But when she dialled the number Zayed didn’t answer. Tears slid down her cheeks as she tried again. And again. She knew the signal was notoriously bad in this part of Wales but something told her there was a darker explanation why he wasn’t picking up. He didn’t want to talk to her. She’d got what she wanted. She’d told him she loved him and he had gone—and she was just going to have to deal with it. Yet something made her punch out the number one last time and she heard it ringing...
Outside her door!
Running across the room, she wrenched it open to find the Sheikh standing there and he took one look at her tear-stained face before pushing her inside, kicking the door shut with his foot before starting to kiss her. He kissed her as she could never remember him having kissed her before. It was a kiss which could have told the whole story of their relationship, full of sorrow and regret and undeniable passion. And as she kissed him back she told herself to be grateful for what she had. Because if this was as good as it got, then who was she to complain?
When at last she felt dizzy from sheer lack of oxygen, she tore her lips away from his. ‘Zayed. Listen. I get it. I totally get why you only want an arranged marriage and I’m good with that. Because I want you too much to bear thinking what life without you would be like. I can understand your reasoning perfectly. You don’t trust love and why should you? But it doesn’t matter,’ she said, panting a little. ‘It’s just a word.’
‘No, Jane,’ he corrected, with an emphatic shake of his head. ‘It isn’t just a word, it’s a feeling.’ He pulled her closer and stared down at her so that their eyes were locked on a collision course. ‘It’s what has been firing my blood yet filling me with despair in my inability to accept it. I, who am scared of nothing, was scared of the way you made me feel. Make me feel. It came out of somewhere—I don’t know where.’ He swallowed, his next words leaving his mouth with some difficulty. ‘Now at last I understand why my mother defied her country and walked away from an arranged marriage once she met my father. Because if she felt a fraction of what I feel for you—she would have been powerless to do anything else. None of us ever know what the consequences of love will be but that doesn’t mean we should ever turn our backs on it.’
‘Zayed,’ she said breathlessly but he silenced her with a brief shake of his head before starting to speak again.
‘All I know is that I don’t want to live without you, Jane. For me, that simply isn’t an option. That I want to take you back to Kafalah and spend the rest of my life with you. That I want you to have my babies, if destiny wills it. And most important of all, for you to know that I love you and that I will never stop loving you.’ His thumbs brushed away the few remaining tears which still lingered on her cheeks. ‘Now and for ever.’
And Jane, whose whole life had been governed by her agility and ability with words, for once was completely speechless. She just closed her eyes and briefly gave thanks for this chance at a happiness she’d never believed possible and she vowed to love him with all her heart for as long as she lived. And then she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and began to kiss him.
EPILOGUE
ZAYED PEERED INTO the crib. The lusty cries of the baby were growing quieter as sleep claimed him and the Sheikh smiled. A curled little fist lay above his son’s wavy black hair making him look as if he were about to do battle. Four months old, with a sturdy body more befitting a child almost twice his age—Zayed wondered if his first-born would become a thinker or a warrior. He smiled over at Jane. Or both.
‘Tired?’ he questioned.
She shook her head, golden-brown hair falling over the shoulders of her sky-blue tunic. ‘I had a nap this afternoon. I’m wide awake and raring to go.’
He walked over to lace his fingers in hers and together they went out onto the veranda, which was fragrant with the scent of blooms from the nearby rose garden. It was a clear desert night and the stars looked very big and very close.
He glanced down into his wife’s face. Motherhood suited her very well, he thought—for there was a new serenity and a calmness about her which shone from her like the brightest planet in the heavens. Every day, he loved her a little more. She had shown stoicism during her long labour and had wept quiet tears of joy when they’d put the wriggling child to her breast. As had he. She’d told him she planned to take a year off while Malek was still a baby and then planned to resume her work on the definitive study of Kafalah.
Zayed had never known that joy could be so fierce or that love could grow as rampantly as the most vigorous plants in the palace gardens. He had not realised that one woman would be enough for him. More than enough. But then there had been much he had not known before he met Jane.
Who would have guessed that his
kingship was made easier with her at his side? Or that her growing confidence and quiet intellect had made her a global sensation? Unlike many women she had not let it go to her head. She had refused all offers for interviews unless it was to draw attention to a worthy cause or to continue in her plans to pioneer the causes of women in the desert region.
She was smiling at him now, lifting on tiptoe so that she could touch her mouth to his, and he traced his tongue along her bottom lip, which trembled in response.
‘I love you, my sweet flower of the desert,’ he said.
‘And I love you too, Zayed Al Zawba.’
He could smell her perfume—more intoxicating than the musky scent of the roses outside. ‘When you said you were raring to go,’ he murmured, tightening his hands around a waist already slender, despite her having given birth so recently, ‘did you have anything particular in mind?’
‘I did.’ Her voice was a whisper; a soft command. ‘Come with me, my masterful Sheikh, and I’ll show you exactly what I had in mind.’
Pulling away from him, she flashed him a glance of pure coquetry which made him wonder how the hell she always managed to be so damned provocative. Maybe it was time to show her who was boss. She liked that. And so did he. With a small growl, he picked up his laughing wife and carried her into the bedroom.
* * * * *