Samira wanted to tell him that falling in love wasn’t something you tried to do. It just happened. But that would bring no comfort. Not to him or to her.
They were in the same place now, weren’t they? One loved and one didn’t. She compressed her lips, holding back the flood of useless words that hovered on her tongue, choking back distress.
Finally she spoke. ‘No one can switch love on just because they want to. You did your best. Everyone says you were devoted to her.’
‘I tried. But it wasn’t anything like what she felt for me.’ His eyes snared hers and Samira’s heart gave a mighty thump. ‘I realised that when I met you again in Paris.’
‘When you met me?’ Confusion filled her. She knew she shouldn’t prolong the agony of this conversation but she couldn’t wrench herself away.
He loosened his grip on her hands and looked down, watching his long fingers stroke hers, tracing the exquisite solitaire ruby ring that had been his betrothal gift. What was he thinking?
‘When I saw you again I felt things I hadn’t felt in years. Emotions I’d pushed aside. New feelings too, things that were unfamiliar.’
Samira stared.
He sat up, his gaze mesmerising. ‘I’d wanted you years ago, when you were on the verge of womanhood. I wanted you even more when I saw you in Paris. So desperately I couldn’t bear the thought of you walking out and proposing to some other man who’d agree to marry you in an instant.’
‘You didn’t show it.’ If anything he’d been cold— disapproving and haughty.
‘Didn’t I? I hardly knew what I was doing.’
Samira tugged her hands free and surged to her feet, stepping away from him. ‘So, you wanted me.’ She swallowed hard. Nothing had changed. Tariq was a virile man and he wasn’t used to being denied. ‘But why did you have to marry me?’
She choked back a sob of despair. If they hadn’t married she wouldn’t have fallen in love with him. She wouldn’t feel this awful desolation.
Large hands settled on her upper arms. His warmth branded her and she shut her eyes, telling herself she’d pull away in a moment.
‘Because I felt more for you, Samira, than I ever have in my life. Because I felt things I couldn’t put a name to. Things that made me feel...different.’
His breath feathered her hair, his chest pressing against her shoulders. ‘I needed you in my world as I’ve never needed anyone. I couldn’t imagine life without you in it. I didn’t just want you in my bed or at my side at banquets and receptions. You were a part of me and I couldn’t bear to release you again.’
‘Tariq?’
She made to turn but he stopped her, his body close as a shadow, warming her back. His words, his presence, were almost too much to cope with, but nothing in this world would tear her away.
‘I wanted you in every way a man can conceivably want a woman, Samira. I’ll always want you like that.’ His words were pure magic, hypnotising her and evoking tentative joy. ‘I love you. I just didn’t recognise what it was.’
‘You love me?’ Her heart seized, then catapulted into life again.
He pressed his lips to her hair in the gentlest caress and her eyelids fluttered as emotion filled her. She had to be dreaming. Yet with his words in her ears, his touch on her body, it felt so real.
‘I think I came close to loving you all those years ago, though I couldn’t put a name to it then. Certainly I planned to marry you, until I heard you were going to study overseas.’
‘And that stopped you?’ Still she couldn’t believe it.
‘I felt guilty lusting after a teenager. What right had I to come between you and your dreams? Besides, I needed a wife in Al Sarath, not in Paris or New York.’
‘I don’t... I can’t believe it.’ It was too far-fetched. ‘You said you couldn’t love.’
‘All my life I thought so.’ His mouth moved against her scalp. ‘I didn’t realise, you see. I spent so long telling myself that because I couldn’t give Jasmin what she wanted. Yet the moment you walked back into my life there was no escaping. It was a coup de foudre—a flash of lightning hitting me out of the blue.’
‘You never said anything.’ Samira struggled to be sensible, not let herself be swept away by the wave of elation rising inside.
Tariq loved her?
‘I didn’t know what it was.’ His lips caressed the side of her neck and she shivered, her resistance cracking. ‘I just knew I needed you. When I thought you might love me I was terrified, fearing I’d let you down too. Until you withdrew and it hit me what I’d lost.’