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‘I know you want to return to London, but give me a chance to show you the best of Jukrat? To make a home here with me? We can spend part of the year in London if you truly miss it...’
Her eyes widened. ‘You’d do that for me?’
‘For the chance to build a life with triple the happiness we’ve denied ourselves all these years? I’d do just about anything,habibti.’
Hope threatened to soar but, like him, she’d endured having it dashed to grasp it. ‘Am I truly your beloved, Tahir?’
The expression that came over his face threatened to blow her away. ‘I know what you heard me say about you and about Matt didn’t do me any favours, but it was just for my cousin’s sake. I instructed Ali to speak to the prosecutor the moment we got to the riad. Your brother has been given another month to prepare his case.’
She gasped. ‘Tahir... I don’t know what to say.’
His large hands framed her face, his eyes fervid on hers. ‘Then listen. There was only ever you, my heart. I want you whether you’re carrying our child or not. I want you beside me, ruling our people, dazzling me with that brilliant mind, stunning my senses with your incredible body. I want it all, Lauren. Do you?’ he demanded thickly. Ferociously.
She threw her arms around him. ‘Yes. Oh, please, yes!’
When she strained towards him, eager for his kiss, he held her back. ‘And? Is there something you want to say to me, my heart?’ The question was cocky, bordering on imperious, but the vulnerable look in his eyes said he wasn’t sure she felt the same. Wasn’t sure of the solidity of the ground beneath his feet.
She vowed then that she would never give him cause to doubt her love.
‘I love you, Tahir. I’ve loved you from the moment we met. I loved you even when I thought you hated me, and I’ll love you triple hard now I know it’s returned. Please, please, let’s build that life you promised together?’
He kissed her then. A deep, soul-shaking, life-affirming kiss that began to restore all the broken cracks of deprived affection they’d suffered.
When they parted, she placed his hand on her belly. ‘I’ve learned not to wish for much because it may be denied me. But I wish with everything that I have that this is true. That I’m carrying our child.’
She’d thought it impossible that his eyes could blaze brighter. But in that moment, they did. Dropping to his knees, the Sheikh of Jukrat placed a soft, reverent kiss on her belly.
Then, the most beautiful eyes in the world gazed up at her, love burning deep and true.
‘I’m the King. If I will it, it will be so.’
EPILOGUE
One year later
ITTURNEDOUTthat they had made a baby together that night in the desert.
Crown Prince Malik Al-Jukrat came screaming into the world nine months later, to his parents’ utter joy and the kingdom’s jubilation. He didn’t care that he’d put his mother through thirty-six hours of labour and his father through bouts of feverish cursing and making promises to every deity he could name.
He was adorable and that was all that mattered.
‘If you stare at him with any more adoration, he’ll become even more unbearable. And I have plans for those fingers you’re letting him wrapped his around so tightly,’ Lauren joked as her husband rocked their son beneath the nursery window overlooking the royal gardens.
She’d just finished feeding him in time for his debut at his christening. Like their royal wedding and her coronation as Queen Lauren, Sheikha of Jukrat, Humanitarian Ambassador to the United Nations, the guest list for Malik’s christening had grown from several hundred to thousands. Lauren’s complaint had been met with an implacable response. One Tahir now liked to trot out every time they hosted a state function or even a private party.
‘You’re the love of my life. I can’t let a day go by without showing the world what a beautiful treasure I’ve found. Don’t deny me.’
And truly, what was a girl to say to that level of adoration? She lapped it up, of course. And because it did her heart good, she gave it back tenfold.
She approached the two loves of her life now, dropping a kiss on her son’s head before peering up at Tahir.
His blinding smile awaited her, followed by a kiss that she felt all the way to her toes.
‘Does everything look ready?’ she said, glancing into the garden where the palace decorators had gone to town with the event planning. Boldly coloured chairs and flowers were spread out in cosy groupings, inviting guests to mingle. Lauren had taken inspiration from Tahir’s desert home—their desert home—and the result was breathtaking and relaxing.
‘They will be unless they want to incur Maman’s wrath,’ Tahir responded dryly.
As if on cue, the decorator and event planners rushed into view, trailing an older woman dressed in the sort of stylish French elegance that shrieked her royalty. She tossed out instructions, her hands flicking left and right as she navigated the decorations.
