'For ever,' Zahir repeated, wrapping both arms round her and pulling her close, knowing that, having lost her once, he would never take the smallest risk of losing her again.
* * *
Two years on from that conversation, Saffy soothed her son, Karim, as he fell off his toddler bike for at least the third time and roared with temper and frustration. As soon as his mother set him down again on his sturdy little legs, Karim streaked back to the bike, determined to master the art of riding it so that he could race around the gardens in the company of his female cousins. As she watched her little boy tell the bike off for not doing his bidding, she laughed.
'He doesn't give up easily,' her sister, Kat, commented.
'No, he's like Zahir in that.' Saffy smiled at her sibling, loving the fact that she and Mikhail had come to stay with them in Maraban but aching for the couple at the same time. Kat had recently gone through IVF in Russia in an attempt to conceive but, sadly, the procedure hadn't worked. In another month the couple were set for a second try and Saffy was praying that the treatment would deliver a successful result, for if any woman deserved a child of her own it was Kat, who had raised her three sisters with so much love and support.
'The servants wait on him hand and foot,' Kat commented. 'You'll have to watch that.'
'I do. He tidies up his own toys. Zahir doesn't want him spoiled the same way he was.'
'The way your husband spoils you?' Kat laughed, secure in the knowledge that Saffy was deliriously happy in Maraban.
'Spoiling me gives Zahir a kick,' Saffy confided with a grin, thinking of the vast selection of jewels and luxuries she was continually showered in.
More importantly, Saffy had found a real role to keep her busy in her husband's country. She had participated in making a promotional film of Maraban and had impressed everybody with her skill as a presenter. But then she had thoroughly enjoyed the personalised tour of the various sites of interest with Zahir by her side and had become almost as knowledgeable about his country of birth as he was in the process. The warm welcome of the locals had increased her identification with Maraban as her new home. She had got involved with local charities, now sat on the board of the newest hospital in the city and regularly visited educational institutions. But most precious of all on her terms had been spending an entire week with Zahir and Karim at the orphanage school in South Africa, which she had long supported.
As a rule she usually went to London to see her sisters. Topsy was at university, studying hard and rarely free for more than a weekend, but Emmie often visited London to shop and the twins now got together as often as they could contrive it. Rediscovering her relationship with her sister meant a great deal to Saffy and the process was helped by the reality that both women now had much more in common.
Zahir strode through the door with Mikhail a mere step in his wake. Kat's husband, a Russian billionaire, was currently advising the Marabani government on how best to invest the oil revenues that kept the country afloat. Zahir swept his son off the bike a split second before the child fell again.
'He won't stop trying,' Saffy told her handsome husband. 'He won't give up. He's so like you.'
'But he has your eyes and impatience,' Zahir remarked appreciatively as he set his squirming son down again and watched him head straight back to the demon bike that still wouldn't do what he wanted it to do.
Zahir linked his fingers with Saffy and walked her out onto the terrace. Overhead the sun was sinking in a peach and orange blaze of colour and soon they would sit down to dinner by candlelight and talk long into the night. Just for a moment, even though she was very much enjoying having her sister and her husband as guests, she wished she were alone with Zahir.
He looked down at her with smouldering dark golden eyes and butterflies leapt in her tummy and her mouth ran dry. 'We should get dressed for dinner,' he murmured lazily.
A smile tugging at her lush lips, Saffy leant back against his lean powerful body in an attitude of complete trust, knowing they would end up in bed, loving the fact that he found it as hard to keep his hands off her as she did him. She was deliriously happy in her marriage and Karim's arrival had enriched and deepened the ties between her and Zahir. 'I love you,' she whispered.
'I love you too,' Zahir purred, pressing his mouth hungrily to the base of her throat and making her shiver against him.