face into a pillow. Why did she care so much about what he thought of her? Why did it hurt so much that she felt she couldn’t stand it? And why more than anything in the world did she now want him to come in and put his arms round her to comfort her the way he had once done without even thinking about it? She had married him to give their baby a better start in life. That was the only reason and she didn’t know why she was getting so worked up, sobs shuddering through her body like a storm unleashed on her without warning.
I am not in love with him. I am so not in love with him, she told herself urgently. That is not why I’m suddenly looking for more from him than he ever promised to deliver. And in that guarded state of mind she finally fell asleep.
The stewardess wakened her with breakfast and the announcement that the plane would be landing in an hour. Noting that she had slept alone in the bed, Saffy lifted her chin, knowing he had spent the night in one of the reclining seats. Why was she wondering whether he had been unfaithful to her when they had last been married? What did it matter? How was that relevant? The last thing she needed was to get bound up in the problems of a long-dead past. They weren’t the same people any more. Showered and elegantly attired in a print dress and a fine cashmere cardigan, she emerged from the sleeping compartment, feeling as brittle as bone china.
Zahir, sheathed in the beige and white pristine desert robes that accentuated his height and undeniably exotic attributes, gave her a smile that was a masterpiece of civility while wishing her good morning. She almost laughed but, once again, their shared past rattled like a skeleton locked in a cupboard: Zahir was superb at plastering over the cracks and pretending nothing had happened and that last night’s divisive dispute had not occurred. Time and time again he had done that to her when they were first married when she tried to have serious talks with him and he shrugged them off, changed the subject, refused to be drawn. Stop it, stop it, she urged her disobedient brain, determined not to bring those memories of his evasiveness into the present when so much else had altered.
‘We had a row,’ she reminded him out of pure spite and resentment of his poise.
‘I should never tackle a serious conversation after midnight when we’re both tired.’ His eyes glittered with unexpected raw amusement and the sheer primal attraction of him in that instant sent a flock of butterflies dancing in her tummy and clenched her muscles tight somewhere a great deal more intimate. Pink flushed her cheeks as he sipped at his coffee, the very image of cool control and sophistication. ‘Coffee?’
Saffy served herself from the coffee pot on the table and sat down. ‘What you said—’
Zahir shifted a fluid brown hand in a silencing motion. ‘No, leave it. It was the wrong time and we have all the time in the world now.’
Saffy tried to steel herself to resist the command note in that assurance and then wondered if perhaps he was right. In any case, did she want confessions if what she suspected was true? Did she really want to stir up the past and perhaps damage the future relationship they might have before this marriage even got off the ground? Such patience, such careful concern felt unfamiliar to her in Zahir’s presence, for once she had said whatever she liked to him with absolutely no lock on her tongue. And she wanted that freedom back, she recognised dimly, wanted it back almost more than she wanted anything.
‘It’s not like you to be so quiet.’
‘The Queenie bit pulverised me,’ she muttered tightly.
‘You’re more than up to the challenge,’ Zahir asserted smoothly. ‘You’re accustomed to being in the public eye and right now you look…wonderful.’
‘Do I?’ Saffy hated the sound of that question, her gaze welded to his in search of falsehood, fake flattery, the smallest hint of insincerity.
‘You always did and still do. And sadly, although it shouldn’t matter, such beauty does impress people,’ Zahir murmured ruefully. ‘I’ve never understood why you’re not vain.’
‘Other people work and train to do much more important and necessary things than I do but I got where I am because of my face and figure, not my brain or my skills,’ Saffy pointed out flatly. ‘It’s not something to boast about.’
‘But you’re so much more—you always were,’ Zahir declared, reaching for her fingers where they curled in discomfiture on the table top and enclosing them in his warm hand. ‘And in Maraban, you will be able to show how much more you are capable of.’
‘What does that mean?’ Saffy prompted, touched by that hand round hers, energised by the conviction with which he spoke.
‘That the woman who gives most of her earnings to an orphanage in Africa will have free rein to raise funds for good works in my country. Yes, I found out about that fact, quite accidentally through your crooked solicitor,’ Zahir admitted. ‘It made me feel very proud of you.’
Saffy tensed and reddened, wary of praise on the score of one of her biggest secrets. ‘The children had so little and I wanted to help them. It made my career seem less superficial when I could feel that I had a worthwhile cause to work for.’
A wary sense of peace had settled over her by the time the plane landed at Maraban’s splendid new airport. But when she stepped out of the plane to the music being played by a military band, and a smiling older man stepped up to bow and address Zahir while a little girl in a fancy dress stepped nervously forward to present a bouquet of flowers to Saffy, she realised that he had been right to warn her that her life would radically change. Zahir introduced her and the man bowed very low. He was the prime minister of Maraban. A discovery that startled Saffy and embarrassed her, for she knew she should have spent more time boning up on the changes in the country that was to be her new home. She had assumed Zahir was a feudal king like his late father, but evidently Maraban now had an elected government as well.
The little girl was the prime minister’s daughter and spoke English and Saffy, always at her best with children, bent down to chat to her, suddenly wondering whether the child she carried would be a boy or a girl. A little boy with Zahir’s amazing eyes and love of the outdoors and action. Or a little girl, who liked to experiment with hair and make-up and clothes. Or a mix of both of them, which would be much more likely, Saffy acknowledged abstractedly.
A limousine carried them through the city streets, lined on either side by excited crowds, peering at the car. ‘Do I have to wave or anything?’ she asked uneasily.
‘No, only smile to look as happy as a bride is popularly supposed to be,’ Zahir murmured with a wry note in his dark deep voice, and she suspected that he was recalling the night they had just spent apart.
‘Your people seem to be celebrating the fact that you’ve got married,’ Saffy remarked.
‘People are reassured by the concept of family and continuity, as long as it doesn’t include a man like my late father,’ Zahir imparted drily, and then turned to look at her. ‘Why do you never mention yours? I noticed he was not at the wedding and didn’t like to ask because you never ever mentioned him five years ago. Is he dead?’
‘No. Alive with a second wife and family. His divorce from my mother was very bitter,’ Saffy confided. ‘And he hasn’t had anything to do with me since I was twelve years old when I did something…’ her voice slowed and thickened with distress ‘…something he couldn’t forgive.’
His black brows drew together and he regarded her keenly. ‘What could you have done that would excuse such an outright rejection from a father of his own child? I can’t believe you did anything worthy of such a punishment.’
Saffy was very pale and she compressed her lips. ‘Then you’d be wrong.’
‘Tell me…you can’t give me only half of the story.’.
It was her second most shameful secret, Saffy reflected wretchedly, but one that there was no reason for her to keep from him as he was part of her family now and everyone else knew the facts. ‘As you know, life was pretty rough where I grew up and my sisters and I were often left without supervision, so of course we