‘But you won’t let me get close to you. You don’t love me.’
‘Why is that so important?’ he shot back. ‘I care about you. I want you—all the damn time. Why isn’t that enough?’
She raised a shaking palm to his cheek; she felt the muscle bunch as she stroked the rough stubble. Despite everything, she wanted to soothe the sadness in his eyes. But the only words her dazed mind could generate were the truth.
‘Because I won’t settle for less than I deserve. The way my father did.’
He jerked his head back. ‘What has this got to do with your parents? Is this some mad idea based on what happened when you were six?’ he said, but he didn’t sound accusatory, just devastated.
And suddenly she knew. She’d done the right thing. She’d believed that he was the only one who had to change, but the truth was, he wasn’t. She’d let him get away with never examining his feelings for her—with giving her platitudes instead of promises—because she’d been scared. But she wasn’t scared any more.
‘What I’m saying, Zane, is that this is my fault as well as yours,’ she said. ‘My father was a good man, a kind man, but he was also a weak one. I always blamed my mother for the end of their marriage, because she left, because she couldn’t remain faithful. But he was to blame too, for expecting so little from her. And I’ve been doing the same thing with you. I’m not going to do that any more.’ She breathed deeply and gathered all the courage she’d gained in the last days, and weeks and months. Ever since climbing aboard Zane’s plane and diving head first off a cliff. ‘You made me your Queen. You made me your lover. But you refuse to make me your wife—in any real sense of the word. And I won’t settle for less. I can’t, or our child will be just like I was. And you were. Caught in the middle of a relationship that isn’t real.’
* * *
The raw, aching wound inside Zane ripped open, the scar tissue no one but he could see tearing apart at her words. All he wanted to do was hold her, keep her safe. She looked shattered, exhausted, the bruised smudges under her eyes, the fragile shudders of her body, driving him wild. But she also looked so brave and indomitable.
The yearning he’d tried so hard to pretend wasn’t there, that he’d convinced himself couldn’t be true, welled up inside him like a tidal wave.
He tightened his grip on her arms, and dragged her to him, until his forehead touched hers, and her ragged breathing matched his own.
‘Don’t leave me,’ he said in a shattered whisper, knowing he couldn’t bear to ever let her go. That no matter what happened he would always want to keep her with him, and the child. To keep them safe and warm and his. ‘I want you to be my wife. In every sense of the word, but I just...’ He shuddered, the terrible fear consuming him. ‘I’m not sure I’m capable of giving you what you want.’
Her cold hand caressed his face, and his heart shattered. ‘Can you at least tell me why you think that?’ she asked.
He would have to risk everything now, because he didn’t just want her back, he wanted to know she would stay.
‘Why can’t we be a family, Zane?’ she asked again. ‘Why can’t you love me—’
‘Don’t...’ He slanted his lips across hers, feeding the hunger inside him he knew would never be satisfied. And silencing the words that cut him to the quick—words he knew he had brought about with his own cowardice.
All this time he’d been protecting himself. Determined not to see, not to acknowledge, what was right in front of his eyes: that he had fallen in love with her months ago. And this was the result. He could have lost her and his child.
She kissed him back, the sweet tentative licks of her tongue a benediction to his soul. He felt so tired all of a sudden, so weary of the lies, the subterfuge, the endless loneliness, the penance he’d forced himself to pay for so long.
At last he drew back and cradled her face in his hands, forcing her to meet his eyes. ‘Catherine,’ he said, tears he had tried so hard not to shed smarting in his eyes. ‘I do love you. I love you so damn much I could hardly breathe when I found out you’d gone.’
‘But...are you sure?’ she asked, her sleepy hazel eyes so wide with stunned disbelief he almost wanted to laugh.
Until the amusement turned to shame.
He’d let her believe she was somehow unworthy of his love. When it had always...always been the other way around. He had never been worthy of hers. And now he had to tell her why. But first, he needed to come clean about his feelings.
‘How could I not love you, Catherine?’ he murmured, his voice hoarse with need. ‘You’re smart and courageous and compassionate and determined and so sweet...’ He grasped her bottom and dragged her towards him until her thighs widened and her core was flush against the already prominent ridge in his pants. ‘And every time you’re in my arms, I know I can never have enough of you.’
The blush charged across her face. ‘Then why did you try so hard to keep me at a distance?’ she asked and he knew his time was up.
‘Because I didn’t want you to know the man you’d married. It’s all a goddamn facade, Catherine. The power, the sex, the invincibility.’
The small smile that curved her lips broke his heart. ‘But I don’t need you to be invincible, Zane. I just need you to be you.’
‘You wouldn’t want me if you knew me,’ he said. ‘If you knew what I did that night... I...’
She pressed her hands to his cheeks, forced his gaze to meet hers. ‘Zane, whatever it is you have to tell me,’ she said, the faith in her eyes only crucifying him more.
He tugged his head out of her hands, knowing he couldn’t speak with her touching him, because then the truth would taint her too.
‘That last night in LA after the argument with my mother, it wasn’t a coincidence that my father arrived the next day.’ Shame and disgust engulfed him. He struggled to breathe, to finally expel the words he’d never told another living soul. ‘I contacted him. I called the Narabian embassy in New York.’ The words choked up in his throat as the bitter guilt flooded back. ‘I told them I was the Sheikh’s son, that I wanted to be with my father. That my mother couldn’t look after me any more. I knew she loved me, despite all the arguments, the money problems, the drinking...’ He couldn’t say the word, the disgust making his whole body shake now. ‘But I begged them to contact him, to tell him. To take me away from her.’