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‘The most important thing our son achieved was to bring you back to me,’ Raif asserted with a brilliant smile. ‘You’ve turned my whole life around.’
‘Well...’ Claire murmured, crossing the floor to slide her hand meaningfully into his. ‘You gave me a palace to live in, a state-of-the-art kitchen and a great deal of happiness.’
Claire urged him gently in the direction of their bedroom, leaving Shahbaz to work out for himself that there was no point offering them coffee.
‘I like watching you dance in the kitchen,’ he confided.
Claire flushed and turned to close the door behind them. ‘I didn’t know you’d seen that.’
‘Sometimes I spy on you. I didn’t mention it because I don’t ever want you to stop dancing,’ Raif confessed. ‘So you believe me about Nahla?’
Claire wrinkled her nose. ‘I’m not sure I understand why you’re uncomfortable when she’s around—’
‘Which of us enjoy being reminded of our teenage misapprehensions?’ Raif traded wryly. ‘But I’ll get over it. Some day I’ll look back on that piece of stupidity and laugh, but I cannot laugh at anything that threatens to divide us. I would have been wiser never to mention her at all than to make such a production out of it.’
‘No. I appreciated your honesty at the time and I appreciate it now...more than you know,’ Claire told him gently as she unknotted his tie and cast it aside. ‘But the truth is that I love you to death and even if youstillthought you loved her, I’d still love you to death because you’re a very special man.’
‘You love me? Even though I spoiled our marriage from the outset with that stupid confession of mine about Nahla?’ Raif questioned incredulously. ‘I wanted to tell you weeks ago that I loved you, but I felt that I couldn’t because, after what I’d told you about Nahla, you’d never have believed me.’
‘I’m believing you now,’ Claire pointed out, embarking on his shirt buttons. ‘Love shows in so many things you’ve done for me. If I’d had stronger self-esteem, I would have worked out that you loved me a long time ago, but I was never going to tell you that I loved you when I thought you loved someone else.’
‘I take it the Nahla business is behind us now.’ Able to take a hint, Raif doffed his jacket and shed his shirt. ‘I can’t credit that you fell in love with me too. When did that start?’
‘That very first night,’ Claire admitted, rather misty-eyed.
‘I like that,’ Raif admitted as he swept her dress up over her head. ‘I suppose that’s when I started developing feelings too. I didn’t want to leave you and I wanted to turn time back and have that night over again. I love you so much. I had no idea that it was even possible to love anyone as much as I love you.’
Claire peeled off her remaining garments and lay back on the bed to watch him strip. ‘I still get a kick out of watching you strip,’ she confessed.
‘Any time...’ Raif promised, making a production out of getting down to his bare skin.
Claire laughed as he came down to her on the bed, lean, muscular and golden in the sunshine lighting up the room.
‘I will never stop wanting you,’ he told her urgently as he claimed a passionate kiss and the silence crept in around them slowly, punctuated only with the occasional moan or sigh. They made love with the urgency of two people who both felt as if they might have missed out on each other. Even so, they had made it through all the misunderstandings and their mutual happiness was so strong they sat up talking and loving half the night. There were no more secrets, no more doubts or insecurities between them.
‘Go to sleep,’ Raif urged her tenderly around dawn. ‘I love you so much.’
‘I love you too,’ she whispered drowsily. ‘But I don’t want jungle animals in the nursery, just elephants because some animals are scary.’
‘One little tiger hiding in the undergrowth of a jungle wall mural? It’s the art of compromise,’ Raif bargained, folding her into his arms and drifting off to sleep.
EPILOGUE
Ten years later
CLAIRETUCKEDINthe littlest and latest occupant of the royal nursery. Zakar was six months old, a cheerful baby with an untidy shock of black hair, who slept like a dream. The jungle wall in the nursery, painted by a Quristani artist, still featured a tiger cub below a tree, although Circe and her Siamese partner, Ninja, had acquired a spot as well, posed with regal cool nearby, with kittens round their feet, seemingly unperturbed by the elephants bathing in the river below them.
Claire smiled ruefully, thinking about her eldest, Rohaan, who had regularly disturbed her nights. He was now a lively, highly intelligent nine-year-old, and he still required less sleep than their other children. Her second pregnancy had been a twin one, and her little girls, Salima and Madiya, had arrived a few weeks early and demanded enough attention to ensure that two nannies were added to the staff. Zakar would be their last child, because Claire felt that four children was a nice round number, particularly now that they had two boys and two girls. She knew, though, that Raif, who adored babies, would probably eventually try to change her mind.
In the years that had passed since their marriage, Claire had gained poise. She had grown into her royal role and had learned that just being herself covered most occasions. She had picked up the language year on year and no longer needed an interpreter at her elbow. Nahla had fallen madly in love with one of Kashif’s friends in the diplomatic corps and, having remarried, was now based in London. Claire missed the brunette, but Stella had become a close friend after Kashif was moved back to Quristan and settled into a more senior position in Kazan. As they now had three children, the two couples socialised a lot together.
Her brother, Tom, was a regular visitor and she always saw him when they stopped over in London. Sarah, her stepmother, had, sadly, passed away from an undetected heart condition, which was why she and Tom made an extra effort to spend time together because they were all that remained of their original family.
Circe, still famous from her glory days as a cartoon cat, had a chain of descendants now from her alliance with Ninja, the pedigreed Siamese given to Claire by Raif on the occasion of their first anniversary. They had kept two of their kittens, Ra and Bastet, who were very attached to the children.
Right now, as Claire tucked in her youngest son, Raif joined her, pausing only to smooth a light hand over his son’s untidy head. ‘All set?’ he checked.
‘I feel so guilty leaving the kids behind,’ Claire admitted ruefully.
