Her mouth crumpled and abruptly his welling satisfaction disappeared. Had he got it wrong? Did she not feel this amazing connection between them?
‘Even though your people won’t respect you for choosing someone with a past?’
He shook his head. ‘I thought I needed a bride who met all those criteria because I never understood what I really needed was a woman I could love. My people will welcome the woman I choose, because she’s brave and true as well as beautiful and kind.’
Her arrested expression told him he’d finally got through to her.
‘Even though you risk getting a crick in your neck from kissing me?’
Salim’s heart gave a great thump of relief. ‘I’m willing to risk it.’ He swallowed, his mouth as dry as Dhalkur’s mighty desert. ‘How do you feel about me, Rosanna?’
‘You know far too much about seducing a woman until she can’t think straight.’ Salim grinned. ‘You’re also too good at giving orders and expecting to get your own way.’ She paused. ‘You have an important job and I’m scared I’ll be a liability.’
‘Never. We’ll make a perfect team. You can temper my autocratic tendencies and I can teach you everything you need to know about being royal. I predict you’ll become one of Dhalkur’s most popular queens. You’re honest and decent. You’re clever and capable. And you’re right forme.’
That was what mattered.
She blinked up at him. ‘You didn’t let me finish.’
Salim held his breath. Surely she wouldn’t deny him. Surely she cared. He willed it to be so.
‘You’re proud and obstinate but you’re a good man who really cares about people. You have a kind heart and...’ Salim felt as if he was stretched on a rack, tortured, as he waited to hear her judgement. ‘I don’t think I can be happy without you. I love you, Salim.’
He didn’t wait for more. He swept her off the ground and into his arms, her words ringing in his ears and his heart overflowing.
‘I should have known from the start,’ he murmured against her mouth. ‘You bewitched me from the first. I couldn’t get you out of my head. When you arrived in Dhalkur it seemed like fate.’
‘I doubt it. You were angry with me that first night.’
He shook his head as he strode across the room with her in his arms. ‘Not angry. Thrilled. Disturbed. Worried. Desperate.’
Her misty smile made his heart turn over. ‘I felt the same.’
‘Didn’t I tell you this was meant to be?’ He shouldered the door open and headed down the hall. ‘But we’ll take this slow. We’ll have a long engagement.’
Rosanna nodded. ‘That’s a good idea. That will give people time to adjust.’
‘Exactly. I’ll announce it tomorrow. A month from today.’
‘A month! That’s barely time to organise a dress, let alone a wedding!’
Salim smiled down at her as he carried her over the threshold into the bedroom. ‘It’s more than enough time when we have a palace full of staff to organise it. Besides, I can’t wait any longer.’
His bride-to-be regarded him seriously then slowly nodded. ‘In that case we’d better not delay.’
She reached for the top button of his shirt and Salim laughed with pure, exultant joy. He really had found his perfect match.
EPILOGUE
‘YOULOOKLIKEa fairy princess!’
Rosanna looked from Salim’s cousin, Tara, to the full-length mirror.
‘Ifeellike one.’ She swallowed. ‘I can’t believe this is happening.’
The reflection before her showed a poised princess wearing cloth of silver, heavily embroidered in more silver, and wearing diamonds at her throat and ears and in a circlet over her unbound hair. Her dress had a dramatic, mediaeval feel with a fitted bodice that gave way, around her hips, to the heavy folds of her full-length, jewel-encrusted skirt. The long sleeves widened from the elbow to reveal linings of exquisite cloth of gold, embroidered with gold thread and studded with rubies.
Rubies to match the simple but beautiful ruby she and Salim had chosen together for her engagement ring.