Seduced by the Sultan(66)

                Her chest felt tight and she could hardly breathe, let alone speak, but that was okay because it seemed that Murat had not yet finished.

                ‘Shall I tell you what my life feels like without you?’ he questioned. ‘It’s cold and there’s no light any more, as if somebody has covered up the sun. I feel as if part of me is missing—and it’s the best part. I am empty without you, Cat, and I can’t imagine a future if you’re not a part of it. Which is why I am asking you to forgive me for some of my more outrageous behaviour of the past, and to be my wife and let me spend the rest of my life loving you as you should be loved.’

                Catrin felt her heart flare as if somebody had just warmed it with a naked flame. She thought about the kindness he’d shown to her mother and the gentleness with which he had treated her when she’d been sick. She saw the look of love in his eyes and it would have been so easy to have capitulated. To have fallen eagerly into his arms and told him that she would marry him, because he was the only man she would ever love.

                ‘I can’t,’ she said.

                At this he rocked back on his heels, black brows knitting together in disbelief as he stared at her and now Catrin could see a touch of his customary arrogance.

                ‘What do you mean, you can’t? You love me, don’t you, Cat? You may tell me that you don’t, but your eyes can’t hide the fact.’

                ‘Yes, I love you,’ she said. ‘But I can’t live the kind of life you’re offering me.’

                ‘You mean that you don’t want to live here? That you cannot bear the thought of being Sultana and bringing up our children in a desert palace?’

                The our children bit nearly made her buckle, but Catrin knew she had to be strong.

                ‘I can’t bear the thought of you having a harem,’ she said quietly. ‘Or keeping mistresses, as you once told me that your father had done.’

                ‘Mistresses?’ he roared. ‘Do you imagine that there is any woman I could bear to have near to me, unless she was you? Don’t you know how completely you have captured my heart and my body and my soul and made them all your own, my darling one?’

                ‘Murat—’

                ‘I love you, Catrin Thomas,’ he whispered. ‘Now, for ever and always. Exclusively. Let me tell you that I want you to be my wife and I will not rest until you have consented.’

                She was done then. She couldn’t keep fighting her heart’s desire, not when she wanted and needed him nearly as much as breath itself.

                ‘Oh, Murat,’ she said. ‘My darling Murat.’

                There were tears as she went into his arms but he kissed them all away until there were no tears left. And after a long while, he extinguished all the lamps and led her over to the low divan and it was there, on that warm night in the middle of the desert, that they came together, vowing to love and to cherish each other for the rest of their days.