by Maisey Yates
He looked at her, at the stubborn set of her chin, so familiar, so precious beyond words. And he felt hope break through. Happiness, love, filling him. Things he had thought lost to him forever. “Like how bossy you are.”
She frowned. “Yes.”
“I accept that.” His heart felt like it started beating again after being stopped for too long. Like he was truly alive after being dead for the past five years. “Everything about you. Because I love you, Katharine.”
“Zahir … you … you told me you didn’t love.”
“I didn’t go in crowds, either. There were a lot of things I didn’t do before you. A lot of things I did not believe were possible for me to do. I know why I love you. You brought light into my world, you changed me.” He put his palm flat on his chest, felt his heart thundering beneath it. “Made me move forward. It’s easy to love you. You made me feel at home in this body. I haven’t felt home for five years.”
Katharine let out a watery laugh and wiped at tears sliding down her cheeks. He moved in, eyes locked with hers, touching the wet trails on her cheeks. “What I don’t understand is why you love me,” he said.
“That moment when the paparazzi were at the gate, and you walked out and faced them head-on, I knew what sort of man you were. I knew the strength of your spirit. I’ve seen you do the honorable thing time and time again, even when it cost you. You stood up to my father, and you told him without any doubt that you saw more in me than simple beauty. And before all that I saw your amazing body.” She laughed again and it forced a smile to curve his lips, made some hope pierce his chest. “I don’t want anyone else, or another version of you. Just you. Not the man you were, the man you are now.”
“You helped me become that man. You helped me fight what I could not fight alone.”
“We’ll do that. For each other. For the rest of our lives. Some things will be too big for me to face alone, and I know when that moment comes, you’re the one I want fighting at my side.”
His throat tightened and harsh breath escaped his lungs. “It killed me to send you away. But I thought … I thought it was what I had to do.”
“Oh, Zahir.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and held him. Then she turned her face and pressed a kiss to his scar-roughened cheek. “That’s why I love you,” she whispered. “Because you would have done that to yourself to try to save me.”
She pulled her head back and looked at him. “But don’t ever do anything like that again. You broke my heart.”
Katharine felt the last bit of pain inside her melt away as she looked into Zahir’s face. As she saw every emotion written clearly and honestly on his face.
“I broke my own,” he said. “I didn’t think it was possible. I thought I had no heart to break, but you destroyed every barrier I had placed around my heart. You have made me new. I was lost, in my pain, in my sorrow. You pulled me out. I didn’t know that I’d been living in hell until you showed me what else I could have. Until you showed me that I had let part of myself die. You brought me back.”
Katharine looked at him, at her warrior sheikh, the man who had endured unspeakable loss, the man who had hardened himself to the point of being unreachable, and she saw the glitter of tears in his dark eyes.
It was her breaking point, and she let her own tears fall. “I really do love you,” she said. “All that you are. All that you have become. The good, the bad and everything else.”
“As I love you,” he said.
“Even when I’m bossy?”
He encircled her with his arms and pulled her into his body. “Especially when you’re bossy.” He captured her lips with his, and she poured all of her love into the act, drinking in every bit of it he offered back until she was filled with it.
“Come with me,” he said, twining his fingers through hers and leading her out of the room and down the long corridor that led to his wing of the palace.
“You’re not going to continue living down the hall from me, are you?” she asked.
“No. I do not sleep without you. I cannot.”
“Well, good. I don’t sleep well without you, either.”
He led her into his bedroom and she felt fresh tears when she looked and saw what was sitting on the vast mantel across from his bed. Their wedding sand.
“Even though I had sent you away,” he said, his voice rough, “I could not forget this. I could not stop feeling how true it was. I put it here after I got home, just before I came to see you. I knew that no matter how many years passed, the truth of it would remain. You are in me, a part of me. Always.”
“And you’re a part of me,” she said. “A much loved part.”
“We will tell our children this story.”
She felt her heart swell. “Children? I thought … “
“I never truly feared my children crying at the sight of me. But I was afraid … I was afraid I would not be able to love a child. Because I had lost so many of my emotions. I don’t fear that now.”
“We’ll tell them all about the princess and the magic sand,” she said, smiling through her tears.
“But there was no magic,” he said. “It all came from the princess. From her strength, and her cleverness. And from the love she showed to a Beast.”
She stood up on her toes and pressed a kiss to his lips. “Now that’s a fairy tale.”
He brushed her hair away from her eyes and she looked at the man she loved. At a face that spoke of pain, but that had grown more precious to her than any other sight she could imagine.
“A good thing,” he said. “Because I know for a fact that we’ll live happily ever after.”
* * * * *
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.
All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II BV/S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
® and TM are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.
First published in Great Britain 2012
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited.
Harlequin (UK) Limited, Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road,
Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR
© Maisey Yates 2012
ISBN: 978-1-408-97327-1
Table of Contents
Cover
Excerpt
About the Author
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Copyright
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