The Sheikh's Prize(29)

'I wouldn't have let you go through that if I'd known! How could you   still want me?' she sobbed in disbelief. 'I wasn't even able to give you   sex!'

'The sex was the least of it. Believe me, at the time, consummating our   marriage was not my biggest challenge.' His stunning golden eyes  lowered  from her shaken face and he held out a hand until she grasped  it,  allowing him to pull her closer. 'But I couldn't seek help or  advice for  us either. Had anyone known we had those problems my father  would have  had yet another reason to want you out of my life...'

Saffy dragged in a quivering breath, still reeling from what she had   learned. Eyes wet, she pushed her face against his shoulder, drinking in   the scent of his sun-warmed flesh, the faint evocative tang that was   uniquely his, which made her feel vaguely intoxicated. She was addicted   to him, so pathetically addicted. 'Thank heaven you finally had the   sense to divorce me and give the dreadful man what he wanted.'

'That was probably the one and only unselfish thing I ever did while I   was married to you, the only thing I ever did solely for you and not for   me,' Zahir muttered roughly above her down-bent head, his lips  brushing  across her brow in a calming gesture. 'I'm not the saint you  seem to  think. I made appalling errors of judgement.'

Her forehead furrowing, she looked up at him 'Such as?'

'Bringing you into Maraban five years ago,' he specified. 'Three months   after Omar's death, I found out that he had been murdered...'

'What?' Shattered by that statement, she stared up at him.

'One of the generals told me the truth because the most senior army   personnel were becoming nervous about my father's reign of terror. Omar   was beaten up by my father's henchmen and he died from a head injury.   The car crash was simply a cover-up. It was then that I realised that my   father really had gone beyond the hope of return,' Zahir revealed   rawly.                       
       
           



       

'Oh...my...word,' Saffy framed sickly. 'Are you sure?'

'One hundred per cent.' Zahir compressed his lips. 'That's when I   appreciated that keeping you in Maraban was sheer insanity when my   father wanted rid of you. I didn't have the power to protect you. I was   putting your life at risk by refusing to divorce you. I was making you a   target in my father's eyes. I'm ashamed it took Omar's death to make  me  accept that if I couldn't keep you safe, I had to let you go....'

Saffy's heart was beating very loudly in her eardrums and she drifted   dizzily away from him on weak legs to drop heavily down on a sofa in the   corner of their room. 'So, that's why the divorce came out of nowhere   at me. You honestly thought I was in danger. Why didn't you tell me the   truth then, Zahir?'

'The truth would have terrified you and I was ashamed that I could not   even keep myself safe, never mind my wife. But that was also the moment   that, in losing you, my father finally lost my loyalty. I could never   have forgiven him for what he had done to Omar, but losing you was   excruciating,' he completed gruffly, dropping down on his knees in front   of her and momentarily lowering his dark head down onto her lap. 'You   have no idea how much I loved you, what strength it took to give you  up,  knowing, having to accept that it was the only thing I could do...'

As he admitted that stinging tears were rolling down Saffy's face. She   had never dreamt that she could feel such pain on someone else's behalf   and yet when Zahir talked of how much it had hurt to divorce her, it  was  as if a giant black hole of unhappiness opened up inside her and   cracked her heart right down the middle. Her fingers delved into his   luxuriant black hair, delving, smoothing. 'I loved you too...I loved you   so much. I don't think I even understood how much I needed you in my   life until we were forced apart,' she confided jaggedly.

'I tried to contact you after my father died and the fighting was   finished,' Zahir told her grimly as he lifted his handsome dark head and   leapt back upright to pace restively. 'I spoke to your sister, Kat.'

Saffy was stunned. 'She didn't tell me.'

Zahir grimaced. 'Kat pleaded with me to leave you alone. She said you   had just got your life back together, that you were working, making   friends and that the last thing you needed was to see me again,' Zahir   recalled, tight-mouthed at the recollection.

Saffy felt as if someone had walked over her grave. How could the sister   she loved have got her so wrong? The divorce had broken her heart but   she had still loved Zahir and would have moved heaven and earth to see   him again. 'She shouldn't have interfered.'

'On that score we'll have to disagree.' Zahir surprised her with that   response. 'Sadly, even though I didn't like what Kat had to say, she was   right.'

'No, she was wrong,' Saffy contradicted.

'You were far too young to deal with what I was dealing with then on top   of the other problems we had and Maraban had. You needed the time to   live the normal life you should have enjoyed before we married,' Zahir   contended. 'I can see that now but I couldn't see it at the time. I   simply wanted you back the minute it would have been safe to bring you   back...'

Tears trickled down Saffy's cheeks. 'I would've come back to you,' she whispered shakily.

'You would've walked away from those magazine covers and your face everywhere?' Zahir prompted dubiously.

'Yes, it was never that important to me. It was the means to make a living and not be a burden on my sister.'

Zahir bent down and grasped her hands to raise her. 'But we work better now because we're older and wiser.'

A shadow crossed her lovely face. 'And, of course, you're much more experienced.'

He paled, his strong bone structure tightening. 'After our mutual   failure, I was afraid I had become...impotent. I had lost all   confidence,' he confided in a grudging undertone, tension and shame   etched in every line of his strong face. 'I knew I had to get past my   obsession with you because you were no longer mine. My father sent me   abroad before the civil war broke out. Ironically he was trying to   reward me for divorcing you...'

Saffy lifted her fingers and gently smoothed the stubborn angle of his   jaw. 'It's all right. I can't say I don't mind because that would be a   lie, but I understand why it happened.'

His beautiful dark eyes narrowed and centred intently on her solemn   face. 'Then isn't it time you explained how that miracle happened for   you? You insist there hasn't been another man but-'                       
       
           



       

'That was the truth.' Her wandering fingers strayed to his wide sensual   lower lip to silence him. 'I wanted to be normal in the bedroom and I   went to see a specialist to find out what was wrong with me. I was told   that I suffered from a condition called vaginismus, which is an   involuntary tightening of the pelvic muscles, often triggered by some   trauma in the past. My inability to relax, the panic attacks when you   tried to touch me were all part of it,' she explained, doggedly pushing   herself on to spill what had lain behind her deepest vulnerability. 'I   went for therapy but it wasn't until I had hypnotherapy that I   discovered what had triggered my phobia about that part of my body...'

Zahir held her back from him, his shrewd gaze welded to her troubled   face and the sheen of perspiration already dampening her upper lip.   'Tell me-there should be nothing you can't tell me.'

'I was abused by one of my mother's boyfriends when I was a child,'   Saffy framed shakily, tears welling up in her eyes because she could not   bring herself to look and see how he was reacting to that unsavoury   news. 'I suppose I was lucky he didn't rape me, but then he was never   able to get me alone for very long. He threatened me. He said that if I   told Mum, she wouldn't believe me, and he said Emmie and Topsy would   have to take my place.'

Zahir swore in his own language and gripped her shoulders. 'Please tell me that you went to your mother for help.'

A taut expression set Saffy's face. 'I did but my abuser was right-Mum   refused to believe me and punished me for even opening the subject. My   abuser was a well-off professional man with a name for being a womaniser   and there was no way my mother was going to give him up or suspect him   on only the strength of my word.'

Zahir pushed up her chin. 'What age were you?'

'Seven.' Saffy gazed up into his furious eyes and shivered. 'I couldn't stop him, Zahir, but I knew it was wrong.'