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A trembling finger touched his lips—and he was forced to look at her at last. ‘Zane, don’t... You don’t have to say anything more.’
All he saw in her face was acceptance—and so the rest of it tumbled out.
‘I didn’t mean for her to die. She was an alcoholic. She was vulnerable and I deserted her when she needed me the most. After he told me she was gone, I knew it was my fault. That if I had stayed, if I hadn’t been so selfish, if I’d managed to get away from him and back to her, I could have stopped her from taking the overdose. The only way I could stop myself from falling apart after she died was to stop myself from caring about anyone that deeply again. But my grand plan went to hell when I met you... Those feelings terrified me. They still do. It’s why I can’t even hold you after we make love, can’t risk falling asleep with you and waking up with your arms around me. Why I’m scared to love the baby. What if I let you down the way I let her down? I never even said goodbye.’
* * *
‘Zane.’ Cat’s heart shattered. He looked so tortured, the guilt and remorse making his broad shoulders slump, his beautiful face a mask of exhaustion. ‘Alcoholism is a disease. She should have got help but she didn’t. Don’t you see that’s not on you? It’s on her. You were desperate and you were a child. You can’t possibly be responsible for what happened after you left.’
‘But even if that were true, I can’t...’ He jumped off the cargo bay, strode away from her, agitation in every step as he paced in front of her, thrusting shaking fingers through his hair. ‘I feel as if I’m trapped by the events of that night. It never goes away, it’s always there. What if it never does? How can I ever be a whole man if I can’t get over what happened to me as a boy? How can I offer you what you need?’ His g
aze strayed to the soft mound of her belly. ‘What our baby needs?’
She climbed down and went to him, taking his hands in hers, squeezing them tight. ‘Stop it, Zane.’
He’d opened up to her, told her something she was sure he’d never told anyone else. He didn’t understand yet how huge that was. But he would, because now, at last, they had trust. Something they could build on, which would allow them to share the pain.
He was scared. She understood that, because she’d been scared too. She’d been looking for intimacy, not realising that intimacy was the one thing he was most afraid of.
‘We can make this work together, if you let me in,’ she said. ‘If you tell me how you’re feeling. And if I do the same. If we communicate openly and honestly with each other we can overcome anything, even our fear.’
He pressed his forehead to hers and she heard the gulp of breath as he swallowed. ‘Yes, yes, I want that. If it means I won’t lose you, I’ll do anything. If you can still love me knowing that I let her die alone...’
‘Don’t.’ Cat flung tired arms around Zane’s neck, her giddy heart racing as she buried her face against the strong column of his throat and inhaled that delicious scent of cedarwood soap and man and desert air—the love sweeping through her on a wave of emotion.
She kissed his chin and his cheeks, hooking her legs around his waist and letting him lift her into his arms. His deep sigh of relief reverberated against her chest as he sat down on the helicopter bay door with her on his lap.
‘I love you so much, Zane. As long as you love me back, we can figure out the rest,’ she said, pressing her cheek to his chest as she banded her arms around his broad body and listened to the strong solid beats of his heart. ‘If you trust me.’
‘I do,’ he murmured, stroking her hair back from her face, then cupping her head. He lifted her mouth to his in a drugging, dizzying kiss, full of love and longing and hope.
As she watched the reddening dawn turn to gold on the horizon, she made herself a promise.
Whatever struggles lay ahead of them—as a new couple, new parents, a new monarchy—from this day forward they must never doubt their ability to overcome them, or the strength of their love for each other, ever again.
EPILOGUE
‘YOU NEED TO stop that. She’s supposed to be going to sleep,’ Cat said, trying to sound stern, but it was next to impossible with the sound of her husband’s deep chuckles and her daughter’s high-pitched baby giggles echoing round their bedchamber—interspersed with the sound of loud raspberries as Zane bent his dark head to blow on his daughter’s stomach and elicit a new round of laughter from them both.
As the game continued, the two of them totally oblivious to her admonitions, Cat found herself chuckling along with them, not sure whose enjoyment she found more wonderful, little Kaliah’s or her father’s. The brooding man she had first met a year ago in her old boss’s office in Cambridge had almost completely disappeared now, she realised. He was still just as masculine and magnificent—and still far too overwhelming, especially in bed. But these days, he was so much more relaxed and approachable.
His daughter, for one, didn’t seem to find him the least bit intimidating.
With her heart so swollen with happiness it was a wonder she could actually breathe, Cat lay back on the bed beside them, loving the sound of their joint laughter ringing off the bedchamber’s luxurious Moorish furnishings, the intricately carved screens and mosaics. And wondered when exactly the change in Zane had happened.
Had it been during those first few months, when they’d been kidding themselves that they weren’t in love while indulging in the insatiable sexual chemistry that continued to astound and excite her? Or later, after that heart-stopping declaration in the middle of the desert? Or had it been during the months after that, when he had finally been able to open himself up to the possibility of love after the traumas of his childhood? And had insisted on treating her as if she were the only woman in the history of the human race ever to have a child.
Well, you’re the only woman who’s ever had my child.
She grinned at the memory of his outraged exasperation every time she pushed back against his overprotectiveness—which was often.
Or maybe it had been after the birth of their daughter, when he’d held the tiny new life in his arms as if she was the most precious thing on earth—because, of course, she was—and declared that she had to be the brightest, strongest, most brilliant child who had ever lived, without an ounce of irony or hesitation.
Cat would have to agree with him there, because their daughter was as magnificent as her father, but then her gaze landed on the pile of toys Zane had insisted on purchasing for their three-month-old on their recent state visit to the UK.
Kaliah might be the brightest, strongest, most brilliant child who had ever lived, but Cat was going to have her work cut out preventing their daughter from becoming the most spoilt child who had ever lived too, when her daddy was so utterly besotted with her.
‘Okay, Princess Perfect, you really have to go to bed now. I have some very important business to discuss with your mommy.’
