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Lauren grinned. ‘She thrives on occasions like these, doesn’t she? She’s already planning Malik’s first birthday party.’
Far from discarding Lauren’s urge to look deeper into his mother’s behaviour and how it’d dictated his relationship with her, Tahir had taken it to heart. A quick detour via Paris on their way back from their honeymoon in Zanzibar had laid the groundwork for a new relationship. His mother’s confession that the lump sums paid to her had been at her father’s instigation and that he wouldn’t take no for an answer had led her to believe that was the relationship he wished her to have with his children. She hadn’t been proud of it, but she’d reasoned that a skewed relationship was better than none at all.
Tahir’s scepticism had eroded with continued contact, and Malik’s arrival had finally brought about a complete change of heart. Malik’s grandmother adored him and wasn’t afraid to show it one little bit.
‘Any thawing from Javid?’
Her brother-in-law hadn’t been receptive to Tahir’s urgings to renewhisrelationship with his mother. In fact, they’d had a heated row about it.
‘He’ll come around in his own time,’ Tahir said. His gaze drifted to the far side of the grounds where Javid paced while on a phone call. The problems with the trade agreements had taken longer to fix in Riyaal, a fact Javid grumbled about every chance he got. Her brother-in-law had moaned at dinner last night that he hadn’t had a girlfriend in months, a fact Lauren had warned him not to remedy at his nephew’s party.
His grin and I-Make-No-Promises response had filled her with dread.
‘Or he’ll find a woman half as incredible as my wife and she’ll help him embrace every aspect of love, as I have.’
She blinked back sappy tears, even as she teased, ‘Only half as incredible?’
Tahir’s tawny gaze burned into hers. ‘No one holds a candle to you, my heart. They can try, but no one ever will. It’s why I’m grateful every single day for you. For the life you’ve given me and the love I’ll cherish for ever.’
She rose on tiptoes and pressed her lips to his, uncaring that tears streamed down her face and she was ruining her make-up.
‘As I’ll cherish you too, Tahir. For ever.’
