‘You fill my heart to overflowing,’ Rafiq breathed, stroking his fingers down the side of her heart-shaped face, making her shiver. ‘You are everything I never dared to dream of in a woman and a wife. You make me amazingly happy and for the first time I am at peace with the future, content to become King when it is the right time, in no hurry to rush ahead and miss or waste a single moment of being with you and my children.’
Izzy gave him an intoxicated smile and watched the sunlight sparkle a rainbow on her ring. ‘You’re really very romantic.’
‘No, I’m not,’ he protested instantly, a tinge of colour scoring his high cheekbones. ‘Not at all.’
‘Nobody but me needs to know what you’re like behind closed doors,’ she pointed out softly.
Rafiq brought his mouth down hungrily on hers. ‘I’m starving for you!’ he groaned, instantly breaking away from her again. ‘But we should wait until the doctor has advised us that—’
‘Well, we still have a few weeks to wait,’ Izzy informed him ruefully, shimmying out of her fancy frock with a tantalising smile to expose curves embellished by silk and lace lingerie. ‘But that doesn’t mean that we can’t do other things,’ she pointed out shamelessly.
Rafiq hovered for a split second as if he couldn’t quite believe that he was allowed to touch her again and then he stalked forward and lifted her into his arms to kiss her with fierce urgency. ‘All those nights we couldn’t.’
‘All those nights,’ she agreed on the back of a sigh of recollection. ‘But you held me close anyway and I really loved that about you. I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d shifted me back to my own room.’
‘I like being close to you even if I can’t make love to you,’ he breathed raggedly as he shrugged free of his jacket and tore off his tie with flattering enthusiasm. ‘And by the way, you don’t have your own room any longer.’
Her brow furrowed. ‘How don’t I?’
‘Why would you need your own room? We’ll turn it into a dressing room for you. From now on, you will always share my bed. I’ve got used to having company,’ he confided teasingly.
‘I suppose I’ll always have the sofa to escape to when you annoy me,’ Izzy told him playfully.
‘And I’ll snatch you off it again,’ he promised, amusement dancing in his eyes, a new relaxation in his lean, darkly handsome features as he feasted his beautiful eyes on her smiling face. ‘I love you, Izzy. I love you like I never thought I could love anyone…’
Silence crept in, broken only by occasional murmurs as discarded garments fell to the floor and they rediscovered each other and the passion that had first brought them together in a blaze of glory that consumed them until the real world crept back in. Izzy realised that it was feeding time for the twins and she needed to put some clothes on again. The buoyant happiness that had flooded her peaked as Rafiq threw on jeans and watched her with loving admiration brightening his keen gaze.
‘You and our daughters have become the very centre of my world,’ he murmured with satisfaction.
EPILOGUE
TWO YEARS LATER, Izzy hurriedly clasped her son Nazir to her bosom and tugged her playful daughters into the lift with her, one after another.
Leila chattered in voluble toddler-speak and Lucia listened, her little fingers twisting at her copper curls and her thumb creeping into her mouth until her mother pulled it out again. Nazir, replete after a feed, snored gently below his mother’s chin.
‘Auntie Maya,’ Leila framed. ‘Like Auntie Maya.’
‘I should hope so.’ Izzy was almost bouncing with excitement at the prospect of seeing her twin and the rest of her family.
It was their twenty-fourth birthday and Maya and Izzy were having a joint celebration at the Alihreza palace. Helicopters had been flying in all afternoon, ferrying loads of VIPs to the party being staged.
Having ascended the throne and become King, Rafiq had become less sensitive about his father’s troubled legacy and the sleazy goings-on he had once associated with the desert building. After all, he and Izzy, their girls and their newborn son, Nazir, were now very much a family and Alihreza was the perfect place to unwind after a busy week of activity at the royal palace. It also provided an even more perfect backdrop for a large party because it offered plenty of luxurious accommodation for family members, who were staying on for a holiday.
Nazir had not been a planned baby. Traumatised by the twins’ emergency birth, Rafiq had announced that two children were quite sufficient for them and that there was no way he would allow Izzy to risk herself again with a second pregnancy. Even though Izzy had wheeled in medical support to underline the truth that she had simply been unlucky and that twin pregnancies were more likely to encounter complications, Rafiq had taken an immoveable stance. That had been a shock to Izzy’s system as usually Rafiq was willing to move heaven and earth just to give her whatever she wanted.
In fact, they had had heated discussions for weeks over whether or not they should have another child and then fate, that Rafiq was generally so fond of, had intervened and Izzy had discovered that she was expecting again. Of course, she wasn’t taking contraceptive pills any longer because the several brands she had tried after the twins’ birth hadn’t agreed with her and Rafiq had taken charge of the contraception. She had been three months pregnant by the time she finally appreciated that once again she had conceived. She had been overjoyed by the surprise but Rafiq’s reaction had been more shock and concern for her well-being.
Mercifully none of his fears had come to fruition during her second pregnancy. She had suffered minimal nausea and the delivery had
