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Claire wasn’t listening as well as she should have been. ‘She’s very beautiful,’ she remarked stiffly. ‘And she’s warm and kind. As a teenager, you had surprisingly good taste.’
‘But unhappily for me, I decided I was in love before I even understood what love was. I was a romantic, an idealist,’ he breathed ruefully. ‘A young woman who was out of reach...being almost a family member...was a safe focus for those feelings. She was in love with someone else and soon to be married. There was never the smallest prospect of anything of a romantic nature developing between us.’
Claire emerged from her reverie of unhappy thoughts and her brow furrowed as she turned back to him. ‘You’re saying it wasn’treallove.’
‘It felt real to me because I had no other woman to focus on and, let us be frank, the way I lived before I met you, that was enough for me to feel at the time. My mother’s lifestyle had sickened me. Loving cleanly from afar suited me and gave me yet another reason to reject casual sex and relationships,’ he proffered. ‘Hell, Claire...have you any idea how foolish I feel trying to explain this all to you now?’
Claire lifted her head, her blue eyes wary. ‘Why would you feel foolish?’
‘Because I was the idiot who thought an innocent crush was everlasting love!’ Raif bit out with scorn. ‘Even though I never lusted after her, even though I never made any attempt to see more of her, I still didn’t understand my own feelings enough to realise that it was nothing more than an innocent boy’s infatuation! But I should have seen the difference.’
‘Let’s go back upstairs,’ Claire urged, fearful of them being overheard, already having espied a maid in the hall doorway, the woman clearly wondering if she should offer to serve them refreshments.
Claire started up the staircase in the wake of Circe, struggling to grasp what Raif was telling her. That he didn’t love Nahla, after all? Was that what he was saying? Or was she only hearing what she wanted to hear? Mistakenly interpreting his words to mean what she wanted them to mean? Her brain was whirling with disconnected thoughts and her emotions were running on high. She simply couldn’t think clearly.
At the top of the stairs, she moved into the sitting room, where Circe jumped on an armchair and curled up in graceful cat relaxation. ‘I’m sorry I took off like that.’
‘You’re still not listening,’ Raif censured, poised and deadly serious.
‘You’re saying it wasn’t love,’ she responded, disconcerting him with that quiet analysis. ‘When did you decide that?’
‘About the same time that I finally realised that I was in love with my wife. That was my true wake-up call. But, unluckily, I’d already shot myself in the foot by telling you that I was in love with someone else.’ Raif sighed.
Claire blinked rapidly, not quite believing what she had heard, and she stared at him. ‘What on earth are you talking about? We’re talking in circles and you’re confusing me.’
A groan of frustration fell from Raif’s lips. ‘You don’t believe me, which is why I didn’t try to tell you sooner. I went about this all the wrong way.’
He had realised that he was in love with his wife? But that washer! Claire gazed back at him, captured by stunning dark golden eyes and the increasing tension in his stance. He couldn’t mean that, he couldn’t possibly mean that!
‘When did you realise that? That you thought you might...love me?’ she queried unevenly.
‘It was many weeks ago, but I should have recognised my feelings sooner. From the moment I met you, I could think of nothingbutyou! From that day, I was consumed by my thoughts and my memories of you. Doesn’t it occur to you that my behaviour with you when we met was wildly out of character? I should have been the least likely man in the world to have a random one-night stand,’ he pointed out. ‘But you broke through my defences, and it was as though you cast a spell over me because, after you, nothing else mattered.’
‘You walked away, afterwards,’ Claire objected, because that still rankled and stung.
‘And I pined for weeks on the yacht like a blasted schoolboy!’ Raif complained. ‘But I didn’t think I had anything more to offer you because I still believed that I loved Nahla and I didn’t want to drag you into some grubby affair that had nowhere to go.’
‘Youpined?’ Claire pressed in disbelief.
‘I pined. I wouldn’t let myself phone or text you and I told myself that a clean break was the best I could offer you.’
‘Oh, thanks for that,’ Claire quipped, tongue in cheek.
‘You deserved more from me, and I knew it,’ Raif told her squarely.
‘And then you discovered that I was on your yacht,’ Claire continued.
Yet the whole time they were talking, her mind was racing ahead. He had said that he loved her. Raif had said that he loved her. She wanted to jump up and down, throw champagne, toss balloons and entire flocks of doves into the blue sky. The man she lovedlovedher right back and that was more than she had ever hoped to have.
‘That was a shock. All those weeks I had been thinking about you, you were within reach...but yetnotbecause I could not have renewed our relationship while you worked for me,’ he asserted tautly. ‘Yet I would have wanted to, so I’m grateful that we weren’t faced with that temptation.’
‘I spent almost half the trip worrying that I was pregnant.’
‘I deeply regret that you went through those weeks of anxiety without my support.’ His dark golden eyes were glittering like polished ingots in the sunshine flooding through the windows. ‘But, let me say this only once...our son is a gift and a blessing. We are very fortunate.’
And Raif truly meant those sentiments, Claire registered with her eyes stinging a little from over-emotional tears. When it came to her pregnancy, Raif daily demonstrated his commitment to them both and he studied every ultrasound image with fascination and pleasure. He had not missed out on a single one of her health check-ups either. Her medical care was incredibly good, with the obstetrician coming to the palace to see her every week.
‘You’ve got no resentment about our baby and the timing at all?’
