‘How can you be?’
‘When I tried to convince your father to allow you to marry me it was as if she was there in the room—talking to him, guiding him. Nothing will take their love away…’
The most cynical man in the world had confirmed what Layla felt in her heart—that her mother was somehow still there.
Layla thought about how happy she was and wanted everyone to feel the same—to feel as loved and as content and as excited about the future as she felt now.
‘I am happy for Jamila and my father,’ she said. ‘I think it will be awkward, but I am going to try.’
‘That’s all you have to do.’
‘Will you one day have forgotten me?’ Layla asked.
‘Never.’
‘What if you hadn’t come for me…?’
And there was her real fear—and it was scary even to voice it. But they had barely spoken since she had chosen Mikael and now, in his arms, she dared to face up to how terrible tonight might have been had it not been for Mikael.
‘I was always coming for you,’ he said to the shell of her ear. ‘I’d have worked out your note, we’d have met online, I’d have lived in Ishla just to be near you…’
Mikael told her his truth—just not all of it, for he knew he would have appealed to Zahid on the death of the King and, whether she’d been married to another or not, he would one day have made Layla his.
‘I would have spent the rest of my life either working out how to be with you or ensuring that you were happy.’
‘What made you come when you did?’
‘When I found out you loved me there was no question.’
‘How could you not have known I loved you?’ Layla frowned. ‘Even if I could not say it, surely you knew…?’ She pulled her head back and saw his eyes. He did not comprehend her words—but then how could he? Layla thought. For Mikael had never known love.
He would know it every day now.
It would not just be a year of dancing and kissing, Layla thought as her mouth moved to his. It would be a year of learning about a man who had never loved another—and what a privilege that would be.
Their first kiss as husband and wife was from another dimension, and knowing they did not have to halt, that they had the blessing of the desert, made it all the more sublime.
His chin was rough and it did not matter—for they were here in the desert for as long as they desired…and desire they did.
At every turn, in every intimate moment, Mikael had resisted—and now he did not have to.
Her tongue was the instigator, for it suckled his, and then she glimpsed Mikael without restraint. He was raising her robe and her hands lifted above her head, for she wanted it gone too.
She stripped, and so did he, and she stood as his mouth kissed her breasts till she could stand no more, and then they were side by side on the bed.
He tried to soften the mouth on her breasts but Layla pushed at his head in consent, for she had loathed how they had always had to hold back.