ZAIN HAD LEFT before she woke. She had a vague memory of him kissing her goodbye, but that must have been hours ago, as the bed beside her was now cold.
It wasn’t the first time Abby had woken alone since she came to Aarifa and she never liked it, but during the last four weeks she had come to realise that Zain worked harder than anyone she knew.
Having a greater grasp of Aarifan politics after four weeks of immersion therapy on the subject, Abby understood why he worked as hard as he did. He had no choice.
At first Zain had seemed surprised by her questions and Abby suspected he had initially doubted her interest was genuine, as his early responses had been pretty monosyllabic, but as he’d come to realise that her interest was real he had opened up and become more expansive. Now it had reached the point where he volunteered information—be it a breakthrough or an obstacle—without actually waiting for her to ask.
A couple of times recently he’d even asked her opinion. It gave her a little glow to know that he valued it, or, at least, it seemed he did to her.
But they never discussed the widowed princess, Kayla. Over the last few weeks malicious rumours had started to spread, which as far as Abby could make out were intended to harm her reputation. Luckily, the wife of a courtier she had become friendly with had warned Abby that it was Kayla spreading these, and Abby had been able to minimise the damage. There were also rumours that Zain and Kayla had once had a relationship before Kayla’s marriage, which had made Abby burn with jealousy. When she had asked the woman why Kayla hated her so much, she’d needed pushing but had finally expanded on her initial diplomatic, It’s not my place to say.
‘Kayla wants what you have, Amira. I went to school with her, and she will do anything to get what she wants. Tell the Prince,’ she’d said.
But Abby knew Zain would only tell her to stay away from Kayla. And, besides, she wanted to show him she was strong enough to confront this on her own. It certainly wasn’t her place to be jealous of whatever might have happened in the past. Nevertheless, it gave her comfort to know that every night it was their bedroom Zain came to.
Sliding out of bed, she headed for the bathroom, humming softly under her breath, but she stopped humming when she became aware of the familiar monthly ache low down in her belly. Since that first night they had slept together they had been careful to use protection, but a tiny part of her had been nagging at her, aware there was some chance she might be pregnant. But now, the evidence to the contrary was clear and suddenly overwhelming.
Without warning, the tears just kept coming, gushing out from some unidentified region deep inside her, before finally they dried to an occasional burble of misery. Sniffing, Abby walked across to the marble washbasin and turned the cold tap on full, telling her red-eyed image sternly to, ‘Get a grip!’
She splashed her face with water and switched off the tap but stayed where she was, leaning on the basin, looking at herself, a questioning frown furrowing her smooth brow.
Her reaction had been inexplicable, and not just the reaction but also the strength of it.
This was a good outcome, the desired outcome, she reminded herself. She knew that, and yes, she was relieved, or at least part of her was. But there was another part that felt oddly...what...? Bereft. The recognition deepened her frown and increased her growing sense of unease.
She hadn’t wanted to be pregnant—it would have complicated an already complicated situation and she’d been too scared to even imagine the consequences of an accidental baby, considering their arrangement. Not that the idea of pregnancy scared her; she wanted a child one day but she wanted that baby to be the product of a loving relationship. She wanted to give the man she would eventually love in a ‘forever after’ sort of way the ultimate gift of his child.
Another sob began working its way past her trembling lips but it never escaped. Instead her eyes flew wide and she literally stopped breathing, the blood seeping from her face and leaving it paper-pale!
The truth hit Abby with the force of a tsunami blast and continued to reverberate through her body: some secret part of her had wanted a child because she loved Zain!
Because she did love him. As the denial fell away the pain rushed in to fill the vacuum it left. Loving a man who would never return those feelings was always going to hurt, which was why she supposed she had been in denial, filling her thoughts with enough irrelevant chatter to drown out the words that were now shouting inside her head.
Zain was the last man she would have expected to fall in love with. No matter what he said, Zain was wrong—there was no choice involved; love defied all logic.
* * *
Patience was not one of Zain’s strengths and Aarifan politics seemed a slow-moving machine. The past few weeks had been at times incredibly frustrating—there had been moments when he had struggled to retain control in the face of the obstacles being put in his way by the powerful politicians who opposed his reforms in any and all ways they could.
But today had been a good day and it was still early, he saw, glancing down at his wrist. The early breakfast meeting had been an unexpected breakthrough. He had brought a previously obstinate opponent around to his way of thinking and he was buzzing with a sense of purpose.
It took days like this to keep him going through all the days when it felt as if he was being blocked at every turn, days when progress seemed impossible and the tightrope of diplomacy slippery as ice. Days when, if it wasn’t for the fact he vented in private with Abby, he might have been tempted to forget the advent of civilisation and throw the whole avaricious bunch in a deep dungeon. Abby had proved a very effective sounding board, listening to him rage and talking him down.
She was going to be thrilled when she heard about this advance...he couldn’t wait to—His footsteps slowed, a thunderstruck expression crossing his face...
He couldn’t wait!
It was literally true.
He wanted so badly to share the victory with Abby, just as he had shared the defeats and setbacks, and it was something he could not imagine feeling a few short weeks ago.
How far had he strayed from his original game plan...what had it even been? He had rewritten the rules to fit the circumstances and his needs so often it was hard to remember. It was easy to justify his first diversion from the plan because it had been totally unrealistic to expect to fight the intense sexual attraction between them. He couldn’t get enough of her and actually he couldn’t even see why it had ever seemed so important to take such a masochistic stance, why he had seen danger where in fact there was pleasure.
Sex he could rationalise; what made him more uneasy was the recognition of the emotional, almost symbiotic, connection they seemed to have developed...if this was how he felt now, what was it going to be like when the eighteen months was up?
He made himself walk slowly to the door. It wasn’t as if he needed her here; she liked to be involved...she was lonely, and it would have been cruel, he told himself, to leave her to her own devices.
Surely the only thing that had changed was that in eighteen months’ time they would part as friends...if ex-lovers could be friends. Or maybe they would even be parents...that circumstance still an unknown, the memory of their first time and his thoughtlessness always there in the background.
He walked into Abby’s room, almost tripping over the suitcase by the door.
For a split second shock closed his brain down—it closed everything down—then, as the paralysis weakened, something close to panic tightened like an icy fist in his belly. Before he identified it as such it shifted into full-blown, mind-numbing fury. She was running away. She was leaving him.
Didn’t everyone?
He was literally shaking as he strode across the room and through the door between the wardrobes that lay open.
Passport in hand, Abby was standing looking adrift, the long, lightweight trench coat she wore open to reveal a plain white silk shirt she had teamed with dark, narrow pedal-pushers.
‘What the hell is going on?’ Had she intended to slip away while he was absent?
* * *
Abby blinked; she was working hard at disguising her misery, at the truth she was sure was written all over her face, and it left little or nothing to register his awesome fury.
‘Sorry, it was a last-minute decision.’ She managed a smile...held it for a few seconds before it faded, too bright and too brittle. Hell, she really needed some time to sort herself out—if she stayed now she’d do something irreversibly stupid like blurt out the truth. ‘I would have rung but I didn’t want to disturb your meeting...how did it go?’
‘To hell with my meeting!’ he growled.
‘Sorry,’ she said automatically, assuming from his attitude that it had gone badly. A knot of protective anger tightened in her chest; he worked so damned hard and for what seemed to her very little thanks. Sometimes she wished she could bang together the heads of those men making his life tough. ‘It’s just I’ve been putting off going to see Nana and Pops but I need to; I only told them half the story and they deserve more, plus the solicitor says the vendors are finally ready to exchange contracts, and I’d like to give them the keys in person.’
‘You’re coming back...’ The wildness died from his eyes as they swept her face, and his body began to unclench as the explosive tension lowered. For the first time he noticed her pallor, the red rims around her beautiful eyes...the protective swell in his chest so intense it was a struggle to breathe past.
‘Well, not tonight...unless you need me to?’
‘I’m fine,’ he said with a shrug that made it clear he didn’t need anyone.
‘The plane is on standby; I hope you don’t mind,’ she said, not quite meeting his eyes.
He frowned and she worried he could see through her lies.
‘Of course not. You’ll ring me when you land...?’
She nodded. ‘Of course.’
‘Come here...’
She went to him and sighed as he drew her body against his, smoothing her hair back. With one hand he cupped her chin and drew her mouth up to his... The tenderness meshing with the passion brought an emotional lump to her throat.
Afraid she was going burst into tears, she pulled away, sure that if she lost control she might start blurting out things she shouldn’t. She allowed herself to say ‘I love you’ silently in her head but kept her mouth closed.
Zain didn’t want her love and he certainly wouldn’t have wanted their baby. But she had, she really had. Until this morning, she hadn’t known just how much that hope had flickered inside her.
Hand on the door handle, she turned back. ‘Oh, and I’m not pregnant, by the way, so you can relax.’ She managed what she hoped was an unaffected laugh before she almost threw herself through the door because this time no amount of determination could stop the tears.
* * *
A few days later as Abby returned to Aarifa the sadness was not gone but it was contained. Although she had told herself otherwise, she knew that she had allowed herself to hope.
It had been a selfish thing, wanting a child that was a bit of Zain because she couldn’t have him or his love. She recognised that now. A baby should have two parents who loved one another...it didn’t always happen, of course, but in a perfect world it would, and didn’t everyone want their child to be born in a perfect world?
She had to focus on what she had, not what she didn’t have. Her chin lifted as the co-pilot came out to ask her if she’d had a good flight and then continued to make small talk while she only half listened. She would make some lovely memories over the next few months, memories to treasure when she returned to her old life, not that it would ever be the same, she realised, because she wasn’t the same.
It was weird stepping off the plane and walking into the wall of heat that not long ago had felt so alien but now felt like home.
Bubbles of excitement exploded like star bursts in her stomach as she shifted in her seat, leaning forward to stare out of the window as first the city gates came into view and then the palace.
She had told Zain that she would be back late-afternoon but she planned to surprise him with an early arrival, telling the palace staff to keep quiet. Although, she realised now, it might not be much of a surprise if he was tied up in meetings all morning.
Quietly entering the sitting room, which was empty, she moved through to the bedroom they shared. It was empty, the bedclothes rumpled, which was surprising, considering how keen the housekeeping was under Layla’s watchful eye.
Ah, well, at least Abby would have time to repair the ravages wrought by the flight. Dropping her handbag, she walked across to the bed, automatically twitching the quilt to pull it into place. As she did so, something glittered as it fell. Abby bent to pick up the small, shining object and as she lifted it her heart stopped.
She had seen the very distinctive diamond earring before, she realised. Kayla had been wearing it that first day in the stables. A whimper escaped her white, clenched lips.
The hand she pressed to her mouth to contain further cries shook; she shook everywhere as she stared at the tiny object that had shattered any and all illusions she had built up about how Zain might really feel.
She couldn’t be angry that their marriage was a sham—it was meant to be a sham—but she could be angry and hurt and mad as hell that he was a cheat!
She backed away from the bed, unable to bear the things she saw when she stared at it—her bed, their bed...it felt like a violation that he had taken her to their bed...maybe not even for the first time.
‘Oh, excuse me... I am so sorry.’
Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, Abby spun around to see a young woman in the uniform worn by the household staff standing there.
The girl dropped a curtsey. ‘So sorry to disturb you but I...’ She saw the diamond sparkling in Abby’s hand and exclaimed. ‘Oh, you have found it! I am so grateful.’
Smiling, she went to grab the earring out of Abby’s hand but Abby’s fingers closed over it. There was something strangely familiar about the girl.
‘It is a very pretty thing,’ Abby said, realising where she had seen her before—at Kayla’s side on those rare events when their paths crossed.
‘It’s not real but it was a gift. I am most grateful—it must have come out when I made the bed.’ The girl held up a hand with a look that was probably meant to feign innocence but was hampered by the hint of a smirk.
Maybe it was the smirk, the connection to Kayla, or maybe just the fact she was able to think past that first blast of hurt, jealous outrage, but suddenly Abby joined the dots and saw what this was about...
So... Kayla wanted Zain, the crown or maybe even both. It had been obvious from the rumours that Kayla didn’t like her, but Abby had told herself that it didn’t matter, she was not here long enough for it to matter, and she had no intention of running to Zain any time she had a problem. She had wanted to prove to him she could cope.
She had been wrong not to tell him. This was a problem that needed addressing immediately.
‘No, I don’t think that’s what happened at all.’ What was Kayla’s problem? she wondered, watching the look of revealing shocked apprehension wash over the girl’s face. ‘Where is Kayla, your mistress? I think I’d like to return this trinket.’ She dangled the earring. ‘In person,’ she added grimly.
The girl looked scared now and as Abby walked towards her she shadowed the steps, backing towards the door. ‘I... I don’t know, really—the stables maybe, Amira?’ She fled.
* * *
When Abby reached the stables a stable hand she recognised spotted her and approached shyly.
‘You want to see the King of Night?’ he asked in halting English.
To Abby, her King of the Night would always be Zain. ‘Yes, please, if it’s not too much bother?’
The idea of anything being a bother seemed to shock him.
Abby fingered the earring in her pocket. ‘Have you seen the Princess Kayla?’
‘She was here, Amira, but she left.’
Abby was not sorry to hear this; her appetite for a confrontation had waned considerably as she had walked the corridors. Wasn’t there a certain amount of hypocrisy in her reaction? The woman might be trying to break up Abby’s marriage but that marriage was a sham. ‘Your English is excellent.’
He flushed with pleasure at the compliment. ‘I worked in England long time ago at a very important race stable; it was my wish to be a jockey.’ He pressed a hand to his stomach and rolled his eyes. ‘But I got too fat... I like my food too much.’
‘Well, the stables here are beautiful, spotless, and the weather is a great deal better than in England.’
‘It is a very grey place,’ the man agreed. ‘But I enjoyed the fish and chips. Here he is.’ He gestured towards the next stable along the row, one with the top door open.
The stallion whinnied as she approached.
‘Hello, boy,’ she whispered as she pressed her face into his mane.
‘He likes you.’
Well, at least someone does, Abby thought, swallowing a sob of self-pity just as the person she least wanted to see in the world at this point appeared.
Not dressed for riding today, Kayla was instead wearing a pencil skirt that ended mid-calf, her legs elongated by the spiky heels she wore. Her silk top had bell sleeves and a square neck above which she wore some massively impressive pearls.
She lifted her chin; this woman was a bitch, but Abby’s childhood experiences meant she had had a great deal of practice dealing with mean spirits and she knew that you should never let them see that they had got to you, as fear and pain were the food they fed on.
‘Kayla.’ She tipped her head in cool acknowledgement and had the satisfaction of seeing an expression of annoyance in the other woman’s dark, malicious eyes as the thundering sound of horses being put through their paces on the gallops in the distance got louder and then faded away.
‘How was your trip to England...home? You must miss it.’
‘I miss my family and friends.’ But not as much as she missed the sound of Zain’s voice, the touch of his hand...his lips.
‘Then I am surprised your visit there was so short.’
Abby closed her eyes and shook her head. She had no appetite for the cat-and-mouse fencing. She heaved out a long, sibilant sigh, opened her eyes, lifted her chin once more and prepared to take the metaphorical gloves off.
‘Actually, I was looking for you. I think I have something of yours.’ She held out her hand, the diamond stud between her fingers catching the light.
The woman’s smile was almost as insincere as the sympathy and regret in her response. ‘Oh, dear, I wouldn’t have had you find out this way for the world.’
Abby’s brows lifted as she dropped the earring onto the woman’s palm. ‘Find out what? That you are totally desperate and wouldn’t know a moral scruple if it bit you?’
Kayla’s triumphant smile faltered as her lips compressed in a petulant pout, but she recovered quickly and threw out a fresh taunt. ‘You probably don’t know, but I had a relationship with Zain before you were married.’
‘I was here about five minutes before I learnt that on the palace grapevine.’
‘But what you didn’t know is that it carried on...and is still carrying on,’ Kayla added before dramatically producing the twin to the earring.
Abby felt a fresh stab of shame for those split seconds when she had allowed her own insecurities and jealousy to make her jump.
‘If you expect me to believe that you slept with my husband last night, forget it... Zain has too much...’ her lips quivered and her eyes misted ‘...too much respect for me to act that way.’ She clung tight to this; she might not have his love but by his actions Zain had proved time and time again that it wasn’t just words—he did respect her.
The other woman’s eyes flashed with pure malice in response to the simple pride ringing out in Abby’s confident statement. ‘You mean you amuse him right now. It won’t last, you know; the novelty value will wear off.’ Abby’s dignified silence seemed to enrage the woman even more as she snarled out contemptuously, ‘You love him, I suppose?’
‘Yes.’ Even in this situation it felt liberating to be able to say it out loud.
‘And you think he loves you...? I suppose it is his great love for you that will carry him through the latest polling disaster...’ She saw the flicker of shock in Abby’s eyes and nodded. ‘Oh, yes, not good news at all, but then, no great surprise either,’ she drawled. ‘His advisors were expecting it; they warned him that seeing you, an outsider, with him will always remind people of his mother.’ She stepped in closer. ‘You’re the kiss of death for Zain, and if you really loved him you’d leave!’ she hissed, before turning and sweeping majestically away.
Abby stood perfectly still, her thoughts whirling. Kayla was trying to manipulate her but that didn’t mean what the woman was saying didn’t have an element of truth—more than an element, she realised; it was the truth.
Presumably at the outset Zain had calculated that any damage to his reputation that the sham marriage to her might cause could be rectified after they split up down the line, but what if he was wrong...? What if the longer she stayed the more damage she did to his reputation...what if it became irreparable? What if the people he loved rejected him?
She knew that would kill him.
‘Amira?’
The young stable boy was standing there looking concerned.
Abby shook her head and turned, pride keeping her head up as she walked away, her firm tread contrasting with the awful icy chills running through her body.
Her chaotic thoughts chased around in her head. She didn’t know where she was going or what she was going to do yet she knew she needed space...time...distance...but a moment later the stable hand caught her up.
‘Excuse me, Amira, but the driver found this in the car.’
She looked blankly at the tiny charm that had fallen from the bracelet that had been her mother’s. ‘Oh, thank him...’ A sudden thought occurred to her: if she was going to do this it was best to do it quickly, better for Zain. ‘Is the Prince here in the palace?’ she asked quickly.
‘Yes, I think so, Amira...’
Abby reached into the pocket of her trench coat, her fingers curling around the passport she had not removed.
‘Do you have paper...a pen?’
* * *
Zain stood there for a full ten minutes after he had read the note.
He didn’t trust himself to move.
She was gone; the note, the ink blurred, was some drivel about leaving for him...she had left!
He had never chased after a woman in his life and he wasn’t about to now.
Last night he’d lain awake longing and aching for something he could not name that she gave him, missing her softness, her scent, her warmth.
But life was a hell of a lot simpler without her. Without her there was no temptation to allow her to do to him what his mother had done to his father. His mother had drained his father, making him grow weak, making him love her so much that she blocked out his responsibilities...to his people and to the son who needed him.
He couldn’t silence the counter-argument in his head.
Had Abby made him weak...? Could he have done what he had done these past weeks without her support? She didn’t take from him, didn’t drain him. She gave instead.
And now she had gone.
The thoughts tumbled in circles around his head until he took a deep breath and blinked like a man waking up and realising he had one more shot. He hit the ground running.
Considering she was not exactly inconspicuous, it took him a long time to find anyone who had actually seen her. It took him fifteen minutes to track her as far as the stables and another five to discover that she had been seen deep in conversation with Kayla, after which it seemed she had been driven away.
A phone call to the private jet confirmed his suspicions. He made it clear that under no circumstances was the plane to take off, and went around to the garages.
His fastest car got him as far as the palace gates, where he found his way totally blocked by a hundred or so banner-waving protestors taking advantage of the fact that such gatherings were no longer prohibited—one of his reforms that had definitely backfired!
Frustrated but not defeated, he flung the high-powered car into reverse and drove back to the stable yard.
He saddled the stallion himself with stable hands watching and wondering who knew what? Zain didn’t actually care—the burning frustration that drove his every action was choking him.
* * *
‘Shall I stop, Amira?’
Dragged from the depths of her despairing reflections, Abby looked up. It didn’t matter how many times she told herself her life was not over, it felt as if it was and so she could only try to take comfort from the fact she was doing the right thing. Maybe this knowledge would make her feel better in the future but right now it didn’t.
‘Pardon?’
The driver nodded to the rear-view mirror and Abby turned to see what he was looking at. The blood drained from her face and her heart began to thud as fast and hard as the hooves of the stallion that was galloping full pelt towards them.
‘No!’ she said in a wobbly voice of panic. ‘Don’t stop!’
‘Amira!’
‘Don’t stop for anything!’ she ordered imperiously as Zain and the stallion began to overtake the car.
‘Yes, Amira.’
He did, of course, but he didn’t really have a choice when there was a rearing stallion in the road ahead, the hooves inches away from the car bonnet.
‘Sorry, Amira.’
Abby barely heard as she watched as Zain, looking just as rampantly male and awe-inspiring as the first time she had seen him, dismounted and walked over to the car.
He wrenched open the door. ‘Get out, cara.’
She thought about ignoring the order but decided getting out of her own volition would be more dignified than being dragged out, and Zain looked more than capable of that.
While she stood there he leaned into the cab and spoke to the driver, who turned the car around and drove away before her horrified eyes.
Leaving her, Zain, the stallion and a lot of sand.
‘Just like old times,’ he said, walking towards her with long, purposeful strides.
She shook her head. He was standing almost toe to toe with her and looking at her in a way that made Abby’s head spin as she looked up into his dark, lean, beautiful face, her heart lurching wildly in hope.
‘What is this about, Zain...?’
‘This.’ He took her by the shoulders and dragged her into him, covering her mouth with his. The kiss went on and on.
When it stopped she stood there feeling quite crazily bereft.
‘That doesn’t change anything, except fine... Oh, God, I have no self-control when it comes to you! I’m just—’
‘In love?’
She froze and thought, Am I that obvious? ‘I wasn’t trying to fall in love...’
He brushed a strand of hair from her cheek, the action so tender that it brought tears to her eyes. ‘I know... I was actively fighting it...’ A grin split his lean face... Suddenly he looked younger. ‘I was a fool. It feels great to surrender to you.’
Golden joy burst inside her but she shook her head. ‘You can’t stay married to me.’
He looked at her with frustration. ‘Are you going to tell me why?’
‘The polls.’
‘What polls?’
She gritted her teeth; he really wasn’t making this easy for her. ‘You don’t have to pretend,’ she said, wishing that doing the noble thing felt less absolutely awful. ‘I know that the numbers were bad.’ Her carefully composed voice acquired a little wobble that required her to stop and swallow several times before she continued, looking up into his face through a glaze of tears. ‘I know that the longer I stay the worse they will get...the people will reject you because I remind them of your mother. So, I’m going now before things get worse, and don’t try and stop me,’ she warned, knowing that if he did she wouldn’t have the strength to do the right thing.
He didn’t look at all impressed by her sacrifice. ‘Who the hell has been filling your head with this nonsense?’
‘Kayla. And it’s not nonsense, it’s the truth.’
His expression darkened. ‘Kayla...is poison.’ He dismissed the other woman with a contemptuous click of his long, expressive fingers. ‘The woman wants power and position. She had an affair with me to get it and, when I didn’t play the game like she wanted, she married my brother. I should have kept her away from you. I thought I had; I’m sorry, cara.’
She knew she shouldn’t but she leaned in as he stroked her cheek, the tenderness in his face bringing tears to her eyes. ‘The poll...’
He sighed. ‘There was a poll, not instigated by me,’ he added. ‘And the numbers were not good but that was when the news was first broken. Another, this time with my approval, was put out in the field yesterday and the results came back this morning.’
Abby closed her eyes. ‘I’m so sorry, Zain.’
‘My popularity ratings have soared, all thanks, it seems, to my redheaded wife.’
Her eyes flew wide. ‘Kayla lied!’
He arched a sardonic brow and drawled, ‘Now, there’s a shocker.’ All hint of sardonic humour vanished as he framed her face between his hands. ‘You’re the dream I never even admitted I had, Abby. The dream I was afraid of. I’ve been a coward, and my only excuse is that I’ve been guarding my heart so long that I forgot I had one, and I was too cowardly to admit what I felt...felt from that first moment I saw you...so brave, so beautiful, so...’
She raised herself on tiptoes, grabbed his head and kissed him. The kiss led inevitably to another then another...and by the time they surfaced the horse had wandered a few yards away.
‘Does this mean...?’ Was it possible to explode from sheer happiness? She felt as though she was walking on air as light as the bubbles of happiness popping in her bloodstream.
‘Yes?’ he prompted.
‘You want me to stay longer than eighteen months?’
‘I want you beside me every day...’ His voice dropped a shivery, sexy octave as he whispered, ‘Every night,’ against the sensitive skin of her earlobe. He stopped nuzzling her neck and lifted his head to stare down into her face with an expression that stopped her heart as he caught her hand and pressed it to his chest. ‘I want you beside me always. I love you and I could not do this...any of it, without you.’
What could she say to that? With stars in her eyes Abby linked her arms around his neck. ‘You saved my life; I think I owe you mine.’
‘I don’t want your gratitude, Abby. I want your heart, your love.’
She looked at him with shining eyes and whispered, ‘You have both.’
Zain’s eyes blazed with love as he took her hands and pressed them to his lips. ‘I will keep them safe, I promise.’
Abby lifted her face to his kiss with a blissful sigh. ‘I’m going to have to learn some languages.’
‘The language of love is the only one that counts,’ he said, leading her by the hand to the horse. Heaving himself with no seeming effort into the saddle, he held out a hand, which she took. A moment later she was sitting in front of him.
‘Are we going home?’
‘I like the way you say that, but no, I thought we might detour. There is a certain oasis I know.’
The wind caught her hair and whipped her laugh away as he kicked the King of the Night into a gallop across the red sand. It felt as though they were the only two people on earth and she liked it.
* * * * *
If you enjoyed A CINDERELLA FOR THE DESERT KING you’re sure to enjoy these other stories by Kim Lawrence!
THE GREEK’S ULTIMATE CONQUEST
A RING TO SECURE HIS CROWN
SURRENDERING TO THE
ITALIAN’S COMMAND
ONE NIGHT TO WEDDING VOWS
Available now!
Keep reading for an excerpt from THE GREEK’S BOUGHT BRIDE by Sharon Kendrick.
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