'No. Alive with a second wife and family. His divorce from my mother was very bitter,' Saffy confided. 'And he hasn't had anything to do with me since I was twelve years old when I did something...' her voice slowed and thickened with distress '...something he couldn't forgive.'
His black brows drew together and he regarded her keenly. 'What could you have done that would excuse such an outright rejection from a father of his own child? I can't believe you did anything worthy of such a punishment.'
Saffy was very pale and she compressed her lips. 'Then you'd be wrong.'
'Tell me...you can't give me only half of the story.'.
It was her second most shameful secret, Saffy reflected wretchedly, but one that there was no reason for her to keep from him as he was part of her family now and everyone else knew the facts. 'As you know, life was pretty rough where I grew up and my sisters and I were often left without supervision, so of course we got in with the wrong crowd,' she confided tightly, her skin already turning clammy with never-forgotten shame and guilt. 'I went joyriding in a stolen car with my twin. I didn't steal it or drive it but the car crashed. Her leg was badly damaged and she was left disabled and scarred for several years afterwards. She went through hell as a teenager. Luckily she was able to have surgery when she was older and she can walk normally again now. But the joyriders were my friends first and it was my fault. I'm the older twin and I should have been looking after her.'
'Saffy...' and it was the very first time he had used the family diminutive of her name, which made his intervention all the more effective as she turned her head in surprise, her clouded blue eyes meeting his. 'You were twelve years old. You did something wrong and you paid a heavy price-'
'No, Emmie did-' Saffy protested vehemently. 'Every morning for years she had to wake up and see her identical twin, walking, unscarred, perfect and, even though she's completely healed now, she's never been able to forgive me for what she went through during that period of her life. We both know I was to blame and that it should have been me who got hurt.'
'But you were hurt,' Zahir murmured gently. 'She was hurt in the body and you were hurt in the mind. You've carried the guilt for what happened ever since, haven't you?'
Tears were swimming in Saffy's eyes and she didn't trust herself to speak, so she nodded vigorously in agreement. All those years she had stood by watching her twin suffer, first in a wheelchair, then on crutches, struggling to fit in with other teenagers when she couldn't play sport or dance or do almost anything that they could.
'Accidents happen,' Zahir continued. 'You learned from the experience, didn't you?'
Saffy nodded wordlessly, a soundless sob thickening her throat and making it impossible to swallow.
'So what did your father do?'
'He said...he said I was evil and that he didn't want to know me any more.'
'And how did he treat Emmie?'
'He cut her out of his life as well. So, you see, that was my fault too.'
'No. He was a father and perhaps he used your mistakes as an excuse to absolve himself of responsibility for his twin daughters. No decent man would stay away from an injured child merely to punish her sibling.'
That was a truth that had evaded Saffy all her life to that point and it shook her because when Zahir put the episode in that light, she saw his view of it and it altered her own. Her father had conveniently rejected both his daughters. Although Emmie had been hurt, he hadn't even visited her in hospital, nor had he intervened when the twins were forced to enter foster care because their mother refused to take further responsibility for them. It had been Saffy's sister, Kat, who had been the three sisters' saviour, giving them a proper home and a loving caring environment, the first any of them had ever known.
'I appreciate you viewing the episode that way,' Saffy breathed in a muffled undertone. 'But Emmie can't see it like that. She still doesn't want anything to do with me.'
'As I've never met her, you'll have to talk to her about that. Put it out of your mind now,' Zahir urged, stunning dark golden eyes welded to her troubled face, a smile slashing his wide sensual mouth. 'and stop blaming yourself for something that was outside your control.'
Her spirits picked up as if a bubble of happiness had been released inside her. He knew what she had done and it hadn't shocked him or made him see her as a cruelly irresponsible and selfish person. And most miraculously of all, he had made her feel better with one smile. She gazed back at him, her heart thumping hard inside her chest, an agony of feeling squeezed tight inside her. She wanted so badly to touch him, could feel her brea**sts heavy, the tender tips straining inside her bra while a warm honeyed heat built between her legs. It was pure lust, she told herself defensively, watching his eyes flame gold, and lust was a practical basis for a practical marriage.
'If we weren't in view of hundreds of people, you would be horizontal,' Zahir purred hungrily, the erotic note in his sensual drawl tugging at her senses.
'As you said, we have all the time in the world,' Saffy burbled, relieved that he could still respond to her, want her. 'I did think that the way you behaved yesterday meant that, now that I'm pregnant, I had lost my appeal,' she told him baldly.
Zahir laughed with rich appreciation. 'Is that a joke?'
Saffy stiffened. 'No.'
'Knowing that's my baby inside you makes me want you more than ever,' he breathed with a husky sensual edge to his voice, surveying her in a way no woman could have misunderstood or doubted, his hunger unashamed.
Although her colour heightened, Saffy relaxed, reassured that she was still an object of desire. In reality, she wanted a great deal more from him, she acknowledged inwardly, but it was early days and she could be patient. After all, she loved him. She couldn't lie to herself any longer about that. She had married him because she wanted to be his wife again, not only because of the child she carried. She wasn't quite the clear-headed, unselfish person she had pretended to be inside her own mind, putting her child's needs first. She wanted Zahir, she loved Zahir, and somehow she was going to make their marriage work so well that he found her indispensable. Furthermore, she wasn't going to cripple herself with wounding suspicions about other women, past infidelities or indeed anything from that era, she swore fiercely to herself. This marriage was a new beginning, not a rerun of mistakes and misunderstandings made long ago.
CHAPTER NINE
THE ROYAL PALACE was a vast building dating back hundreds of years and extended and renovated by every successive generation of Zahir's family. Even from the outside Saffy could see changes everywhere she looked because the massive courtyard fronting the palace entrance, once a parking area for military vehicles and limousines, had been transformed into beautiful gardens full of graceful trees being industriously watered to keep them healthy in the heat. Glorious flowering shrubs bloomed in every direction and fountains fanned water to cool the air in terraced seating areas. The gardeners at work fell still and lowered their heads respectfully as the limo passed by. When the late King Fareed had driven past, everyone had fallen down on their knees at his insistence and she was relieved that Zahir had clearly brought an end to that kind of exaggerated subservience.
'It looks so different,' she commented as the limo drew up outside the huge arched entrance. 'Much more welcoming.'
'It's so big we initially thought of knocking it down and constructing something more fit for purpose. After all, I don't live like my father with hundreds of servants and guards, but it is an historic building and, since the family only requires part of it to actually live in, the government uses one wing and official events are staged here. We will still have total privacy though,' he asserted. 'Don't worry about that. And, of course, you'll be free to redecorate and do anything you like with our wing of the palace. I want you to feel at home here this time.'