She touched his arm. ‘You’re not what, Raif?’ she said gently.
He gripped her arms and dragged her into his embrace, burying his face in her hair, his shallow breaths tortured as a shudder ran through his body.
‘I am not a good man,’ he said.
Emotion seized her own throat as she grasped his cheeks, forced his gaze to meet hers. ‘What do you mean, Raif? Of course you are.’
‘No, you do not understand,’ he said, touching her cheek. ‘I killed her and now I will kill you, too.’
Her? Who was he talking about? But as he continued, his voice breaking, suddenly she knew. He was talking about the mother he’d lost, the mother he’d never known, the mother he’d tried to honour by insisting on marriage all those months ago.
‘I didn’t pull out, I made you take my seed,’ he said. ‘When you were untouched. And now you are bearing two babies. Two babies that are too big for you.’
Her heart shattered in her chest. The tears eased over her lids at the pain in his voice. The raw, unguarded fear. She had thought this man couldn’t love her, couldn’t love their children, when he already loved them—maybe too much.
‘I don’t want to lose you,’ he said, his voice weary as she noticed the dark shadows under his eyes. How much had he slept in the last week? How could she not have seen how tormented he was? ‘If you truly love me, you must go back and stay safe.’
‘Shhh…’ she whispered, the tears falling freely now as he clung to her. She stroked his cheeks, felt the delicious rub of stubble against her palms. And pressed her lips to his. ‘It’s okay, Raif. Look at me,’ she commanded, and his tired gaze finally met hers. ‘I’m not going to die. I promise. I’m strong and healthy. You have doctors here and midwives and there is a clinic only a day’s ride away. Women have babies safely here all the time, even twins.’
‘But they are Kholadi women,’ he said. ‘They are accustomed to the desert life.’
She smiled, impossibly touched by his stupidity.
‘But I’m a Kholadi woman now, too.’
This wasn’t about the desert culture, though, not really. Or her ability to handle the nomadic lifestyle that was so much a part of who he was. He knew that to be the Kholadi Princess she would have to embrace that lifestyle, too.
No, his fear for her life, was much more personal than that.
What he really feared was his own feelings, the way she had feared hers. She understood that now, even if he did not. Of course this was harder for him to navigate because she doubted whether he had ever cared for anyone the way he cared for her.
So she would have to show him how.
She took his hand and pressed his palm to the bump beneath her robe. She couldn’t feel the babies moving yet, but the bump had become quite pronounced already.
‘Do you feel that, Raif? Our babies grow inside me and I will keep them safe always. And love them the way I love you. Love is a gift and, yes, it’s terrifying at times because you mean so much to me now that I couldn’t bear to lose you either. But the only way we can navigate that fear is to do it together.’
He stared at her belly, his large palm resting on her bump. When his gaze finally lifted to hers she could read every emotion in it. Fear, still, and heat, but most of all love. Raw and basic and untamed. And all the more powerful for it.
‘I didn’t want to lose you,’ he said. ‘I wanted to keep you safe.’
‘I am safe,’ she said, with complete certainty. ‘As long as I am with you.’
At last he nodded, then he dropped to his knees in front of her. Bracketing her hips with his hands, he held her tight and pressed his cheek to her belly. Worshipping her in a way she had never expected any man to worship her.
She threaded her fingers through the short hair on his scalp, felt his shiver of reaction and the leap of desire arrowed down to her core.
He lifted his head at last, to peer up at her. ‘You refuse to go back?’ he asked.
‘Yes, Raif. I refuse to go back.’
Nodding, he got to his feet then lifted her into his arms and carried her towards the lavish bed at the back of the tent. ‘Then I suppose I will have to make good use of you,’ he said. And for the first time in what felt like for ever she laughed.
He made slow, careful love to her—too slow, too careful—as night fell over the desert, but as she reached one climax and then another and another, she felt herself soar into the stars, and knew that, however high she flew, her Desert Prince would never let her fall.
EPILOGUE
Nine months later