Shahir paled and compressed his beautiful mouth into an austere line. ‘Of course it is yours to give.’
‘Then you’re just going to have to live with being forgiven for thinking you were married to a thief.’ Studying his darkly handsome features, Kirsten felt her heartbeat accelerate, and tried not to smile because he was being so very serious. ‘We didn’t know each other when Tazeem was conceived. That was the real problem. We had all that physical attraction going for us and complicating things, but we were still almost strangers.’
Shahir looked pensive. ‘I had not thought of it from that angle. You are right. Trust takes time to build. But I had never known a hunger such as you awakened in me,’ he confided, half under his breath. ‘It was like a fire that burned out my common sense and control. I saw you and I was lost. I fought it and the fire kept on blazing up, destroying all my good intentions.’
‘I didn’t help you stick to your good intentions when I lied and said I wasn’t a virgin. Don’t keep on talking as if only one of us was in charge of events.’
A rueful laugh was wrenched from Shahir. ‘I was not in charge at all. With hindsight I see that when Pamela suggested you were not as innocent as you seemed I wanted to believe it because it made you seem more within reach.’
Temper sparking, Kirsten exclaimed, ‘What did that witch say about me?’
‘Foolish insinuations which I know to be untrue—for you were pure until I took advantage of you,’ Shahir stated soothingly.
Feeling that her being taken advantage of was not a direction she wanted their dialogue to travel in, Kirsten changed the subject to the one that had been on her mind from the minute she’d rushed to find him. ‘On our wedding day you told me you didn’t love Faria…’
His imperious dark brows rose in surprise. ‘I don’t.’
‘But, you see, I didn’t believe you. I assumed you were just saying that to cover up the truth and keep me happy.’
He viewed her with candid bewilderment. ‘I would not have deceived you.’
Excitement was beginning to nip at Kirsten. He had been telling the truth when he’d said he no longer loved Faria!
Shahir grimaced. ‘Perhaps I was not very convincing when I tried to explain about Faria, but I was most embarrassed. To reach my age and to realise that I had never been in love—’
’Never?’ she whispered in wonderment.
‘It wasn’t until I met you that I realised that the emotions you in spired far surpassed anything I had ever felt for Faria. I then felt very foolish. I had mistaken a moment of admiration, a daydream, for the real thing.’
Kirsten reached hurriedly for his hands and tugged him closer, fingers curving into his and clinging like mad. ‘So you were saying…?’ she encouraged.
Anxious dark golden eyes gazed down into hers and his hands tightened in the hold of hers. ‘I think I may have fixed on the dream of Faria, who was conveniently out of reach, as an excuse to avoid the threat of having to marry when I didn’t want to.’
Kirsten shifted enticingly closer, freeing one hand to slide it up over a broad shoulder. ‘It really doesn’t matter. What does matter is that when you took me into the desert and read all that gorgeous love poetry to me you were being romantic.’
‘What else?’
‘Because you felt romantic—not because being romantic was what you thought of as a duty on your honeymoon.’
Shahir looked indisputably lost as he attempted to work out that statement.
‘I’ve been so stupid…Of course, if you’d just said.’ Kirsten gave his tie a little admonitory tug as she began to unknot it. ‘Just said you loved me, then I would have known and I would have told you how I feel about you.’
Shahir trailed loose his tie and unbuttoned his collar with rare clumsiness. ‘So I just say…I love you?’ he breathed unevenly.
‘And I say…Fancy that? I love you too. I’ve been in love with you ever since you swooped up on that dangerous motorbike and almost ran Squeak over.’
They stared at each other, absorbing their respective expressions. A joyful smile had illuminated her face and a glow of happiness had banished his gravity and tension.
‘I think that must have been when it happened to me too. I never knew a happy moment after that until we were safely married,’ Shahir confided. ‘But how can you love me when I have made so many mistakes?’
‘Stop arguing about it…you’re loved,’ Kirsten told him.
‘I thought you were only marrying me because you were pregnant.’
‘And I thought that was the only reason you asked me.’
‘You could not have believed that the first time I proposed at the castle,’ Shahir pointed out. ‘At that stage it hadn’t occurred to either of us that you might have conceived.’