‘Too bad.’
Why not?Georgie was never again going to allowhopeto determine her behaviour and she firmly squashed all rising tendrils now.
Why was he here? Yes, of course, it washisbedroom. It washispalace and he could come and go wherever he pleased, but she had asked him to go away and she had meant it and so why was he back? It wasn’t as though he were the sort of heartless creep to override what she wanted. He might not love her, but he was anythingbuta heartless creep.
‘You tell me that you want more than...a business arrangement for Tilly’s sake. More than just sex. I find that you are not alone in this.’
‘What are you trying to say? You’re talking in riddles, Abe, and I don’t understand.’
‘I never stopped to do the maths.’ He lowered his head before looking at her once again. ‘When I first met you, I never thought it would ever be anything more than a fling. It was how I was programmed to think. I had duties over here and that was all there was to it. We were ships passing in the night. Not telling you who I was seemed like a good idea at the time. Why would I? We’ve been here before, I know, and we have talked about this, but I met you, Georgie, and I’d never felt more liberated. I outstayed my welcome in Ibiza.’ He smiled wistfully. ‘Got back here to face the nightmare of my father in hospital and dire warnings to brace myself for the worst. I left thinking I had done the right thing in not saying goodbye, in sparing the inevitable conversation in which I would let you down. Perhaps I even thought that if you were incredibly angry with me and hated me for it, you would recover more quickly.’
‘You’re right,’ she said shortly. ‘We’ve talked about this and I don’t want to go over old ground again.’
‘Nor do I but I find I must. After you, Georgie, there was precious little on the relationship front...’ He sighed and looked at her with such uncharacteristic hesitancy that she had to fight against some treacherous softening.
‘Do you honestly think that I’m interested in hearing about what you got up to after we broke up?’ she demanded jerkily. ‘I’m not!’
‘Hear me out, my darling. Please. I’m trying to find words I’ve never had to find in my life before. I should have been gearing up to marry. My father’s early retirement, my taking over the duties of running the country...both those things should have propelled me into the next phase of my life, which was to marry and have children, but I couldn’t seem to find the impetus. I know it was a constant source of worry to my father. The necessity of finding a suitable wife was an imperative and, in his depressed frame of mind, he had visions of dying without seeing me wed.’ Abe paused. ‘No one appealed to me and yet I never joined the dots, never saw the shadow you had cast. Georgie, what I didn’t see was that you had managed to set a benchmark that no one else could ever come close to meeting.’
Georgie flushed. Was he lying? Was this some ploy to get her back onside? Surely he couldn’t be so cruel?
‘Then why didn’t you get in touch?’ she asked. ‘If I set such a high benchmark? Why, Abe?’
‘Looking back,’ Abe said roughly, ‘don’t you think I don’t realise that that was one of the biggest mistakes of my life? And not because of Tilly, not because I inadvertently missed out on so much, but because of you. Because I fell in love with you over the course of those three weeks and I never recovered. Maybe if I had had some calm in the beginning, I might have sat down and drawn all those conclusions I should have drawn from the start, but I got back to Qaram and then life became turbocharged. I barely had time to sleep, far less think. Or maybe I didn’t want to think, didn’t want to question everything I had made sure to build into my psyche from a young age.’
Georgie found that she was holding her breath. Her brain was also foggy and the tendrils of hope she had been forcefully shoving down now proliferated at speed.
Had he just said that he had fallen in love with her? Or was her fevered imagination playing tricks?
‘It terrifies me, Georgie, to think that I might have continued to sleepwalk into believing that I could be happy without you by my side. I never saw love as part of the business of being married, I never wanted the chaos of being at the mercy of my emotions, but here I am, in love with you and happy to let my emotions chart the direction of my life. I don’t want us to be married for convenience. I want us to be married for all those reasons I know you’ve always believed in. I can only hope that you still believe in them.’
‘Oh, Abe.’ She smiled and half laughed and pulled him towards her and didn’t try to stop her tears. ‘With every bit of me, I love you, and I will love you for ever.’
Ibiza. The sun. The azure sea. The turquoise skies above but, this time, no cheap hotel on a packed beach, even though she and Abe had gone right back to the place where they had first met, that buzzing little hotel with its crowded restaurant, the very hotel that had changed her life for ever. After all, this honeymoon was all about paying their nostalgic respects to the place where they had fallen in love, even though it had taken them four years of love lost and then found once again.
Now, she looked out to the infinity pool, where Abe was having fun with Tilly. The orange ball of the setting sun bathed them in a dusky glow. In a minute, they would head inside. The villa behind her was the very height of luxury, befitting royalty. Fatima, here with them, would take over settling Tilly and she and Abe...
She smiled to herself and gazed at the ring on her finger and thought that life could not get any more perfect.
Well...maybe it just aboutcould...
On cue, Abe emerged from the pool, Tilly in his arms, sexier and more sinfully striking than any male had a right to be.
‘What are you thinking?’ he murmured, dipping to briefly kiss her on the mouth.
‘I’m thinking we should open some champagne tonight,’ Georgie returned as he swapped Tilly over to her before draping her in one of the fluffy white towels.
‘I agree.’ He slung his arm around her as they made their way inside. ‘We need to celebrate the fact that we are here, together and married, because frankly life could not get any better.’
Georgie smiled. She thought back to their wedding a mere six weeks ago. It had been a huge affair, with journalists relishing the exquisite opulence, from the renowned orchestra that provided background music to the sit-down meal, to the ten-metre-long flower tunnel, the blush-pink and ivory flowers imported from Holland. She would remember every second of it and was especially pleased that all her friends from the hotel where she had worked in London had been flown out for the event.
It had been spectacular, as was this honeymoon, which had been delayed to accommodate Tilly’s schooling.
Staff were on hand to make sure every need was met but Georgie had earlier given them the evening off. They had their own extensive residence in the grounds at the back but tonight was going to be a night without the lavishly prepared meal.
An hour later, having quickly showered and read a story to Tilly before Fatima took over, Georgie was in the kitchen.
‘You’re cooking.’ Abe smiled, moved towards her and enfolded her in his arms, hands reaching down to cup her buttocks. ‘I like that. I like it when you cook. Have I told you that?’
