‘I love you, Kamel.’ She left a gap and this time he filled it.
‘Je t’aime, ma chérie. Je t’aime. I have been too stubborn, too scared to admit it to myself.’
‘Amira...?’
‘I loved Amira, and her memory will always be dear to me. But what I felt for her was a thing that... If I thought you loved another man I would not let you go to him. I would lock you up in a tower. I am jealous of everyone you smile at. That damned chef creep...’
‘Jealous? You... You’re not just saying that because of the baby?’ She saw his expression and gave a comical groan. ‘I didn’t mention that part yet, did I?’
‘Baby...there is a baby? Our baby?’
She nodded.
He pressed a hand to her stomach. ‘You do know how much you have changed my life?’
‘I thought that was exactly what you didn’t want.’
He shrugged. ‘I was a fool. And you were charming and infuriating and brave and so beautiful. You swept into my life like a cleansing breeze, a healing breeze.’
He opened his arms and, eyes shining, she stepped into them, sighing as she felt them close behind her. ‘I love you so much, Kamel. It’s been an agony not saying it. It got so that I couldn’t even relax properly when we made love—I was so scared of blurting it out.’
‘So it was not that you had tired of me?’
She laughed at the thought. ‘That is never going to happen.’
He put a thumb under her chin, tilting her glowing face up to him. ‘You can say it as often as you wish now. In fact, I insist you say it.’
She was giggling happily as he swept her into his arms, and still when the security guard accompanied by a grim-faced Rafiq found them.
‘Kamel, stop him. He’s calling a doctor. Tell him I’m not ill,’ she urged as her husband strode on, refusing her requests to be put down.
‘You have had a stressful day and you are pregnant and I think it might be a good idea if a doctor gives you a check-over.’
‘And I suppose it doesn’t matter what I say?’
‘No.’
She touched the hard plane of his lean cheek.
‘You’re impossible!’ she said lovingly.
‘And you are mine,’ he said simply.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from WHAT THE GREEK CAN’T RESIST by Maya Blake.