His voice sounded cracked and broken. “I do not know if I can let you.”
“You can. You are a strong man, Sheikh. A good man. And deep in your heart, I think you know this.” She raised his hands, kissed his fingers. “I see it. Every time I look at you, I see the man who set me free. The man who wants to heal his country. That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? Why Harkness is here in the first place? To fix what your father nearly broke. You want to make things better.” The look in her eyes was utter surety. As if doubt was something she’d never even heard of. “You’re not him, Isma’il. There is no stain in you. No taint. No violence. There’s passion and fire, but those things aren’t something to hide. They’re part of you.” She took a little breath. “And they’re part of what I love about you.”
He did not know why accepting what she said was so hard. He’d spent so long believing himself to be one thing that accepting a different vision was difficult. Letting go was difficult.
She’d told him once to trust her and he had. And discovered that the part of himself he’d been so afraid of was not to be feared after all.
Perhaps, he could trust her again. Perhaps, he could accept what she saw in him. He was getting so tired of fighting.
“I went to the desert,” he heard himself say thickly, “to burn Khalid out of me. To get rid of the blood. And when I came back, I realized it had not worked. That nothing I did would ever get rid of it. That the only way I could ever feel clean was with you.” His chest squeezed tight. “I wanted you so much, but I could not have you, Lily. I did not deserve to.”
Pain filled her eyes. “No, Isma’il. You deserve it. You deserve everything. You helped me face something I never thought I’d come to terms with. You made me see that I was more than just what Dan did to me. More than just a CEO. That I could be more than I’d ever thought possible.”
Gently, he pulled his hands from hers, slid his fingers into her hair. Let the warm, silky feel of it brush against his skin. And the feeling he’d been denying for days now expanded inside him, inescapable as the sun rising.
She loved him. As he was. Despite his history. Despite hers. He could do no less.
“I do not think I have ever loved anyone before, Habibti. But I think that I am in love with you.”
Lily smiled at him. And he’d never seen anything as beautiful as that smile. Then, she rose up on her toes and brushed her mouth with his. “Perhaps you could show me?” she said softly. “A small demonstration of this love?”
His heart felt too large for his chest, too large for his body, for the whole room. He pulled her close, held her tight. “You are more experienced in love than I am. I think it is something you will have to show me.”
So she did. She took his hand and much, much later, in the privacy of his bedroom, in her arms, he saw her love in her eyes, felt it in the heat of her body all around his, enclosing him.
Felt it in his heart.
And discovered she was right. There was no darkness inside him after all.
Only endless, shining light.
* * *
In the depths of the night, Isma’il’s arms held her close, his face turned into her hair. “I am not going to let you leave,” he murmured. “Not ever. You understand that?”
She let her hands drift over his shoulders, tracing the hard, powerful muscles beneath the oiled silk of his skin, and smiled. “I did tell you I wasn’t going to leave.”
“I will have to use force to keep you here. You heard me, did you not?”
A little surge of delicious excitement went through her. “I did. Perhaps I’ll try to escape.”
His mouth pressed to her skin. “Try it, Habibti. I will take great pleasure in tying you to my bed and convincing you to stay.” Another kiss. “I may even marry you to make sure you never leave.”
Warmth and a happiness she hadn’t known existed unfurled inside her. “So arrogant. Was that a marriage proposal or a threat?”
His gaze was dark in the dimness of the room, but the expression on his face was all the light she needed. “Both.” Delivered with all the authority and surety of a sheikh. “Be my wife, Lily.”
“And what about my company? What shall I do with that?”
“I do not care about your company.” He kissed her hungrily, fiercely. “Your company can go to hell.”
She pushed at his shoulders and when he finally let her take a breath, she glared at him. “I can’t be your wife and run my company at the same time. There’s a conflict of interest now that we have the oil rights.”
His eyes gleamed in the dark, her wicked, seductive sheikh. “I realize that. But in exchange for your company, I offer you a country.”