‘You would marry me, though, without loving me.’
‘I don’t know that now,’ James admitted. ‘I didn’t like what I saw at my parents’ home. Forcing anyone into anything is not the type of person I usually am. I overreacted when I found out you were pregnant. I was terrified that you’d go back to them.’
‘Never,’ Leila said. ‘She has told me that the palace is better off without me. That the maids are happier now. She says that my father has taken up walking again in the evening...’
‘I’d take up walking if I was married to that lunatic,’ James said. ‘I’d be walking morning, noon and night and playing golf too, if I was married to her.’
‘You think he does it to get away from her?’ Leila frowned.
‘Hello!’ James said. ‘I’ll bet the maids aren’t as happy as Muriel,’ James nudged, and now she properly smiled.
‘She’s a wicked queen,’ James said. ‘A wicked, wicked queen. And when our daughter is born I’m going to read the fairy tales. You never have to hear her voice or see her ever again unless you choose to.’
‘Promise?’
‘I promise,’ James said. ‘And I don’t make promises that I might not be able to keep.’
‘I believe you.’
He understood now why it had been so impossible for her to believe in his love.
She simply hadn’t known what it was.
He kissed her right there in the park and there could have been twenty photographers around them, snapping away—neither cared, neither would notice.
Leila felt his arms wrap around her and the feel of his lips on hers and the caress of his hands on her head and back. His touch was for her.
Love more than existed, it was hers.
* * *
James hated Farrah.
More than Leila would ever know. James learned to speak her language and he sat with Manu for hours, working out best how to work through the latest problem that had arisen.