinking words I’ve said to you, my beautiful Jazz? Will you give me another chance to show you that I am capable of change, and of love? Will you allow me to become the husband you deserve? To cherish you and protect you for as long as I live?’
There was a pause during which she shook her head again as she stared down at the exquisite silken rug he’d had shipped here from Razrastan. But when at last she lifted her gaze to his, he could see bright tears brimming over in her extraordinary eyes, making them look like new leaves which were drenched with the morning dew.
‘Yes,’ she whispered, at last. A tear was trickling down her cheek but her fingers were curling into his. ‘How could I refuse when I love you, too? When I’ve never stopped loving you, no matter how hard I tried.’
He smiled but it took an effort as he realised just how close he’d come to losing her. And as he pulled her close, he discovered that the wetness on her cheek was mingling with tears of his own. ‘But now you don’t have to try any more, my love. The only thing you have to do right now is to seal our love in the most traditional way of all.’ His words grew unsteady as he positioned her face so that her mouth was within claiming distance. ‘So kiss me, Jazz. Kiss me and convince me all this is real.’
EPILOGUE
IT WAS A perfectly warm English evening. The sinking sun was gilding the edges of the sky as dusk glimmered on the horizon. On the veranda of their large, white house overlooking green hills and rolling countryside, Jasmine kicked off her shoes, which were sinfully high to walk in, but which were her husband’s undoubted favourite, which was why she wore them. Briefly, she closed her eyes because she still got a sharp hit of pleasure whenever she thought about those two words.
My husband.
The man she had married and the man she loved. The man who loved her back and who had no qualms about showing her just how much.
As if on cue, Zuhal emerged from the house where he had been kissing their three children goodnight after reading them one of the many Razrastanian fables which Jasmine was eager to see translated into English because they were just so good. Darius particularly liked the one about the desert falcon who discovered the lost rubies before turning into a prince and marrying the Princess. Unbelievably, their son was nearly five now and a bright tearaway who loved teasing his twin sisters, Yasmin and Anisa—eighteen months old and the apples of their father’s eye.
She looked up at him and smiled. ‘Everything quiet?’
Zuhal’s answering smile was slow, the glint in his eyes provocative and his murmured reply contented. ‘Fast asleep. Which means we have the whole evening ahead of us. What would you like to do, my love?’
What Jasmine sometimes wanted was to pinch herself, to ask herself whether this could really be happening, if life could possibly be this good. But it could, and it was. From difficult and rocky beginnings there had emerged the kind of relationship she had never imagined would exist bet
ween her and the Sheikh of Razrastan.
She and Zuhal had married in a lavish ceremony in his country, attended by the great and the good from around the globe and, in the absence of a father, his brother Kamal had consented to give her away. She had become close to the King in the time leading up to their wedding and during their subsequent visits, though, as she sometimes said to Zuhal, he had hinted at something which had happened to him during his period away from the palace—something to do with a woman, which had not yet been resolved.
And then something else wonderful had happened. Her ex-husband had seen the reports of her marriage in the newspapers and had wished her every happiness, telling her that he had remarried himself. In fact, Richard and David had managed to track down a rare, first edition of Razrastanian poems and had sent it to her and Zuhal as a wedding present and, with that simple gesture, yet another scar of the past had been healed.
As newly-weds, she and the Sheikh had decided to settle in England, moving to an enormous estate in the beautiful county of Sussex, where Zuhal had achieved a lifetime ambition and, in addition to his thriving property and shares portfolio, had opened up his own polo club, which was currently breaking all records. It had taken him a while to adjust from the idea of being a prosperous king to being a prosperous businessman again, but he had seen the many benefits his new life offered him. And these days he articulated all his hopes and fears to his beloved wife.