The Sheikh’s Secret Son(38)

“Do you remember this from the first time?” he asked her.

“I do, but I like it this time so much better,” she answered him. “Do you know why?”

Zaid grinned in the dark. “No. Why?”

She nestled herself up against him. “Because now it doesn’t have to end,” she told him and rested her head on his chest.

She was right. It didn’t have to stop this time. Nothing was going to pull them away from each other this time. There were no other responsibilities that would come between them ever again. There were no strange career attachments that would pull them apart.

They were together now, and it was legitimate this time. They weren’t sneaking off in between meetings for quick trysts in public places. They weren’t sneaking into each other’s rooms at night when no one else was looking. None of that had to happen anymore.

And there would be no more mornings that would find one of them waking up alone because the other had to flee what they’d done the night before.

“It doesn’t have to stop ever,” Zaid repeated. “I have you now, and I will always have you.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted for us, the opportunity to be together for real instead of finding ways to live out snippets of a fantasy that could have gotten both of us in trouble.”

Zaid laughed. “That’s ironic, don’t you think? When this started, it was a major conflict of interest. Neither one of our jobs would have worked out if people found out at the wrong time that we had been sleeping together.”

“But now that we’re married,” she added, “none of that even matters anymore. It’s like we retroactively legitimized everything we ever did together.”

“Exactly,” he agreed, holding her tight.

After a few minutes of silence under the vast starry sky, he asked her, “Are you ready?”

“I’ve been ready since the first time I saw you,” she answered.

“I have been, too,” he agreed. “I have been, too.”

She looked up at him, and the starlight sparkled in her eyes. “Then, that settles it,” she said.

She put a hand around the back of his neck and pulled him down to kiss her. Their lips touched as softly as they had that night on the balcony so many years ago, when they had known that no matter what they promised each other, that last kiss was the last kiss.

Though they’d kissed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of times since, tonight’s kiss felt more like the first kiss, the kiss before all of the others, the sweetest one.

Once again, under the dark, starry sky with the moon shining down on the water in the bay behind the palace, they stared deep into each other’s eyes, neither one wanting to look away first, neither one wanting to let go.

“This couldn’t have all been just a dream,” he said to her.

“No, it wasn’t,” she echoed.

“The only way to find out is if one of us lets go, and it doesn’t end,” he suggested.

“Then, let go,” she challenged.

Zaid smiled. “Rebecca, I am never going to let go of you again.”

“That works for me.”

And they kissed again, their lips pressing together in a long, loving embrace. They didn’t let go, but not because they were afraid it was a dream. They didn’t let go because they wanted the night to last forever this time.