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Kaden shook his head. “I returned to the palace and that night my father had his final heart attack. I got to him just before he slipped away, and his last words to me were pleas to remember that I was responsible for a country now, and had to look beyond my own personal fulfilment. By then I was more than ready to listen to him.”
“Oh, Kaden … I had no idea.” Pain cut through Julia as she saw how the sequence of events had played out with a kind of sickening synchronicity.
Kaden let her hands go and stood up, pacing away from Julia, self-disgust evident in every jerky movement. He turned round and looked haunted. “When you came to me before you left and tried to explain you got the full lash of my guilt and jealousy. I couldn’t be rational. All I could see was you and that man. It haunted me even when we met again. The depth of the feelings I had for you always scared me a little, and I never resolved them years ago. I buried them, and that’s why it took me so long to come to my senses …”
Julia felt incredibly sad. “We were so young, Kaden. Maybe we were just too young to cope with those feelings.”
Kaden raked a hand through his hair. “That’s why Samia looked at you with such hostility at her wedding. She was protecting me because she was the only one who saw the dark place I went to after you left. I never explained anything to her, so she assumed you’d broken my heart. When in fact I did
a pretty good job of breaking yours.”
“And your own …” Julia bit her lip to try and keep a lid on the overwhelming feelings within her. Tears blurred her vision, and despite her best efforts a sob broke free.
Kaden was standing apart, hands clenched at his sides, looking tortured.
She shook her head. “I just … I can’t believe you’re saying all this …” Another sob came out and she put a hand to her mouth. Tears were flowing freely down her face now.
Kaden clearly wanted to comfort her, but was holding back because he didn’t know if she wanted him. “God, Julia … I’m so sorry. What I’ve done is—”
“Kaden, don’t say anything else. Just hold me, please.”
Julia wasn’t even sure if her words had been entirely coherent, but Kaden moved forward jerkily, and after a moment he was sitting on the bed and enveloping her in his strong embrace.
Julia’s hands were clenched against his chest. She couldn’t stop crying, and kept thinking of all those wasted years and pain. Ineffectually she hit at his chest, and he tensed and pulled her even closer, as if to absorb her turmoil. Eventually he drew back and looked down, his face in agony. Seeing that made something dissolve inside Julia.
“Don’t let me go, Kaden …”
He shook his head and said fiercely, “Never. I’ll never let you go ever again.”
When the paroxysm of emotion had abated Julia pulled back in the circle of his arms and said shakily, “I’ve always loved you. I never stopped. You and no one else. From the moment I saw you again in London all the feelings rushed back as if we’d never even been separated.”
Kaden shook his head, clearly incredulous. “How can you? After everything … You don’t have to say this …
You don’t want to be here. You’ve been forced into this life.”
Julia touched his face and smiled tremulously. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the world. I was resigned to my fate, loving you while knowing you’d never love me back.”
Kaden’s eyes shone suspiciously. “Oh, my love … that’s what I expected. I love you so much that if anything had happened to you today …”
He went pale again, and the full enormity of what Kaden had gone through hit Julia when she thought of how she would have felt if their places had been switched.
Fervently she said, “Let’s go home, Kaden. I want to go home with you and start living the rest of our lives together. I don’t want to waste another moment.”
EPILOGUE
Seven months later
JULIA and Kaden were hosting a christening for their twins and for Samia and Sadiq’s baby son, who was just a few weeks younger than the twins. The ceremony had finished in the ancient chapel in the grounds of the archaeological dig site. Julia was standing with Samia now, and they were watching Kaden cradle his dark-haired baby daughter Rihana with all the dexterity of a natural. His brother-in-law Sadiq was holding his son Zaki with similar proficiency.
Samia and Julia’s first proper meeting had been awkward, but as soon as Kaden had set Samia straight she’d rounded on him and castigated him for letting her think the worst of Julia for years. Now they were fast becoming good friends.
“No doubt they’re discussing the merits of ecofriendly nappies,” Samia said dryly.
Julia snorted. “Kaden nearly fainted earlier when he smelt Tariq’s morning deposit.”
Samia giggled and linked arms with Julia. They’d just been made godmothers to each other’s babies. “Come on—let me introduce you properly to Iseult and Jamilah. You’ll love them. Jamilah, the dark-haired one, is Salman’s wife. She’s got an inner beauty to match her outer beauty, which makes it annoyingly hard to hate her.”
Julia chuckled. She’d only been briefly introduced to Sheikh Nadim of Merkazad and his stunningly pretty red-haired wife, and his brother Salman and his wife Jamilah. Both couples also had babies, who were crawling or toddling around, being chased by one or other of their parents.
