‘It was nothing—’
‘Nothing?’ This was everything she’d feared. Her children would never know their father. What woman would want her husband’s bastard children flaunted under her nose? At best they’d be hidden away in a remote part of the country. She couldn’t stand the thought of it. She wanted to raise her children where they’d be free. ‘I always knew there’d be someone,’ she exclaimed, imagining a face similar to those beautiful young women she had seen depicted on the walls.
‘There’s no one, I promise you.’ Razi took hold of her arms, bringing her in front of him. ‘There’s no one but you, the mother of my children.’
‘But we can’t always have what we want,’ Lucy anticipated with eyes wide and wounded.
He didn’t want to be so brutally frank with her, but while his council had applauded the forthcoming proof of his fruitfulness a foreign bride would rock the country to its very foundation—even a foreign mistress flaunted in front of the traditionalists would be a step too far. The cold truth was, he would acknowledge their children and afford them full rights and privileges, but Lucy had to go. He couldn’t have Lucy and the throne so he had no option but to send her away. His life was pledged to a country—and Lucy was right. He couldn’t have what he wanted any more than she could.
‘You don’t have to explain anything,’ she said.
‘Yes, I do,’ he argued, touching her cheek so she had nowhere to look but in his eyes. ‘And for once, you have to listen.’ His duty was to defend a kingdom, to help it grow and to provide heirs, but he would do everything he could to protect Lucy from further hurt. It would take more than a few days to build her confidence in him until it could never be shaken and words wouldn’t do it; he had to prove himself.
‘I can’t stand by and watch you with someone else, Razi. I won’t.’ She was growing ever more heated. ‘Not when I know that no one can ever love you as I do.’
‘You love me?’ He was brought up short by this admission.
‘You must know I love you,’ she told him, frowning.
‘How would I know that?’
Razi was right. She had never been brave enough to tell him that she loved him. And after everything he had confided in her she had never once told him that it could be different, that a woman could love him and that his loveless childhood was not the norm. She had been too wrapped up in the fact that a desert king with more power and wealth than she could imagine would never take up with a cook, and had never once considered that what Razi needed most was love, and that love was the one thing she could give him. She had thought him aloof, but when had she risked her feelings? She would walk through fire for him, but when had she told him that?
A cold hand gripped Lucy’s throat at the thought that she had never told her parents how much she loved them either. But it was no use burying her face in her hands. She had to do something about it. She had Razi to thank for building her confidence to the point where she’d caught a glimpse of what she could be, and only herself to blame for losing her grip on that image. She was about to become a mother and that had changed her. She was a woman who was deeply in love with one man—a woman who mustn’t allow the old insecurities to master her a second longer. ‘Yes, I love you,’ she said defiantly. ‘Make what you will of that.’
He smiled inwardly at this return of the battler and he knew Lucy’s words came straight from her wounded heart. He wouldn’t hold her to them. He had never looked for love, let alone expected to find it. He had never guessed that Lucy felt anything more for him than passion and fascination for someone who came from a very different culture, a very
different world. She had always seemed so businesslike out of bed—all this talk of restaurants and shares in a business. However he felt about her was irrelevant. He’d learned to smother feelings like those years back.
He told her everything about the supposed marriage contract with his cousin and how it could never have been, and that it was a cheap trick dreamed up by Leila’s father. ‘He couldn’t have known that as far as my own father was concerned I didn’t exist. I never even met him,’ he explained to an incredulous Lucy. ‘My father, the ruling Sheikh of Isla de Sinnebar, never once acknowledged me during his lifetime as his son.’
‘Oh, Razi—’
He shook off her tender concern. ‘That’s why I’m so proud to acknowledge my children—and why I’ll always be there for them—’ He stopped, seeing the fear in her eyes. This was about reassuring Lucy, not about him. ‘As my father never mentioned me, why would he arrange a marriage for me? I knew at once that the document Leila’s father presented was a forgery, but I had it scrutinised by experts, just to be sure. And now it’s all been put to bed.’
‘With a large pay-off?’ she interrupted, still fearing the worst.
He could see where this was going. ‘Lucy, this is nothing like your situation.’
She pulled her hands out of his grasp.
‘Things are going to be very different for you,’ he stressed. ‘I only wish there was time now for me to lay out all the plans I’ve made for you.’
‘You’ve made plans for me?’ she said softly.
He glanced around. ‘Can’t you see one of your wonderful restaurants here in this courtyard once I open this palace to the public? A café in the courtyard—and perhaps another restaurant for gourmet eating in the gardens?’
He was all fired up with his plans for Lucy’s future, but at the back of his mind was the knowledge that he must shower and change into formal attire before the council meeting…
The more he thought about the meeting, the more he thought about what could be if life were shunted onto a different track. And he could do that. He could do anything he wanted to as long as it embraced his vow to Isla de Sinnebar…
Now a plan was forming in his mind. He felt quite cool and certain as he mulled it over. This was right. It was hard to understand why he hadn’t seen it before. ‘I have a meeting,’ he explained to Lucy, ‘and I can’t be late.’ He was becoming more eager to take the action that would irrevocably change his life.
‘Razi, wait,’ Lucy said, picking up on his sense of urgency.
Taking hold of her hands, he pressed his lips to the palm of each of them in turn, and then, cursing softly in Sinnebalese, he shook his head regretfully. ‘There’s never enough time.’
‘No, I can see that,’ she said quietly.